Chapter 30
GAGE
The lab results lay flat on the tray table over my hospital bed, each number and chart line telling the same story. Four to six weeks. Eight if I was lucky, which I hadn’t been so far. I could read the prognosis in Alistair’s face before he even spoke.
“You want me to break it down?”
“No need.” I picked up the top page and scanned the numbers I already understood. White blood cell count through the roof. Liver enzymes off the charts. Organ systems failing one by one as the biohacking serum that Kovacs had pumped into me continued its work. “Four to six weeks.”
“Could be eight with aggressive treatment.”
I set the paper down, refusing to let my hand shake. The gold lines beneath my skin pulsed brighter for a moment, a web of light tracing along my forearm. They used to only appear during surges of strength or aggression. Now they glowed constantly, a countdown clock I couldn’t turn off.
“Define aggressive treatment.”
Alistair leaned back in his chair, the metal legs scraping against the concrete floor of the medical bay. “We continue the enzyme therapy, double the anti-rejection meds, add a new experimental compound Kate found in Kovacs’s research. It might slow the cellular deterioration.”
“Might.”
“Yes.” He didn’t sugar-coat it. I respected that about him. “But I should warn you the side effects are significant. Nausea, muscle weakness, potential neurological impacts.”
“So I’ll feel even worse while I wait to die.
” I rubbed my thumb against my palm, feeling the strange, slick texture my skin had developed.
Not quite human anymore. That had been the point of Kovacs’s experiment, after all.
Make a better soldier. Create the perfect weapon.
Too bad the programming was eating me from the inside out.
I’d known this was coming. Had felt it in the increasing pain that woke me at night, my muscles cramping as the gold patterns flared beneath my skin.
Had seen it in the bathroom mirror each morning, my face growing gaunter, eyes taking on that metallic sheen that didn’t look human.
Had felt it in the mornings when my body refused to cooperate, limbs heavy and unresponsive until I forced them into motion through sheer willpower.
But knowing and hearing the confirmation out loud were different things.
Four to six weeks. Maybe eight.
The truth settled into my bones. I was going to die, and there wasn’t a damn thing Alistair or anyone else could do about it.
After fifteen years in Special Forces and black ops, running ops that should have killed me a hundred times over, I was being taken out by something injected into my veins while I lay unconscious on a lab table.
Not a bullet or an IED or even a knife in some dark alley.
Just my own cells turning against me, programmed to self-destruct by people who saw me as nothing but an experiment.
I’d made peace with dying a long time ago.
You don’t survive in this business without accepting the risks.
But I’d always thought it would mean something.
That I’d go out protecting someone, completing a mission, serving some greater purpose.
Not fading away in a medical bay while my team watched helplessly.
The worst part wasn’t dying. The worst part was leaving without finishing what we started. Leaving Edge Ops without closure on Innovixus.
Leaving Sophia, the daughter I’ll never get to know.
Leaving Kate.
My chest tightened at the thought of her, a physical pain distinct from the constant burning in my muscles.
She’d been working herself to exhaustion these past weeks, splitting her time between ops planning and helping Alistair research potential treatments.
I’d told her not to waste her time, that there were more important things for the team’s cybersecurity expert to focus on. She’d ignored me completely.
“You should tell the team,” Alistair said, breaking the silence. “They deserve to know where things stand.”
“They know.” I gestured to the medical equipment surrounding us, the IV lines and monitors that had become my constant companions. “They’re not stupid.”
“Knowing and being told officially are different things.” He crossed his arms over his chest and pinned me with steady eyes that always saw too much. “Especially for Kate.”
I looked away, unwilling to let him see whatever might be visible on my face at the mention of her name. “I’ll talk to them.”
A noise from the doorway pulled both our attention.
Kate stood there, arms crossed in front of her small frame.
She wore the same clothes she’d had on yesterday, her light brown hair pulled back in a messy ponytail that told me she’d been working through the night again.
The bright blue streak she’d added last week stood out against the brown, vivid as a warning sign.
“How long have you been standing there?” I asked.
“Long enough.” She stepped into the room, her gaze flicking to the folder in Alistair’s hands before meeting mine. “Your hands are worse today.”
I flexed my fingers, watching the gold patterns flare brighter. “Just means I won’t be winning any marksmanship competitions.”
She didn’t smile. Kate rarely smiled these days.
“You should have gone to the wedding,” I told her. “They would have wanted you there.”
Her eyes sharpened. “I was where I needed to be.”
The words hung between us, heavy with everything we didn’t say.
“You look terrible,” she added, the ghost of a smile touching her lips.
“Thanks.”
“I mean the gray. It’s spreading faster.”
I knew without looking in a mirror. My skin had taken on the color of wet cement, all the life leaching out of it as my organs began to fail.
My secure device buzzed on the bedside table, the screen lighting up. Unknown sender. Encrypted routing. My heart rate picked up.
Kate’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t open it.”
I reached for the device anyway. My fingers knew who it was from before my brain caught up. Only one person would contact me directly. Only one person would use this particular encryption path.
I tapped the screen. A video file loaded.
Dr. Helena Kovacs’s face filled the display.
