The acrid smell of burnt chitin and fresh blood mingled, creating the signature perfume of survival. The Hummingbird team regrouped in another rock alcove, deeper and better concealed than their last hideout. No one spoke. The only sound was the heavy breathing of Rook and Jotun as they carefully laid Viper down on a tarp.
Gryphon immediately knelt beside her. The wound on Viper's shoulder had been temporarily staunched, but the skin around it was swollen and bruised purple. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and she moaned softly in a delirium brought on by painkillers and fever.
"The infection is getting worse," Gryphon said, his voice low and fraught with worry. He took the last clean gauze pad, soaked it with antiseptic, and began to gently clean the wound. Every movement was precise and careful, a stark contrast to the hand that had squeezed a trigger just minutes before.
Kael stood guard at the entrance, his Kestrel pointed into the darkness. He didn't look at Viper. He couldn't. The image of her being thrown against a tree like a broken doll kept replaying in his mind. A feeling of helplessness gnawed at him. He had been there, but he had been powerless to stop it. He could only react. And his reaction, while it had saved the rest of them, had come too late for her.
Jotun sat leaning against a rock, silently disassembling and cleaning each part of his sniper rifle. It was his way of dealing with stress, a mechanical, orderly process to impose on a chaotic world. His large hands moved with a fluid grace, wiping away every speck of dirt, every trace of oil, as if performing a sacred ritual.
They were a broken machine. One gear had snapped, and the remaining ones were straining to keep turning.
"I got something," Wraith spoke up, breaking the heavy silence. Everyone turned to look at her.
She was squatting, her tablet resting on a flat rock. On the screen was a rotating 3D image of the Arboreal Stalker, reconstructed from video fragments captured through their night-vision goggles. Beside it were spectral analyses from the chitin fragments she had collected.
"It's a synthesis," she explained, her fingers flying across the screen. "The base DNA is from a local species of black panther, modified for increased size and muscle strength. But this chitinous plating... it doesn't belong to any known terrestrial insect. Its crystalline structure is incredibly complex, capable of dispersing kinetic force. That's why our rounds were nearly useless."
"But it's not completely invulnerable," Kael interjected, turning around. He stepped closer, pointing at the 3D model. "I hit its flank. It flinched. Viper's wound is to her shoulder. It didn't aim for the head or heart. It aimed for the major joints."
"It attacks the limbs to disable its prey," Gryphon murmured, looking up from tending to Viper. "The tactics of an intelligent hunter. Not wasting energy on an immediate kill shot."
"Exactly," Kael agreed. "And the two secondary limbs on its back... they aren't fully plated in chitin. Look at this video." He replayed a slow-motion clip. "When they lash out, their base, where they connect to the body, exposes bundles of muscle and nerve tissue. It's covered by hide, but it's not armor."
"A weak point," Jotun said, speaking for the first time.
"Yes," Wraith confirmed. "A small and constantly moving weak point. But it's there. And there's this." She displayed an audio analysis of the creature's hiss. "It uses a form of high-frequency ultrasound. Not for communication. For echolocation in the dark, like a bat. That's why it moves so perfectly in the trees."
A silence fell over them as they realized the significance of that information.
"Flashbangs," Kael said. "A massive sonic blast could temporarily disorient it. Jam its sonar."
They had it. A plan. It was thin, it was risky, but it was a plan. They were dissecting the demon, figuring out how to kill it, not with brute force, but with intelligence.
"We need to know how many of them there are," Gryphon said, "and where they are."
"Leave it to me," Wraith said. She pulled another device from her pack. It looked like a small rifle, but instead of a barrel, it had a collapsible parabolic dish. "Long-range laser microphone. An experimental toy. It can pick up sound vibrations off a surface at a distance—a window, a wall—and convert them back into audio."
"You want to eavesdrop on them?" Rook asked, skeptical.
"I want to eavesdrop on the ones who control them," Wraith corrected.
They found a new position, higher up, overlooking the bunker-like building they had observed earlier. Wraith set up her device, aiming the parabolic dish at a metal ventilation duct on the building's wall.
"A metal surface will vibrate better," she explained. She put on headphones, her fingers fine-tuning the frequencies. "Scanning... filtering background noise..."
She signaled for silence. The team held its breath.
For a few minutes, there was only the wind. Then, a voice came through Wraith's headphones, slightly distorted but clear.
"...the failure rate is still too high! We lost three subjects this morning alone!" It was Hunnigan's voice, sharp and frustrated.
Wraith patched the output to a small speaker for the team to hear.
"Evolution always requires sacrifice, Major," another voice responded, a deep baritone full of smug self-assurance. Kante. "The weak are culled. Only the strong are worthy of this gift."
They were in the control room, right below the Hummingbird team's position.
The conversation continued, and the Hummingbird team listened in silence, ghosts witnessing a conference of devils.
Hunnigan: "Your gift is unstable, Kante. You know that. You're dependent on the serum. If the supply is interrupted..."
Kante: (He chuckled) "You worry too much, Hunnigan. The Broker guarantees the supply will never run dry. The next shipment is already on its way. Besides, our initial successes in South America have already proven its effectiveness. That BSAA squad never stood a chance."
Kael's body went rigid at the words "South America."
Hunnigan: "That was a reckless gamble! We left a survivor. An unnecessary risk!"
Kante: "What can one little rat do? He serves as a warning to others who would stand in our way. Besides, thanks to him, we acquired invaluable live combat data. We learned how the 'Products' perform against top-tier soldiers. Everything has a price, Major."
Hunnigan: "That price is becoming too steep. I'm warning you, Kante. Don't let your arrogance ruin everything. We are so close to our goal."
Kante: "We do not share the same goal, Hunnigan. You want an army to serve your twisted vendetta against the BSAA. I... I want a new race."
The transmission cut out abruptly, as if someone had slammed a door.
The rift between the two leaders was clear. They were not true allies. They were temporary partners with different agendas.
But Kael no longer heard those last words. His mind had frozen on Kante's sentence.
...our initial successes in South America...
...That BSAA squad...
...left a survivor...
...invaluable live combat data...
All the pieces fell into place with a painful click in his head.
The Alpha Squad disaster. It wasn't a botched arms deal. It wasn't a guerilla ambush.
It was a product field test.
They, Alpha Squad, the best of the best, had been herded into a trap so Kante and Hunnigan could see how their new monsters performed. The deaths of his teammates, his brothers, were just a data point in their report.
And he, the sole survivor, wasn't a stroke of luck. He was a leftover variable, an error in their calculations.
A cold rage, more terrible than any fever, began to spread through Kael's veins. It burned away the fatigue, the fear, and the doubt. It left only one thing. A brutal clarity.
He looked toward the complex. This was no longer a mission assigned by a questionable handler. This was no longer the Hummingbird team's fight.
This was his.
And Kante wasn't just a target. He was a blood debt that had to be collected.