Chapter 16 Talia
SIXTEEN
Talia
THE PACK
The industrial warehouse sits on the edge of the South Side like a rusted iron lung, breathing cold drafts and the smell of decades-old grease. Vargas’s “secondary site” is less a safe house and more a graveyard for Cold War-era tech and structural paranoia.
I sit on a crate of MREs, knees pulled to my chest, watching Jackson.
He paces the concrete floor. Three steps north. Turn. Three steps south. Turn. His energy has shifted. So far, he’s been a shield—a singular force standing between me and death. Now, he vibrates with a different frequency.
Anticipation.
The lone wolf waiting for the pack.
Vargas hunches over a workbench in the corner, soldering something that looks alarmingly like a detonator. “Stop pacing, Fuse. You’re vibrating the floorboards.”
“They’re close.” Jackson checks his watch. “Torque makes good time.”
“Torque flies like he has a death wish.”
“He does.”
A sound outside. Not a siren. Not a car engine.
The thrum-thrum-thrum of rotors cutting through heavy air.
Jackson stops pacing. “Roof.”
He moves to the freight elevator—a caged beast of a lift—and hits the button. I follow, weapon drawn, though Jackson doesn’t seem worried. His shoulders have dropped an inch. His breathing has deepened.
The elevator rattles upward, chains groaning. We emerge onto the roof just as a black shape blots out the stars.
The helicopter is unlit, a shadow against the Chicago light pollution. It flares hard, nose up, dropping fast toward the reinforced roof deck. The downdraft hits us, whipping my hair across my face, stinging my eyes with grit.
The skids touch down with a metallic screech that sets my teeth on edge.
The side door slides open.
Five men spill out. They move like water—fluid, synchronized, covering angles I hadn’t even identified as threats. I press my back against the elevator housing, gripping my Glock, cataloging them as they deploy.
The first one out has to be the leader. Tall. Imposing. Even in the dark, he radiates a gravitational pull. He scans the perimeter once, effectively owning the space, then strides toward Jackson.
Next, a man with the build of a linebacker but the grace of a dancer. He carries a heavy pack like it’s filled with feathers, his head swiveling, checking the horizon.
A smaller, wiry figure jumps out next, holding a tablet, grinning like he’s at a tailgate party instead of a clandestine insertion. He taps the screen, seemingly bored by the tactical insertion.
The pilot kills the rotors and leaps from the cockpit, landing with a reckless bounce. He stretches, cracking his neck.
I count four.
Where is—
Movement in the periphery. A shadow detaches itself from the AC unit near the roof access. I gasp, raising my Glock.
“Easy,” Jackson says, his hand covering mine, lowering the barrel. “That’s Whisper.”
I stare. I never saw him exit the bird. He simply materialized in the optimal overwatch position.
The team converges. No salutes. No formal greetings. Just a series of forearm clasps and nods that convey volumes of history.
“You look like hell, Fuse,” the pilot says, clapping Jackson on the non-injured shoulder. He eyes the blood-soaked bandage. “What’d you do, try to catch a round with your teeth?”
“Bullet extraction,” Jackson says. “Field conditions.”
“Sloppy.”
“Effective.”
The leader steps forward. The group falls silent. His gaze flicks to me—analyzing, assessing, cataloging. I feel like I’m being scanned by an X-ray machine, but there’s no hostility in it. Just calculation.
“Let’s get inside,” he says. His voice is deep, resonant. “We’re exposed.”
We descend into the warehouse. The dynamic in the room shifts instantly. It shrinks. Six large, dangerous men fill the space with kinetic energy. They start unpacking gear before anyone gives an order—laptops, weapons cases, tactical maps. It’s a hive mind. Efficient. Terrifying.
Jackson guides me toward the leader. “Talia, this is Mason Blackwood. Call sign Ghost.”
Ghost extends a hand. He doesn’t treat me like a package or a liability. He treats me like a variable he needs to solve. “Ms. Singh. Apologies for the dramatic entrance. Fuse tells us you’ve had a rough few days.”
“That’s an understatement,” I say, taking his hand. His grip is dry, firm.
“This is Ryan Ellis,” Jackson continues, pointing to the linebacker. “Brass. He handles intel and comms.”
Brass nods, already setting up a satellite link on a portable table. “Ma’am.”
“Diego Martinez. Halo.” Jackson points to the wiry one with the tablet.
Halo waves without looking up from his screen. “Hi. Don’t touch my stuff.”
“Cooper Hayes. Whisper.” Jackson gestures to the shadow in the corner, who has already started disassembling a long-range rifle. Whisper just blinks.
“And Levi Durant. Torque.”
The pilot grins, spinning a set of keys on his finger. “The one who gets us out of trouble when Fuse blows something up.”
“Welcome to the circus,” Ghost says. He turns to the workbench. “And you must be Vargas.”
