?Location: Unknown Compound, Nansen Island, Western Antarctic Peninsula
?Date: November,13,2024
?Time: 0200 Hours (Local)
?The night air was thick with tension as "Ghost-1", Captain Daniel Reyes, adjusted his night-vision goggles. The green-tinted world sharpened into focus chain-link fences, guard towers, and the dim glow of a lone floodlight. Somewhere inside that compound, the "Viper Network" was moving a shipment of stolen bioweapons. And his team was about to shut them down.
?"All elements, this is Ghost-1. SITREP," Reyes whispered into his comms.
?One by one, the voices crackled back.
?"Ghost-2, in position. No movement on the north side."*
?"Ghost-3, thermal shows two tangos at the main gate. Lightly armed."
?"Eagle-1 overhead. No signs of alert. You’re clear to proceed."
?Reyes exhaled slowly. "Copy. Moving to Objective Alpha. Weapons tight no engagement unless compromised."
?The eight-man team moved like shadows, breaching the outer fence with silenced cutters. The ground was Snowy from recent Snowfall, each step a risk of noise. But these men were Delta Force, trained to be ghosts in the night.
?Then, a sudden crackle in his earpiece.
?"Ghost-1, this is Overwatch. Be advised unexpected heat signature inside the warehouse. Possible HVT."
?Reyes froze. A High-Value Target? Their intel hadn’t mentioned anyone important on-site.
?"Roger. Changing approach. Ghost-2, take point. We’re going in silent."
?The team stacked up at the side entrance. A quick hand signal, a flashbang primed then the door exploded inward.
?"Go, go, go!"
?The room erupted into chaos. Muzzle flashes lit up the dark as Viper’s men scrambled for cover. Reyes dropped one with a clean double-tap to the chest.
?"Two tangos down! Moving to secondary objective!"
?Then, a voice cut through the gunfire one of the enemy, screaming into a radio.
?"They’re here! Initiate"
?A bullet from Ghost-3’s sniper rifle silenced him mid-sentence. But the damage was done.
?"Ghost-1, we’ve got company!" Ghost-4 yelled as engines roared outside.
?Reyes clenched his jaw. They’d been made.
?"All call signs, this is Ghost-1! Mission is now HOT! Eagle-1, we need CAS on the eastern approach!"
?"Copy, Ghost-1. Rolling in."
?The distant whine of fighter jets grew louder. The ground trembled as the first explosion rocked the compound.
?Reyes keyed his mic one last time.
?"No prisoners. No loose ends. Viper dies tonight."
?Reyes’ voice was ice. The moment the words left his lips, hell broke loose.
?The night sky ripped apart as Eagle-1’s F-35s screamed in at Mach 1.2.
?"Ghost-1, CAS inbound. Painting targets mark your positions!"
?Reyes’ HUD lit up with laser-designated kill zones. "All call signs, danger close! Get to hard cover NOW!"
?The first 500-pound JDAM hit the eastern guard tower.
?The explosion vaporized three men instantly, the shockwave hurling two more into the razor wire like ragdolls. Secondary blasts erupted as stored ammunition cooked off.
?"Splash east!"Eagle-1 called.
?The second bomb walked across the motor pool, flipping a technical into a fireball that lit up the compound like noon.
?Viper’s exterior forces 20 mercs in body armor scattered, but the third strike was a thermobaric "fuel-air" blast.
?The overpressure crushed lungs, dropped bodies mid-sprint.
?A merc screamed into his radio: "They’ve got fucking air sup-"
?Then nothing. Just static and flames.
?Meanwhile, Reyes’ team moved like wolves.
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?Ghost-2 (Sniper/Marksman)
?Perched on the warehouse roof, his Barrett .50cal thundered.
?A Viper gunner sprinting for an RPG mount disintegrated from the waist up.
?"One down. Heavy weapons neutralized."
?Ghost-3 (Breacher/Demolitions)
?Kicked open a side door, flashbang rolling in.The stun grenade popped white light, 180 decibels and Ghost-4 flowed in behind him, HK416 chattering. Two tangos slumped against the wall, ears bleeding.
?"Clear left!"
?Ghost-5 (Medic/Combatant)
?Took a 7.62 round to the plate, grunted, and returned fire. His triple-tap punched through a merc’s Russian-made helmet.
?"Stay aggressive! Push the stairwell!"
?Reyes (Assaulter/Team Lead)
?Ducked behind a forklift as a PKM machine gun chewed the metal to shreds. He signaled Ghost-6 the team’s flanker who tossed a frag grenade in a perfect arc. The gunner’s last scream was cut short by the shrapnel storm.
?"Gun down! Moving!"
?Four remaining hostiles barricaded themselves in the central corridor, laying down interlocking fire.
?"Suppressing!" Ghost-7 dumped a 100-round drum mag from his M249, forcing the enemy to duck.
?Reyes seized the opening. "Breach!"
?Ghost-3 detonated a shaped charge on the wall beside the kill zone not through it. The explosion collapsed the drywall onto the ambushers. One merc was buried alive. The other three stumbled out, blinded by dust right into Ghost-4’s shotgun.
?Boom. Boom. Boom.
?12-gauge flechette rounds turned torsos into hamburger meat.
?A hulking Spetsnaz vet lunged from a side room,combat knife aimed for Reyes’ throat. Reyes barely blocked, the blade skidding off his rifle. They crashed into a lab table glass vials shattering, chemicals burning skin.
?The Russian headbutted him. Reyes saw stars but hooked his leg, flipping them. A stomp to the trachea ended it.
?"Clear…" Reyes panted, wiping blood from his brow.
?Silence.
?Then the last gunshot echoed as Ghost-2 put a finishing round into a twitching merc’s skull.
?Reyes kicked open the steel door to the basement.
