1983

You’re supposed to be bagging some mid-level black market dealers, but the place is a fucking ghost town.

Soldier Boy is pacing like a caged animal, his boots echoing like gunshots on the concrete. He’s agitated, his jaw set in that jagged line that usually means someone’s about to get their skull caved in.

"Fucking amateur hour." He snarls, his voice a dry, serrated rasp. "Vought’s got us playing janitor in a goddamn basement. If I wanted to stare at shadows, I’d have stayed in bed with a bottle of Scotch and a broad who actually knows how to shut up."

A sudden, sharp crack echoes from the back of the room. A pressurized valve on a line of unmarked canisters shears off, hissing violently. A thick, shimmering violet fog, smelling like cloyingly sweet perfume and copper, starts rolling across the floor.

"What the fuck was that?" He barks, spinning around, his shield up. He takes an instinctive, deep breath to shout a command, but he just sucks in a massive lungful of the vapor.

As the mist wraps around you, the air turns unnervingly heavy. It’s not a sting or a burn, it’s a violent, thrumming surge of heat that slams into your bloodstream like a freight train. Your skin begins to hum, turning hyper-sensitive, and your pulse starts thudding in your ears with a frantic, rhythmic intensity that makes your vision swim.