SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The delivery van was a dark, unassuming beetle crawling through the flooded, drenched streets of Northwood.

Kael sat in the passenger seat, his face a stone carving in the dim light of the dashboard.

He wasn't watching the storm.

He was watching the small, glowing screen of a data tablet, his eyes tracing the faint, red lines of enemy patrols.

"Okay, so, just to be clear," Miles's voice crackled in his ear, a calm, disembodied presence that was somehow both reassuring and deeply unnerving. "The plan is still 'drive a stolen van through the multi-million dollar lobby of a skyscraper'."

"I just want to make sure I didn't miss a memo."

"Because it feels like a plan that could have used a second draft."

Kael just grunted, his gaze never leaving the tactical display.

The boy was a ghost, a weapon, a commander.

He was also, Kael was beginning to realize, profoundly annoying.

"The plan is the plan, Ghost," Kael rumbled into his comms, his voice a low growl of pure, professional focus. "Team Alpha is in position. Awaiting your signal."

He glanced at the fighters in the back of the van.

They were a collection of broken toys, survivors of The Nursery, their faces pale but their eyes burning with a cold, hard fire.

They were not soldiers.

But they were ready to fight.

From his perch on a skyscraper three blocks away, the clone watched the van crawl into its final position.

It saw the two guards at the main entrance, their high-tech raincoats doing little to protect them from the horizontal sheets of wind-driven water.

It saw the heat signatures of the primary security detail, a squad of twelve elite masters, waiting in a ready room just off the main lobby.

It saw everything.

And Miles, a ghost on a windswept rooftop across the street, saw it too.

He felt the thrum of the city, the rage of the storm, the frantic, hammering heartbeat of his friends.

He felt the weight of it all.

The weight of command.

"Okay, so this is the part where the inspiring leader gives a big, rousing speech," his internal monologue whispered, a dry, sarcastic voice in the quiet of his own mind.

"Something about freedom, and justice, and never giving up."

"I should probably say something inspiring."

"'Try not to die' feels a little on the nose, but it's honest."

He looked at Clara, who stood beside him, a silent, unmoving statue in the heart of the hurricane.

She just gave him a small, almost imperceptible nod.

Trust.

It was a terrifying, and deeply precious, thing.

He took a deep breath, the cold, wet air a shock to his system.

He brought his attention back to the mission, the cold logic of the ghost reasserting itself.

"Team Alpha," he said into his comms, his voice a calm, steady, and unwavering anchor in the middle of the storm. "You are the thunder."

"Bring the storm to them."

The line was quiet for a single, heavy beat.

Then, Kael's voice came back, a low, rumbling acknowledgment.

"Copy that, Ghost."

"Thunder is a go."

The delivery van's engine roared to life.

It did not accelerate.

It launched.

It shot forward, a dark, unassuming missile aimed at the heart of the Cross Corp empire.

The two guards at the entrance barely had time to register the approaching headlights before the van was on top of them.

They dove out of the way, a clumsy, panicked scramble of limbs and raincoats.

The van did not slow down.

It smashed directly through the towering, twenty-foot-high plate-glass facade of the Cross Corp tower's lobby.

The sound was a deafening, echoing explosion of shattering glass and tortured metal.

The diversion had begun.

High in his penthouse office, his own private, sound-proofed eye of the storm, Silas Cross did not even flinch.

He watched the chaos unfold on his massive, wall-sized security monitor, a look of bored, dismissive amusement on his face.

He took a slow, deliberate sip from a ridiculously small cup of espresso.

"Predictable," he said to his senior aide, who stood a respectful, and slightly terrified, ten feet away.

"A brutish, frontal assault."

"The desperate, clumsy tactic of a cornered animal."

He looked at the screen, at the figures in dark combat gear pouring out of the back of the wrecked van.

"They are an irrelevance," he stated simply, his voice the calm, quiet sound of a god swatting a fly.

He tapped a button on his desk.

"Send the primary guard units to the lobby," he commanded, his voice a low, bored purr.

"Crush them."

"And seal the lower levels."

"Our real prize is not so foolish as to announce itself with such a… theatrical entrance."

The bait was taken.

Down in the lobby, the world was a warzone.

Kael and Team Alpha moved with a brutal, efficient grace.

EMP grenades arced through the air, their silent, invisible blasts disabling the automated sentry turrets that dropped from the ceiling.

The rescued fighters, their faces masks of cold, vengeful fury, engaged the first wave of security guards.

It was not a clean fight.

It was a brawl.

A chaotic, desperate, and deeply personal explosion of pent-up rage and reclaimed power.

Kael was a storm of his own, his movements the economical, deadly dance of a master soldier.

He was not a system user.

He was something far more dangerous.

He was a professional.

From his eye in the sky, Miles watched it all, his mind a cold, clear, and deeply focused instrument of tactical analysis.

He was the ghost in the machine, and the machine was his army.

"Two hostiles, upper mezzanine, left flank!" his voice crackled in Kael's ear, a calm, precise command in the middle of the chaos.

Kael didn't hesitate.

He relayed the order, and two of his fighters broke off, their movements a perfect, synchronized response to a threat they could not see.

"Sentry drone, deploying from the west corridor!" Miles's voice warned.

A grenade arced through the air, and the drone was a shower of sparks and metal before it could even fire a shot.

They were winning.

They were bleeding.

They were dying.

But they were winning.

The lobby of the Cross Corp tower, a sterile, silent temple to corporate power, was being torn apart.

Kael took cover behind a large, overturned marble planter, the air around him thick with the smell of ozone and the sizzle of plasma fire.

He risked a glance at the main entrance.

It was a solid wall of black-clad, heavily armed masters, the primary security force that Silas had sent down to crush them.

They were pinned down.

They were outnumbered.

The plan was working perfectly.

He keyed his comms, his breath coming in ragged, painful gasps.

"Alpha team has engaged," he reported, his voice a low, strained growl.

"The lobby is a warzone."

"They're sending everyone down to greet us."

He paused, a grim, bloody smile on his face.

"The yard is open for you, Ghost."

"Go."