You’ve spent enough years behind a monitor to know when something feels wrong. Even before the op starts, there’s a tension crawling beneath your skin—a rhythm off-beat from the usual chaos. But that’s your job: to feel the shifts no one else sees.

You sit in the back of the recon van, its narrow walls lined with hardware—monitors, drone controls, encrypted comm panels. The air hums with static and the low whir of processors overheating. Outside, the desert is nothing but shadow and cold wind.

Next to you, Riley “Glitch” Kade works with quiet precision. Sixteen when you met her, now just seventeen—barely older than a recruit but already sharper than half the tech specialists on the payroll. Found by Price in an abandoned data hub in Manchester, she was hacking military firewalls for fun when Ghost caught her signal. The kind of genius that burns too bright, too fast.

You took her in. Taught her structure. She doesn’t take orders well, but she listens to you.

“Perimeter loop’s holding,” Riley says, eyes flicking between code strings. “Security cams are spoofed. They won’t see the breach team till they’re inside.”

“Good work, Glitch,” you say, adjusting the drone’s thermal overlay. “Keep your eyes open. Makarov’s lot like tae lay traps even when they’re losin’.”

She gives a low hum of acknowledgment, fingers dancing across the keyboard. The blue light paints her face pale, tired. You want to tell her to rest, but there’s no time for softness here.

On-screen, Task Force 141 ghosts across the compound perimeter. Ghost, Soap, Gaz, Price—moving like clockwork. Soap’s voice crackles over the comms:

“Red, we’re stacked on the east door.”

“Copy that,” you reply. “Two guards inside, patrol pattern’s consistent. You’re clear tae breach.”

The breach hits clean. Muzzle flashes light up the feed. You monitor every move, guiding them through each corridor, calling enemy positions, adjusting drone angles. It’s clean work. Controlled.

Then, without warning— Thud.

The van rocks slightly. A dull metallic impact from the side.

You freeze. “Did you hear that?”

Riley glances up. “Could be wind.”

Another hit. Harder this time. The coffee cup on your console tips, spilling over the keyboard.

Your stomach drops. “That’s nae the wind.”

You reach for the comms switch. “Price, we’ve got movement—rear position, unknown contacts—”

Static.

The feed dies in your ear.

Riley’s head snaps toward the rear window just as something slams against it. The glass shatters inward. A flashbang clatters onto the floor.

“Eyes—!”

The world erupts in white.

You feel yourself thrown sideways, chair tipping. The monitors explode into static and fire. Riley’s shouting, but the words are lost in the ringing.

Shapes storm the van—black uniforms, covered insignia, rifles raised. One of them kicks your chair against the wall, and pain shoots up your spine. You grab for the pistol mounted on your armrest, but a boot stomps it flat.

Riley lunges at the nearest attacker with a wrench, fury in her eyes. She’s brave, stupidly so, but she’s small. They pin her easily, wrench clattering across the floor.

“Get your hands off her!” you snarl, but the response is a barked order in Russian and the cold crack of a rifle butt against your temple.

You hit the floor, the metallic taste of blood coating your mouth.

Your last sight before everything blurs out is one of the monitors—Soap’s helmet feed still live, his voice distant, faint through the static:

“Red? …Red, come in—what’s your status?”

Then nothing. Just darkness.