"Lyra's output dropped another twelve percent an hour ago." The voice crackled through the comms bead, tinny and sharp against the hum of the briefing room. "If she fluctuates during the breach, the whole vanguard collapses."
I capped my pen. The ink was dry. The logbook closed. My right hand sat flat on the metal table, palm down, fingers spread. Cold. Always cold now.
"Then don't send her," someone said. A Silver Peak tech, leaning back in a chair that cost more than my first apartment. "Swap the amplifier. Pull a reserve."
"No reserves," the voice snapped. "Dark Flame's junior roster is stretched thin. We run with Lyra or we scrub the B-rank. And Command wants this rift cleared by sunset."
I stood up. The chair scraped against the floor, a harsh shriek that made the tech flinch. Good. Noise masked movement. Noise masked intent.
"I'll take the backup slot," I said. My voice didn't rise. It didn't need to. "E-rank healer. Rotation seven. I'm cleared for secondary support."
The tech looked me up and down. His eyes lingered on the patch on my shoulder. Iron Edge. Probationary. He saw the rank insignia and did the math. E-rank. Bottom of the barrel. Useful for mopping up blood, not for holding a line when an amplifier failed.
"You?" He snorted. "You'll burn out before we hit the threshold. Lyra's channeling high-voltage flux. You can't stabilize that."
"I can stabilize a hemorrhage," I said. "I can stabilize a fracture. If Lyra crashes, someone needs to keep the team alive long enough to retreat. That's the job description."
He opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at the datapad in his hand. The numbers were blinking red. Time was a resource we were running out of.
"Fine," he muttered. "Sign the waiver. Don't die on my watch."
I signed. The stylus felt heavy. The signature was a scrawl, practiced, meaningless. *Vera Blackwell*. A name that belonged to a ghost. A name that belonged to a woman who didn't exist three years ago.
I pocketed the stylus. Turned away.
The briefing room was a cage of glass and steel, suspended over the lower hangar. Through the floor, I could see the rift gates spinning up, their rings glowing a sickly violet. B-rank. Dangerous. Unpredictable. Perfect for a mistake. Perfect for an accident.
I walked to the edge of the gallery. Below, teams were gearing up. Armor plating clicked into place. Weapons were checked, re-checked, checked again. The ritual of survival. Most of them believed in the ritual. They thought if they followed the steps, the universe would let them live.
They were wrong. The universe didn't care about steps. It cared about energy. And energy had to go somewhere.
"Hey."
I stopped. Didn't turn around immediately. Counted to two. Then pivoted.
A girl stood there. D-rank insignia. Dark Flame colors, but the uniform was ill-fitting, sleeves too long, boots scuffed. She couldn't have been more than nineteen. Her hair was pulled back in a severe knot, exposing a neck that looked too thin to support the weight of a helmet.
"Suki Fang," she said. Her voice trembled. Just a fraction. Enough. "You're the backup?"
"Yes."
She stepped closer. Invaded my space. Desperation made people bold. Or stupid. Usually both.
"You can't fix her," Suki said. "Lyra. I've seen the logs. It's not a fluctuation. It's decay. Something's eating her imprint from the inside."
I looked at her. Really looked at her. Her pupils were dilated. Sweat beaded on her upper lip despite the room's climate control. She was running on adrenaline and fear.
"That's a medical diagnosis," I said. "I'm a healer. I fix bones. I close wounds. I don't diagnose imprint pathology."
"Don't give me that crap," she hissed. She grabbed my arm. Her grip was weak. Shaking. "I heard you talking to the tech. You volunteered. Why? Nobody volunteers for a suicide run with a failing amplifier unless they know something."
I looked at her hand on my sleeve. Then at her face.
"Let go," I said. Quiet.
She didn't. Her fingers tightened. "My whole combat profile is built around Lyra's buffer. She boosts my kinetic discharge. Without her, I'm F-rank. Maybe lower. If she goes down in there, I die. We all die."
"Then you should have trained for solo ops," I said.
"It's too late for that!" Her voice cracked. Heads turned. A Silver Peak officer nearby paused, frowning. I ignored him. "You think I don't know that? You think I haven't been begging for a transfer? They won't move me. They say Lyra will hold. But she won't. I can feel it. The air around her... it feels wrong. Heavy. Like static before a storm."
