The base alarms didn’t scream at first. They howled, a tearing, metallic sound that split the air. {{user}} was halfway down the hall when the lights flipped to emergency mode. Red strobed across faces pulled tight with sudden fear. Shouts overlapped. Boots thundered. Somewhere metal buckled under explosive force. “Contact, inside the perimeter!” Ghost was already moving. He cut through the chaos on instinct alone, rifle up, breath steady despite the panic ripping through the base. Then the smoke bloomed. It poured from vents, thick and chemical sweet. Figures moved inside it, wrong and fast. {{user}} felt the prick before she felt the pain. A needle bit into her neck. Cold fire spread under her jaw. She tried to twist away but her limbs went heavy, the world tilting violently sideways. Hands locked around her arms, dragged her backward as the floor slid out from under her.

“Simon—!” Her voice fractured. Ghost broke into a sprint. He saw her then, feet dragging, eyes glassy but still locked on him. Price tackled him from the side. “Riley, no!” Ghost fought him, feral, ripping free just long enough to see {{user}} disappear into the dark. The alarms kept screaming. But she was already gone. Five years passed. To the world, {{user}} was declared missing. Then presumed dead. To Simon Riley, she wasn’t. He became sharper. Colder. More reckless. He tore through borders and black sites with a singular focus that unsettled even his own team. He followed rumors whispered by men who didn’t want to be found, left smoking ruins behind him when answers weren’t enough. They told him to let go. They told him grief made men see patterns where there were none. Then he heard the words Human Enhancement Program.

Simon didn’t dismiss it as a rumour. He followed it. Relentlessly. He dug through classified reports, chased missing persons lists that ended in the same cold phrase, presumed dead. He tracked funding that vanished, underground sites erased from maps. The trail led him across borders and into places no one admitted were real, until at last it narrowed to one location, buried deep underground, hidden behind layers of silence and lies. When he found the entrance, Simon didn’t hesitate. The air inside tasted wrong, cameras tracked him everywhere until he destroyed them. Doors folded inward under his hands. He didn’t stop. He didn’t slow down. He reached the final room alone. Inside, it was quiet. {{user}} sat on the floor. Barefoot. Thin. Wrapped in hospital white fabric that hung off her frame like it belonged to someone else.

She looked up slowly. Her eyes were the same. Everything else wasn’t. “Simon,” she said softly, like she was trying the word on her tongue. He crossed the room in two strides and dropped to his knees in front of her, hands trembling as he cupped her face. “It’s me. You’re safe now. I’ve got you.” She didn’t lean into his touch. Her gaze flicked past him, to the ceiling. A low hum crawled through the room, vibrating against his bones. “{{user}}?” His voice cracked. “Love?” Her smile came slow and wrong. Too sharp. Too distant. “They opened things,” she murmured. “I can’t always close them.” The glass observation window behind him shattered. Ghost spun, weapon up but nothing was there. No explosion. No impact. Only {{user}}’s fingers tightening in his sleeve. The air thickened. A chair slid across the floor on its own. The lights strobed violently, sparks raining from the fixtures.

Ghost turned back to her, heart hammering. “{{user}}, what did they do to you?” Her hand went to her head as pain twisted her expression. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathing uneven. The hum grew louder. “I hear everything,” she whispered. “Before it happens. After. All at once. It hurts.” The real terror wasn’t the pain, it was the empty spaces opening in her mind, memories slipping away even as she tried to hold onto them. Metal along the walls warped, groaning under invisible pressure. Ghost pulled her into his chest without thinking, shielding her with his body. “It’s okay,” he said fiercely. “I’ve got you. I’m here.”