Vargas stands by his workbench, leaning on his cane, watching the invasion of his sanctuary with a mixture of annoyance and respect. “You brought a lot of noise to my quiet neighborhood, Blackwood.”
“We brought a solution.” Ghost gestures to the table. “Let’s brief the op.”
Halo drifts toward Vargas’s tech setup. He picks up the Root Seed drive and turns the titanium brick over in his hands. “Proprietary port. High-voltage capacitors. Vacuum tube shielding? This is a dinosaur.”
“It’s a bullet,” Vargas growls, snatching it back. “For a digital brain. It works because it’s not connected to your cloud-based garbage.”
Halo raises an eyebrow, looking at the soldering work. “Analog bridge to bypass the digital handshake. That’s—actually brilliant.” He looks at Vargas with new respect. “You’re the hardware architect.”
“I built the cage,” Vargas says. “You’re the kid who writes the ghosts.”
“Game recognizes game,” Torque mutters, opening a crate of MREs. “Great. Now there’s two of them.”
“Focus,” Ghost barks. He clears a table in the center of the room. “Fuse. Sitrep. We know Phoenix is active. What’s the new intel?”
Jackson steps up. “It’s not just rogue AI. It’s corporate. Talia found the link.”
All eyes turn to me. The weight of their attention is heavy, physical. These are men who deal in violence, and I deal in data. I take a breath, stepping forward. I don’t cower. I place Jackson’s laptop on the table and connect to Halo’s localized network.
“Nexus Holdings,” I say. “It’s a conglomerate. Five major subsidiaries across pharma, defense, and energy. My risk assessments flagged anomalies in their regulatory approvals. Every time they hit a roadblock—a safety inspector, a whistleblower, a competitor—that roadblock died.”
“Accidents?” Brass asks, studying the screen.
“Statistically improbable accidents,” I correct. “Heart attacks at forty. Car crashes on empty roads. Suicides with no notes. Phoenix isn’t just surviving; it’s an enforcement arm. It eliminates oversight to maximize profit margins.”
“So we have a target,” Ghost says. “Nexus HQ.”
“It’s a vault,” Jackson says. “Subbasement server farm. Air-gapped. We can’t hack it from the outside.”
“Which means we walk it in,” Ghost says. He looks at the Root Seed. “We plug that brick into the main terminal, and it fries the logic cores. Hard reset.”
“Into a building anticipating an attack,” Brass adds. “Suicide.”
“Tuesday,” Torque quips, tearing open a packet of crackers.
I look at him. “Tuesday?”
“Means it’s just another day ending in Y,” Jackson murmurs near my ear. “Normal crazy.”
Ghost studies the map. “We can’t hit them tonight. We’re coming in hot, Fuse is bleeding, and we need to recon the perimeter.”
“They know we’re here,” Jackson says. “They’re scrubbing the board.”
“Then we go tomorrow night. 0200 hours. That gives us twenty-four hours to prep, heal up, and plan the breach.” Ghost’s voice brooks no argument.
“Torque, secure the perimeter. Whisper, roof. Brass, start building a comms network that Phoenix can’t crack.
Halo, work with Vargas on interfacing that brick with our systems.”
“And Fuse?” Torque asks, pointing a cracker at Jackson. “He looks like he’s about five minutes from passing out.”
“Fuse is down,” Ghost says. “Medical. Now.”
Jackson opens his mouth to argue.
“That’s an order,” Ghost says softly. “You’re no good to me dead, and you’re no good to her if you can’t lift your rifle.”
Jackson’s jaw tightens, but he nods. “Copy that.”
The team disperses. The efficiency is terrifying. They move like parts of a single machine.
I guide Jackson to a cot in the corner of the warehouse, away from the main activity. He sits heavily, the adrenaline finally leaving him, replaced by the gray pallor of exhaustion.
“Shirt off,” I say.
He grunts, peeling the tactical vest and the blood-stiffened shirt away. The bandage I applied is soaked through.
“Torque was right,” I whisper, peeling back the gauze. “It’s a mess.”
“It’s not infected.”
“The stitches tore.”
I open the Cerberus medical kit Brass dropped off. It’s better than what we had. Real sutures, medical-grade glue, and antibiotics.
“This is going to hurt.”
“Do your worst.”
I clean the wound. He doesn’t flinch, but his muscles jump under my skin. I apply the glue, pinching the ragged edges together, then reinforce it with the butterflies. It’s ugly, but it will hold.
“You good at everything you do?” Jackson asks, his voice rough.
“I learn fast.” I wrap a fresh compression bandage around his bicep. “There.”
Across the room, Torque and Whisper are cleaning weapons. I catch them watching us. Torque nudges Whisper, murmuring something. Whisper smirks.
“Ignore them,” Jackson says, following my gaze. “They’re children.”
“They’re your family.”
“Yeah. They are.” He catches my hand. “You stood your ground with Ghost.”
“Was I supposed to be scared?”
“Most people are.” He runs his thumb over my knuckles. “You fit in here. Better than you think.”