?The air reeked of antiseptic and something worse copper and decay, like a lab crossed with a slaughterhouse.
?"Jesus Christ,"muttered Ghost-2, his rifle sweeping the dim room.
?The centerpiece was a glass-and-titanium capsule, glowing faintly under emergency lights. Inside floated a boy maybe fourteen, naked, his skin crisscrossed with tubes feeding neon-green fluid into his veins. His hair drifted like seaweed, his eyelids twitching as if trapped in a nightmare.
?Reyes’ stomach turned. This was the bioweapon? A kid?
?"Overwatch, we’ve got a situation," he growled into his comms."Non-combatant in a… fucking lab experiment. Request immediate MEDEVAC."
?Static. Then: "Negative, Ghost-1. No EVAC until the area’s secure. Proceed with caution could be booby-trapped."
?The screen beside the capsule flickered with data:
?- HEART RATE: 52 BPM (slow, too slow)
?- NEURAL ACTIVITY: 400% baseline
?(impossible)
?- CHEMICAL STABILIZERS:
?- Synthetic Hemoglobin (Hb-X12)– Oxygen supercarrier
?- Myostatin Inhibitors – Muscle growth beyond human limits
?- Neural Accelerant (Compound V-9) – Hypersensory reflexes
? - Adrenocortical Serum – Pain suppression, aggression amplification
?"They turned him into a weapon," Ghost-4 hissed, gripping his rifle white-knuckle tight.
?"Like some goddamn science project."
?Reyes stepped closer. The fluid wasn’t just sustaining the boy it was rewriting him.
? The screen flashed a warning:
?SUBJECT DESIGNATION: "ECHO"
?STATUS: STABLE (PHASE 3 TRIAL COMPLETE)
?A metallic *click* sounded from the capsule’s base. The team snapped their rifles up trap wires lined the floor, but the airstrike had severed the power.
?"Cut him out. Now," Reyes ordered.
?Ghost-3, their breacher, wedged a shaped charge along the capsule’s seam. "Fire in the hole!"
?The explosion was contained, precise. Glass shattered, green fluid flooding the floor in a chemical tide.
?The boy collapsed forward, and Reyes caught him before he hit the ground.
?The kid’s skin was ice-cold, his veins pulsing faintly blue under the fluorescent lights.
?Then A gasp.
?The boy’s eyes shot open, irises dilated black, then flickering gold for one terrifying second before settling into ordinary brown.
?He convulsed, coughing up fluid, his fingers digging into Reyes’ armor like a vise.
?Reyes exchanged a glance with his team. No one had expected him to be conscious.
?"You’re safe now, kid," Reyes lied, because nothing about this was safe. Not the chemicals in the boy’s blood, not the way his muscles tensed like a coiled spring, and certainly not the barcode tattooed on his wrist:
?ECHO-7. PROPERTY OF VIPER NETWORK.
?The boy didn’t ask where he was.
?His lips barely moved, his voice a shattered whisper:
?"Kill me."
?Reyes froze. The kid’s eyes were hollow—not scared, not confused. Just empty.
?Like a man who’d already died and was only waiting for his body to catch up.
?"You’re safe now," Reyes said again, tightening his grip on the boy’s bony shoulders.
?"No one’s gonna hurt you again"
?"Please."A tear cut through the grime on the boy’s cheek. "Just… end it."
?Ghost-2 swore under his breath.
?Ghost-3 looked away.
?Reyes opened his mouth to argue then the alarm shrieked.
?The green glow inside the shattered capsule flipped to red. A mechanical voice droned:
?"Phase 3 trial failure. Intruder contamination detected. Self-destruct protocol initiated."
?"What the fuck?" Ghost-4 spun, scanning for explosives.
?10.
?Reyes’ pulse spiked. "Find it! Find the damn bomb!"
?9.
?The team scrambled checking walls, consoles, the capsule’s wreckage. Nothing.
?8.
?Then Ghost-2 choked. "Captain!"
?The boy’s chest was glowing. A sickly, pulsing light beneath his skin.
?7.
?"No…" Reyes grabbed the kid’s frail frame, fingers brushing the raised scar over his sternum a surgical incision.
?They’d sewn the bomb inside him.
?6. ?
?"We can cut it out" Ghost-3 yanked out a combat knife.
?The boy shook his head. "Go."
?5.
?"Not happening!" Reyes barked.
?"We’re getting you"
?The boy’s hand weak, trembling pressed against Reyes’ chest.
?Then pushed.
?The force was inhuman. Reyes flew backward, crashing into Ghost-2 as the boy’s enhanced muscles shattered his own bones with the motion.
?4. ?
?"MOVE!"* Reyes roared. The team lunged for the stairs.
?3.
?The boy didn’t run. He just… let go.
?2.
?"NO!" Reyes reached for him
?1.
?The boy’s last words were barely audible:
?"Thank you."
?"Boom!!!"
?The explosion wasn’t loud.
?It was a wet, chemical pop, like a lightbulb bursting underwater. The blast radius was barely five feet but the purple-black smoke that erupted was wrong, twisting like living tendrils before dissolving.
?When it cleared, the boy was gone. Not even ash.
?Reyes didn’t realize he was on his knees until Ghost-2 grabbed his shoulder.
?"We gotta go, Captain. Viper’s reinforcements"
?Reyes slammed his fist into the floor.
?Once. Twice. Blood smeared the concrete.
?A child. They’d turned a child into a disposable weapon. And he’d let him die.
?"Reyes!" Ghost-4 hauled him up."We can’t stay here!"
?He let them drag him away. But as the team exfilled into the smoke-choked night, Reyes kept seeing it
?The boy’s gold-flickering eyes. ?
?And the way he’d smiled, just before the end.
