One Week Later....
Rumbling like a dying beast, a transport van drove over gravel as the mountain mist thickened outside the reinforced windows. Jessy sat crammed between ammo crates, his knees to his chest, watching his breath fog up the bulletproof glass. His borrowed boots were a size too small. His jacket smelled like someone else's blood.
There was a rule that all newbies had to abide by, no matter your rank, you would have to join your seniors on a mission to watch the art of accomplishing a mission! Only one newbie can join a specific mission, as a result, it had to be made at random. If Jessy had the choice, he would have joined Reef. But life can be unfair sometimes, you know....
He hadn't been told much.
Just a name: The Glass Garden.
And a warning: "You're not here to speak. You're not here to shoot. You observe. You don't die."
Simple enough. Except the other passenger hadn't blinked since the ride started.
Sitting across from him, polishing a knife that looked more like a surgical instrument, was a boy only a year or two older shaved head, black ops fatigues, mismatched dog tags, and an expression carved from cold iron.
Jessy tried not to look directly at him. But the silence made it worse.
"Is it true you fought that guy in the pit with a fire extinguisher?" the boy finally asked, voice low and weirdly calm.
Jessy hesitated. "…Yeah."
The boy grinned widely, feral. "Hilarious."
"I'm Goro. Call me that or don't. Doesn't matter."
Jessy forced a smile. "Jessy."
"Right. The smelly one."
Jessy's smile faded.
Goro sheathed the knife and leaned back, folding his arms behind his head like they were at a picnic. "They're calling this a test mission. 'Observe the elite,' they said. But Mercer doesn't allow dead weight."
"Mercer?"
Goro pointed with his chin toward the front of the vehicle.
"Rank 36. Real charming guy. Tactical control freak. Kills without blinking, frowns when you breathe too loud."
"And the girl?" Jessy asked.
Goro's grin twisted. "Nyra. Rank 512. I've seen her make a guy tear out his own teeth just by talking to him."
Jessy blinked.
"You'll like her," Goro said. "She hates rookies."
The van slowed to a crawl. A high-pitched beep echoed twice, then a red light turned green above the door.
"Showtime," Goro muttered.
He slapped Jessy's knee twice and stood up in one fluid motion. "Try not to scream if things go wrong. It ruins the ambiance."
Outside, the world was silent. Mist wrapped around everything trees, fences, walls that shouldn't exist in remote mountain ranges. Ahead, past the high stone arch, lay a greenhouse the size of a football field, its roof gleaming like wet crystal under grey clouds. Ivy crawled across curved glass domes like veins across a giant's skull.
Security was nonexistent, at least on the surface. That alone made Jessy nervous.
They walked as a unit: Mercer in front, tall and stiff, rifle slung with surgical precision. His eyes never blinked, scanning every shadow like a targeting drone.
Nyra followed, dressed in sleek black no weapons visible, no footsteps audible. Her ponytail swayed like a whip with every turn of her head.
Jessy stayed at the back with Goro, heart pounding harder with each step. No one had said anything since stepping out.
Until Mercer's voice cracked the silence.
"Jessy Grey. You'll monitor rear access. Don't leave the entrance. Don't enter the greenhouse. Don't speak unless you're reporting movement. If we fail, stay alive long enough to confirm it."
Jessy opened his mouth to respond, but Mercer was already gone, disappearing into the mist-glass like a wraith.
Nyra followed him in, pausing just long enough to glance back at Jessy.
No smile. Just a whisper.
"Try not to inhale the wrong thing. Some flowers don't like strangers."
Then she vanished into the greenhouse with a hiss of airlocks.
Jessy stood alone outside the gate, staring through the fogged glass at a world he didn't belong to.
Goro stayed behind a few seconds longer, lighting a cigarette that smelled like something illegal.
"You're thinking too hard," Goro said without looking at him. "That's a good way to die here."
Jessy looked at him. "You said Mercer doesn't like dead weight."
Goro grinned again, smoke curling from his lips.
"Exactly. So don't be dead."
He turned and disappeared into the greenhouse.
Jessy exhaled slowly.
He stood at the entrance with nothing but a standard comlink, a loaded pistol he barely knew how to use, and the sound of breathing plants behind glass — strange, soft pulsing, like lungs.
He checked his watch.
He started counting the seconds.
He watched the structure.
Listened for mistakes.
He studied
***
The greenhouse breathed.
Not in a metaphorical way.
Jessy stood with his back against the reinforced glass of the entrance, fingers drumming quietly against the matte steel of the checkpoint door, and he could feel it that faint, almost human pull-push of pressure cycling through the structure.
As though the building itself had lungs. As though something inside it was alive… and waiting.
Condensation wept down the dome-shaped windows beside him. Raindrops trickled in chaotic rivulets, catching the pale daylight above like veins catching fire. He watched one bead trace its way down the curve of the glass, then vanish into a narrow gap between reinforced panel seams.
Drip.
Drip.
Pulsing.
Every five seconds, a soft whoosh echoed from the deeper chambers of the greenhouse. Not wind. Not mechanical. Exhalation.
He checked his watch.
3 minutes since Nyra and Mercer entered.
The comlink on his shoulder crackled with static. Then silence.
Jessy frowned, adjusted the volume.
Still nothing.
The mission brief had promised a 20-minute window of stable comms. He was on minute three, and already it was dying.
"Don't panic," he muttered under his breath, mostly to himself. "Maybe it's the interference from the dome."
He scanned the perimeter. No guards. No drones. The road that led them here had vanished into fog. The sky above was a steel-grey mass of static clouds. Even the birds were gone.
The only movement came from the breathing glass.
And then A flicker.
Through the distorted sheen of misted glass, deep inside the garden's skeletal walkways, something moved. Fast. A shadow. The kind of blur that only exists when someone doesn't want to be seen.
Jessy narrowed his eyes.
That wasn't Mercer.
Mercer moved with intent. Straight lines. Efficiency. This was… off-pattern. Fluttery. Slippery. Uncertain.
Jessy didn't say anything. Not yet. Instead, he dropped to one knee by the corner of the door and pressed two fingers to the floor.
The tiles were warm.
Too warm!
And damp — but not from rain. From beneath.
The greenhouse heating system shouldn't be running this high. They're trying to incubate something… or someone.
The comlink hissed again. Then: Mercer's voice.
"Subject located. Nyra is in pursuit. Theta is active. Exit locked."
Jessy blinked.
That line Exit locked wasn't part of any code phrase. There were no locks. The greenhouse had three fallback doors, all reported cleared. There was no reason to say that unless—
He's feeding misinformation.
Jessy rose slowly, keeping his eyes on the flicker of movement he'd seen before. The glass refracted the interior. Light bounced unnaturally. But he'd caught the way it moved in a circle looping, not escaping.
Theta didn't run. They're being hunted in a loop.
A pattern.
That's what Jessy saw where Mercer didn't think anyone would be looking. Not the violence. The pattern of the deception.
A minute later, Nyra's voice followed.
"Target escaping west quadrant. Entry tunnel compromised. Agent down."
Down?
Jessy swallowed hard. He clicked his comlink off for a second. Just silence.
"Nyra's too good to fall for a tunnel trap," he muttered. "And Mercer doesn't call out locked exits without a reason."
The realization crept in like frost under his collar.
This wasn't a leak. It was an execution.
He stepped back from the door and scanned the treeline again, a blur of silent shapes, thick ivy crawling like veins across the dome.
Then, for the briefest moment, he saw her.
Nyra.
Slumped against one of the inner archways. Blood down her temple. Her eyes open, lips parted.
Not calling for help.
Not moving.
Jessy's stomach dropped.
She was dead.