The red light pulsed like a heartbeat.
Daniel Rourke's head snapped up as alarms split the quiet, the shriek of klaxons bouncing through steel and glass like the scream of a wounded beast. The war-room's walls shuddered faintly, the vibration crawling through the floor, setting his teeth on edge. The sound was too raw, too close—it carried the weight of incoming fire.
He pushed up from his chair instinctively, boots scraping the polished floor, muscles tightening as if he'd been yanked back years to the desert. His eyes flicked across the boardroom—sleek steel table, projection screens humming with static, executives frozen mid-sentence. But the only voice that cut through was Kane's.
The man's marble façade cracked, just enough to reveal the urgency boiling underneath. His hand pressed hard to the earpiece buried against his temple.
"Perimeter breach," Kane barked. "Multiple hostiles inbound. All sectors brace."
The room exploded into motion. Operatives stormed from side corridors, weapons already drawn, boots pounding like war drums. Commands flew in sharp bursts. Doors slammed open and shut. For a moment, Daniel simply stood, watching the orchestration of chaos—precise, rehearsed, terrifying in its efficiency.
At the head of the table, Marcus Veyra did not flinch.
The magnate rose with deliberate slowness, his expensive suit barely shifting, eyes hooded with the calm of someone who had seen storms before and never once been caught in the rain. His gaze slid past the operatives, past Kane, and locked directly on Daniel.
"Seems your timing is impeccable, Mr. Rourke," Marcus said, his voice low thunder under the sirens. "Care to prove last night wasn't a fluke?"
Before Daniel could answer, the steel blast door banged wide. Two armored operatives marched in with rifles slung crosswise. They moved without hesitation, tossing weapons onto the long table.
Daniel caught one before it even finished its spin across the surface. His hands wrapped around the familiar grip, the weight locking into his bones like it had never left. He shouldered it, stock nestling against muscle memory, barrel aligned with a breathless ease.
His heart kicked harder—not with fear, but with the old surge, the one he'd thought was buried with the uniform they'd stripped from him.
It felt like the battlefield again.
Only this time, he wasn't abandoned.
---
They moved fast. Kane took point, his strides precise, clipped, as if the alarms themselves marched to his cadence. Daniel fell in at his flank, rifle up, eyes slicing across every shadow. Red strobes painted the corridor in violent flashes, walls bleeding with light.
Gunfire cracked somewhere deeper in the compound, harsh and real. The walls shook with concussive thuds, the vibrations climbing up through Daniel's boots and into his chest.
Corner. Sweep. Cover. Advance.
The rhythm came back without thought, his body remembering what the tribunal had tried to erase. He moved like the academy had drilled, like the field had sharpened: rifle extension of muscle, senses cutting through haze.
Ahead, a side door burst inward, two masked intruders spraying wild arcs of bullets. Daniel dropped flat, sights finding the first target. He squeezed—controlled burst. The man fell backward, body jerking, mask cracking against the frame.
Daniel rolled, pressed to cover. The second intruder leaned for angle, barrel swinging toward Kane's silhouette. Daniel didn't think. He pinned the man with suppression fire, forcing him low just long enough for Kane to pivot.
One shot, clean.
The second intruder folded.
Kane's pale eyes flicked Daniel's way, something almost grudging burning behind them. "Not bad," he muttered.
Daniel said nothing. Words didn't matter here. His creed whispered in his skull, the scarred echo of old promises. Always bring them home.
They pressed deeper. Room by room, corridor by corridor, the compound roared with war. Yet the longer Daniel fought, the more something gnawed at him.
The attackers moved with precision—yes. But… too clean.
Every breach was surgical, every line cut with accuracy. And yet their timing was wrong. Their flanks wide open. Their bursts half a beat too slow.
It was wrong. All of it.
---
They broke through into the training atrium, a vast glass-walled chamber now pulsing with strobing red. Smoke machines had triggered, veiling the edges in gray. Daniel counted four silhouettes pouring in through a shattered panel.