I pulled my arm free. The fabric rustled.
"Feelings don't stop rift beasts," I said. "Training does. Gear does. If Lyra fails, your job is to survive. Not to fix her. Not to save the mission. Survive."
"That's easy for you to say," Suki spat. "You're E-rank. You're expendable. If we crash, they'll write you off as collateral. But I... I have a record. I have a team."
"Everyone has a team," I said. "Until they don't."
I turned my back on her. Walked away.
My heart didn't race. My breath didn't hitch. I cataloged the interaction. *Subject: Suki Fang. Status: High anxiety. Dependency: Critical. Threat level: Negligible.*
*Classification: Acceptable operational noise.*
The words formed in my head automatically. Clean. Neat. Efficient.
I stopped walking.
*Too neat.*
I hadn't thought about the classification until the sentence was already finished. It had slipped out faster than usual. Like a reflex. Like a program running in the background while I focused on the foreground.
I pressed my right hand against my thigh. The cold seeped through the fabric of my trousers. Grounding. Real.
*Acceptable operational noise.*
Suki wasn't noise. She was a person. A girl who was going to walk into a rift with a broken amplifier and probably die because the system valued efficiency over safety. Because Dark Flame needed the rift cleared. Because Lyra Wren was rotting, and no one wanted to admit it until it was too late.
Just like Ana.
The thought hit me like a physical blow. I didn't flinch. Didn't stop. Just kept walking, one foot in front of the other, down the corridor toward the prep bay.
*Ana wasn't noise either,* I told myself. *Ana was a variable I failed to calculate.*
The difference mattered. One was grief. The other was data. I had to keep them separate. If I let the grief bleed into the data, the plan fell apart. If I let the data freeze the grief, I became a machine. And machines broke.
I reached the prep bay. The air smelled of ozone and antiseptic. Healers were prepping kits, checking vials of coagulant, testing stim-packs. The usual pre-mission chaos.
"Blackwell."
Lucian Voss stood by the weapons rack. He wasn't wearing armor yet. Just a black undershirt and tactical pants. He was cleaning a knife. Not sharpening it. Just wiping the blade with a cloth. Slow. Methodical.
He didn't look up when I approached.
"You volunteered," he said.
"Yes."
"For a Dark Flame squad."
"They requested backup. I'm on rotation."
He stopped wiping the blade. Held it up to the light. Inspected the edge. Then he looked at me. His eyes were dark. unreadable.
"Lyra Wren is unstable," he said. "Her last three scans show erratic energy signatures. It's not just fatigue. It's structural degradation."
"I heard," I said.
"And you still volunteered."
"Someone has to cover the retreat if she crashes."
"Or someone wants to be there when she does."
The knife stopped moving. Lucian's hand went still.
"Are you accusing me of something, Voss?" I asked. My voice was flat.
"No," he said. "I'm asking why you chose those people specifically."
I met his gaze. Didn't blink.
"Because they asked," I said. "Because I'm available. Because that's how the rotation works."
"It's not how the rotation works for E-ranks on B-rank ops," he countered. "You bypassed three D-ranks to get this slot. I saw the log."
"Maybe they didn't want the job."
"Maybe." He sheathed the knife. The click was loud in the quiet bay. "Or maybe you knew Lyra was going to fail. And you wanted front-row seats."
"I'm a healer," I said. "My job is to keep people alive. Not to watch them die."
"Is it?"
The question hung there. Heavy. Real.
I didn't answer. I couldn't. Not without lying. And Lucian Voss hated lies almost as much as he hated uncertainty.
I turned to my kit. Checked the contents. Bandages. Stimulants. Coagulants. All standard. All useless against what I planned to do.
"Get your armor on," I said. "We launch in ten."
Lucian watched me for another second. Then he nodded. Once. Sharp.
"Don't make me choose a side, Vera," he said softly. "You won't like the one I pick."
He walked away. Toward the armor lockers. Toward the line he was drawing in the sand.
I watched him go. Then I opened my medical bag. Reached into the false bottom. Pulled out a small vial. Clear liquid. No label.
