The cursor blinked at him. Three hours past midnight and the damn thing still blinked.
Marcus Chen rubbed his eyes and squinted at the laptop screen. Twenty-seven pages of research notes stared back.
Tomorrow's presentation loomed—"Psychological Profiles of Historical Snipers: The Mental Framework of Precision Under Pressure." The department head expected something groundbreaking.
Marcus had delivered footnotes and bibliography instead.
Rain hammered the office window. Second floor of UC Berkeley's history building, overlooking the parking lot where his Honda waited.
He'd bought the car used six months ago. Still smelled like the previous owner's cigarettes.
"Häyhä achieved over five hundred confirmed kills in ninety-eight days." Marcus spoke to the empty room, testing how the words sounded.
"His psychological profile suggests an individual capable of entering a dissociative state during combat—"
No. Too academic. Too distant.
He scrolled through digital photos. Simo Häyhä's weathered face. Carlos Hathcock's intense stare. Vasily Zaitsev's confident smile.
These men had killed other men with surgical precision. Marcus studied them like specimens.
His phone buzzed. A text from his advisor: 𝘓𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘸𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘰𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘳𝘰𝘸'𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘺 𝘩𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘣𝘰𝘢𝘳𝘥 𝘪𝘴 𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩.
Pressure. The same pressure these snipers had faced, just different stakes.
Marcus had never held a rifle. Never felt the weight of another person's life balanced on a trigger pull.
But he understood the psychology. The mental framework. The way exceptional individuals transcended normal limitations.
He closed the laptop. The presentation would have to suffice.
The hallway stretched dark and empty. His footsteps echoed against worn linoleum.
Three years of graduate school and he still felt like an imposter walking these halls. Too thin, too pale, too absorbed in other people's wars.
Outside, rain soaked through his jacket before he reached the car. The Honda's engine coughed twice before catching.
Marcus twisted the heater knob. Nothing but cold air.
He pulled onto Bancroft Way, windshield wipers slapping rhythm against the downpour. Street lights smeared past.
His mind wandered back to the research, to the question that haunted every page: What separated these men from ordinary soldiers?
What allowed them to achieve impossible accuracy when everything depended on a single shot?
The stoplight ahead turned yellow.
Marcus pressed the accelerator. He'd make it. Had to make it.
Tomorrow's presentation demanded perfection, just like those historical snipers demanded perfection from themselves. Perfect timing. Perfect placement. Perfect—
The truck ran the red light at forty miles per hour.
Time fractured.
Marcus saw the impact coming—saw it with crystal clarity, like watching through a sniper's scope. The truck's grille filled his peripheral vision.
His hands gripped the steering wheel. His body tensed.
This was how those men must have felt in their final moment before pulling the trigger. Complete awareness. Perfect focus.
The moment when everything else disappeared except the target.
Then darkness.
Then—
Light. Harsh fluorescent light stabbing through his eyelids.
Marcus jerked upright. The movement came too easily. His body felt wrong—stronger, more coordinated. Younger.
The ache in his lower back had vanished. So had the persistent eyestrain from too many late nights reading.
"What the hell?"
The voice belonged to him, but deeper. More confident.
He stood. The ceiling was higher than his apartment. Beige walls. Industrial carpet.
Bunk beds lined the room in military precision. Name tags hung from footlockers: GARCIA, M. SULLIVAN, R. THORNE, M.
Thorne?
Marcus looked down. Military fatigues, perfectly pressed. Combat boots, polished to mirrors.
Dog tags rested against his chest: THORNE, MARCUS / 5923847-TH / SYSTEMS ALLIANCE MARINE CORPS.
"Integration complete."
The voice came from inside his head. Mechanical. Emotionless.
"Absolute Accuracy granted. All projectiles fired by the host will achieve perfect placement regardless of distance, environmental conditions, or target parameters."
Marcus spun around. The room remained empty.
"System termination in progress. Good luck, Marcus Chen."
Silence.
Marcus stared at his hands. They looked different. Callused. Scarred across the knuckles.
These weren't his hands. This wasn't his body.
But it was. Somehow.
The door burst open.
"Rise and shine, Thorne!"
A man built like a concrete block filled the doorway. Drill Instructor chevrons gleamed on his collar. His voice could strip paint.
"Live-fire exercises start in twenty minutes. Time to see if all that training stuck."
The DI's eyes swept the room, lingering on Marcus. "Well? You deaf and dumb, Marine?"
"No, Drill Instructor."
The words came automatically. Marcus had no memory of basic training, no recollection of learning military protocol.
But his mouth knew the responses.
"Then move your ass. Range opens at 0600. You're on deck one, station five."
The DI turned to leave, then paused. "Thorne?"
"Yes, Drill Instructor?"
"Word of advice. Whatever's eating at you, leave it here. The range don't care about your problems.
Only cares whether you can hit what you're aiming at."
The door slammed shut.
Marcus sat on the bunk marked THORNE. His bunk. According to the universe, anyway.
Twenty minutes until live-fire exercises. Twenty minutes to figure out what had happened to his life.
To Marcus Chen's life.
He touched the dog tags. The metal felt real. Cold. The name etched deep into the alloy.
Absolute Accuracy.
The voice in his head had been clear. Every shot would hit its target. Every shot, perfect.
Marcus Chen had spent three years studying men who achieved the impossible through skill and training. Now he possessed something beyond their abilities.
Something supernatural.
But he was no longer Marcus Chen, graduate student. He was Marcus Thorne, Marine.
And in twenty minutes, he'd discover whether the voice in his head had told the truth.
He stood and walked toward whatever waited at the firing range. His body moved with confidence his mind didn't feel.
Muscle memory he'd never earned guided each step.
Outside, rain still fell. But this wasn't Berkeley. This wasn't Earth, 2024.
This was somewhere else entirely.
Someone else entirely.