Kane dove behind a barricade, barking orders into his comm. Daniel went the other way, his feet pounding across polished tiles, cutting hard flank.
He hit them fast. Two dropped to sharp bursts of fire, rounds stitching into center mass. The third lunged, blade flashing in strobe light. Daniel pivoted, catching the wrist, driving rifle stock into the man's jaw with brutal precision. Bone cracked. He followed through, snapping the neck in a single motion that left the intruder a limp husk collapsing to the floor.
The fourth froze—just long enough. Too long.
Daniel fired. One shot, direct through the chest.
The man crumpled. Smoke curled.
And then—silence.
The alarms cut off. The lights steadied. The red drained away, leaving the atrium cold and still.
Daniel's chest heaved. His rifle trembled faintly in his hands. The bodies lay around him in pools of shadow.
And then they moved.
One sat up, tugging off his mask with shaking fingers. Another leaned back, gasping for breath. One by one, the "dead" rose again—young men and women, sweat soaking their hair, bruises already blooming.
Training operatives.
Actors.
Daniel's mouth went dry.
Kane lowered his weapon, calm sliding back into place as if nothing had cracked it. He pressed two fingers to his earpiece. "End simulation."
The atrium lights brightened to sterile white. The shattered glass dissolved—projected holograms flickering off. Bullet holes in the walls vanished. Even the blood pooled on the floor evaporated into pixels.
Daniel stared, realization burning through him like acid.
It had all been an illusion.
A test.
---
Marcus Veyra entered like a man arriving precisely when he meant to. Which, of course, he had.
Daniel turned, jaw locked. "You staged this?"
Marcus's faint smile was a scalpel. "War is the truest measure of a man. But not all wars are fought in jungles or deserts. Sometimes they're fought here—under our roof. I needed to see what you would do."
Daniel's voice was tight, hard. "You could've just asked."
"Men lie," Marcus said smoothly. "Instinct doesn't."
He stepped closer, his gaze sharp enough to draw blood. "You didn't hesitate. You didn't freeze. You didn't run. You adapted. And most important—you didn't put yourself first. You covered Kane. You flanked for the team. That creed of yours? It's written in your blood. That's why you're standing here now."
Daniel lowered the rifle slowly, his pulse still raw in his throat. Anger burned—anger at being manipulated, at being toyed with, at dancing for an audience. But under it, buried deep, was another truth.
It had felt real.
And he had passed.
---
Kane's pale eyes fixed on him, cold approval settling in. "You handled yourself better than ninety percent of our candidates."
Daniel flicked his gaze between them. "And the other ten?"
Marcus's smile sharpened into something colder. "They're the ones who don't survive the test."
The words pressed down like iron. Daniel's gut clenched. He had survived. He had saved. But Aegis Core didn't just want survivors. They wanted soldiers carved into loyalty by fire.
Marcus extended his hand, palm open, steady. "Welcome to Aegis Core, Daniel Rourke. From this moment forward, you are no longer disposable."
Daniel stared at it. His mind raced with suspicion, with questions unspoken. His past screamed to turn away.
He clasped Marcus's hand. Firm. Reluctant. Final.
Marcus's grip tightened once, sealing it.
The doors hissed.
A figure entered.
She moved with precision that made even Kane stiffen. Tall, sharp-eyed, her stride cut through the air like a blade unsheathed. Her suit was darker than Marcus's, her presence colder than Kane's restraint.
Daniel watched her approach, the rifle still warm in his hands.
She stopped a pace away, her voice cool as ice sliding into glass.
"Mr. Rourke. My name is Colonel Seraphine Dax. I'm not here to welcome you."
Her gaze flicked briefly to Marcus, then back to Daniel, pinning him like a specimen.
"I'm here to determine whether Marcus Veyra has just made the biggest mistake of his career."