My own synthesis. Distilled from the residue of Dean Holt's decay. Concentrated. Potent.
I uncapped it. The smell was faint. Sweet. Like rotting fruit.
Lyra Wren. Revenge list position #4. Attack order #3.
She had mocked Ana's shield work during the Ash Valley incident. Called it "amateur hour." Said Ana got what she deserved for stepping out of line.
Lyra hadn't killed Ana. But she had made the environment where Ana died possible. She had lowered the guard. She had laughed while the blood pooled on the floor.
That was enough.
I poured a single drop onto my glove. The material hissed. A tiny hole burned through the leather. Smoke curled up, thin and gray.
I wiped the glove on my pants. Slipped my hand into the medical kit. Hidden. Ready.
"Blackwell! Move out!"
The squad leader's voice boomed over the intercom.
I zipped the bag. Shouldered it. Followed the team toward the rift gate.
Suki Fang was already there. She was checking her gauntlets, her hands shaking so badly she could barely lock the clasps. She looked up when I approached. Her eyes were wide. Terrified.
"Hey," she said. "You... you really think we can make it?"
I looked at her. Really looked at her.
*Acceptable operational noise.*
The classification tried to form again. I pushed it down. Forced it back into the dark.
"I think you need to focus on your footing," I said. "And keep your shield up. No matter what happens to Lyra."
"She won't fail," Suki whispered. "She can't."
"She already has," I said.
Suki flinched. Took a step back. "What?"
"Nothing," I said. "Just get in line."
We marched through the gate. The air shifted. Pressure dropped. The smell of ozone vanished, replaced by the stench of sulfur and old blood. The rift.
Lyra Wren stood at the center of the formation. She looked pale. Sweat soaked her tunic. Her hands were glowing, but the light was flickering. Unsteady. Like a dying bulb.
She saw me. Her eyes narrowed.
"Who's the E-rank?" she demanded. Her voice was thin. Brittle.
"Backup," the squad leader said. "Blackwell. Don't worry about her. Just keep the channel open."
"I don't need a babysitter," Lyra snapped. "I need a miracle."
"Then you're in the wrong place," I said.
Lyra glared at me. Opened her mouth to retort.
Then the ground shook.
A roar echoed from the depths of the cavern. Something big. Something hungry.
"Contact front!" the leader screamed. "Shields up! Lyra, boost the vanguard!"
Lyra raised her hands. The light flared. Bright. Too bright.
Then it stuttered.
The glow dimmed. Flickered. Died.
"No," Suki whispered. "No, no, no..."
Lyra staggered. Clutched her chest. Her skin was turning gray. Veins of black were spreading across her neck, crawling up her jaw.
"It's happening," Suki cried. "She's crashing!"
"Medic!" the leader yelled. "Get to Lyra! Keep her alive!"
I moved. Fast. Not toward Lyra. Toward Suki.
The girl was frozen. Her shield was down. A shadow detached itself from the cavern wall. A rift beast. Clawed. Toothed. Eyes burning with red hate.
It lunged.
Suki screamed.
I didn't think. I didn't calculate. I just moved.
My right hand came up. Not to heal. Not to save.
To touch.
The crowd of healers behind us gasped as Lyra Wren's skin turned the color of bruised plums, black veins spiderwebbing across her face in seconds, a decay no natural disease could mimic.
I reached Suki. Grabbed her shoulder. Spun her around.
The beast's claw sliced the air where her throat had been.
"Move!" I shouted.
We stumbled back. Into the line of fire.
Lyra was on her knees now. Screaming. The black veins were pulsing. Spreading faster.
"What is that?" someone yelled. "What's happening to her?"
"It's the rift!" another voice cried. "The energy is toxic!"
"No," I said. Loud enough for them to hear. "It's not the rift."
I looked at Lyra. Her eyes met mine. Wide. Terrified. Recognizing something in my face that she couldn't name.
I smiled. Just a little.
"It's you," I said.
The ground shook again. Harder. The cavern ceiling cracked. Dust rained down.
And from the darkness behind the beast, something else emerged. Larger. Older. Watching.
Zack Stroud's signature was on the wind.
*Vote if this chapter hurt. Vote harder if it hurt the right people.*