She looked different from the last time I’d seen her, when she’d been dragged away in federal custody.
Healthier. More put-together. Her blonde hair pulled back in that severe bun, her lab coat pristine white against some kind of institutional backdrop. This wasn’t a prison cell.
“Hello, Subject L-7,” she said, and hearing that designation instead of my name made my teeth clench. “I see the degradation has accelerated. You have approximately four weeks remaining before complete systemic failure. Perhaps six with aggressive intervention.”
My fingers tightened around the device.
“Your condition is, of course, irreversible without my complete protocols. The Garnett data was intentionally incomplete. We built in fail-safes to prevent exactly the kind of theft your team executed.”
“Turn it off,” Kate said, her face tight with anger.
I kept watching.
“I’m prepared to offer you treatment,” Kovacs said, adjusting something off-camera.
Behind her, I could see movement, other people in lab coats working at stations.
“In exchange for information about Edge Ops operations. Or your cooperation with my ongoing research. Or...” She paused, a small smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
“We can discuss other arrangements when you arrive.”
The screen split, showing coordinates alongside a satellite image of mountains. The Carpathians. Romania.
“How the hell did she escape federal custody?” Alistair asked.
“Someone with serious resources wanted her out,” Kate said.
“You have ninety-six hours to reach this location,” Kovacs continued. “After that, the degradation will be too advanced for even me to reverse. The choice is yours, L-7. Come to me, or die where you sit. Those are your options.”
The video ended. The room felt suddenly too small, too hot.
Kate slammed her hand against the table. “It’s a trap.”
“Obviously.”
“She’s trying to lure you in. She has no intention of treating you. She wants to study the degradation process firsthand, document it for her research. And probably steal your genetic material to make more super-babies.”
I studied the coordinates Kovacs had sent. Romania, Carpathian Mountains. The location matched the intelligence we’d gathered on Innovixus’s main research campus. She wasn’t hiding. She was sitting in the heart of their operations, daring us to come after her.
“We need to call Ethan,” Kate said, reaching for her secure device. “Get a full team. Plan an extraction.”
“There’s no time.”
“We can’t go in without backup.”
“Four weeks,” I reminded her.
Kate’s face hardened. “So you’ll what, walk straight into their trap? Alone? Let them strap you to a table and continue their experiments?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You should die here,” she said fiercely, the words hitting me like cold water. “You should die here with people who care about you rather than give yourself back to them. Rather than let Kovacs turn you into a lab rat again.”
The conviction in her voice almost broke me. My throat tightened.
“I’m not walking into a trap,” I said, forcing the words past the lump in my throat. “And I’m not going alone.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying we go. You and me. Not to negotiate. Not to beg for treatment.” I leaned forward, ignoring the pain that shot through my spine. “We take the fight to Kovacs. We force her to give us the protocols. And if we die trying, at least we die fighting instead of waiting.”
Kate stared at me for a long moment. “That’s a terrible plan.”
“You got a better one?”
She didn’t answer right away. I watched the thoughts play across her face.
“No,” she admitted finally. “But I don’t like it.”
“Noted.”
Alistair made a small noise of protest. “This is insane. Even if you found the research, even if you got it back here, the chances of it containing anything useful are minimal.”
“Minimal isn’t zero,” Kate replied, still holding my gaze.
“And the chances of you getting caught or killed are significant,” Alistair countered. “Then what happens to the team? To the operation we’ve been building?”
He was right. The logical part of my brain knew he was right. Risking Kate and potentially compromising this new version of Edge Ops for a slim chance at prolonging my life by a few months was tactically unsound.
But logic was getting harder to hold onto these days.
“Ninety-six hours,” Kate said quietly, her eyes never leaving mine.
“If I last that long.”
“You’ll last.”
I didn’t argue. What was the point? If I crashed before we reached Romania, the whole plan was shot anyway.
Alistair looked between us, conflict clear on his face. Finally, he sighed. “I can’t support this officially. But...” He paused. “I’ll make sure you have what you need. Medical supplies. Anything that might help.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He gathered the lab results into a folder. “Don’t make me regret this.”
After he left, Kate climbed onto the hospital bed beside me, careful not to disturb any of the monitors or IV lines. Her head settled against my shoulder, her arm draping across my chest where the gold patterns glowed faintly through my T-shirt.
It felt good.
Better than I deserved.
We lay there in silence, not speaking, just being present. We both knew what was coming. We both knew the odds. But sitting here waiting for death wasn’t an option anymore.
“You know she’ll never just hand over the protocols,” Kate said softly against my neck.
“I know.”
“And you know the facility will be heavily guarded.”
“I know that too.”
She sighed, her breath warm on my skin. “We’re probably going to die.”
I smiled in the darkness, my hand finding hers where it rested over my heart. “Probably.”
“As long as we’re clear on that.”
I had four to six weeks to live, maybe eight with treatment. But for the first time since the biohacking had started failing, I felt something other than resignation. Something that burned hotter than the pain in my veins.
If I was going down, I was taking Kovacs with me. And maybe, just maybe, we’d both find what we were looking for in those Romanian mountains.
Time to make these last weeks count.