Thousands of meters above Lanshiang, in the rainy night sky.
Four black figures dropped from the Star Fire stealth command ship's deployment hatch like meteors, plummeting toward the J'avo-occupied blocks below. No parachutes. As they neared the ground, bright blue anti-gravity buffer streams erupted from the backs of their tactical suits.
Four heavy impacts cratered the asphalt, each leaving a shallow pit laced with spiderweb fractures.
Dozens of J'avo mutants on patrol with assault rifles snapped to attention, their crimson compound eyes swiveling in unison.
Chris rose slowly from the crater, cracking his neck with a rapid-fire string of pops. He watched the shrieking mutants charging toward him. No weight in his eyes. Just pure excitement.
He raised the custom tungsten-steel rifle one-handed, didn't even aim, and pulled the trigger.
A blue electromagnetic round tore through the rain. This caliber and kinetic energy would shatter a normal person's collarbone from the recoil even bracing with both hands, but in Chris's grip the weapon sat rock-steady, like it was welded to the air.
The front rank of J'avo looked like they'd been hit by an invisible freight train. Their upper bodies detonated into pink mist mid-stride.
A mutant with an arm warped into a massive bone scythe vaulted from his blind side, slashing straight at Chris's face.
"Captain, watch out!" Piers started to raise his weapon, then saw something that made him question reality.
Chris didn't even look. His left hand shot out, impossibly fast, and clamped down on the steel-hard bone scythe before it connected.
A sickening crack of splintering bone. Chris swung the mutant up one-handed, all two hundred-plus pounds of it, and slammed it into a concrete support column like a ragdoll.
The column collapsed. The mutant's spine shattered segment by segment.
"Jesus..." Piers swallowed hard.
"Don't just stand there. Keep pushing." Becky brushed past him, ice-cold, her electromagnetic sniper rifle humming in sharp, clean bursts as she picked off distant snipers one headshot at a time. Sherry became a streak of blue lightning, carving a vacuum through enemy lines.
As the four of them steamrolled toward the port, dense crossfire erupted from the intersection ahead.
Several massive mutants mid-Chrysalid transformation were blanketed by precisely placed incendiary rounds, thrashing in agony on the ground.
Two familiar figures emerged from cover behind a street corner.
"Chris? Sherry and Becky?" Leon had his assault rifle up. He took one look at the carpet of shredded flesh and Chris holding a heavy electromagnetic rifle in one hand, and his eye twitched. "What the hell did Ryan feed you? You look harder to deal with than a Tyrant."
"Star Fire special. Works pretty well." Chris walked over and looked at Leon and Helena beside him. "What are you two doing here? Ryan said you were wrapping up in Tall Oaks."
"Shadow Force and Secret Service took over cleanup. We got Ashley and Deborah settled on Star Fire's medical ship, then flew straight here." Leon's expression was grim. "Simmons figured out Tall Oaks went sideways and the Vice President survived. He took a Family private jet overnight and ran to Lanshiang. His biggest secret base in Asia is here."
"My only objective is putting him in the ground. I don't care where he's hiding." Helena's jaw was clenched. Her tactical vest was still caked with mud, but her eyes had never been sharper.
"We split up." Chris made the call without hesitation. "Simmons is yours, you and Helena. Sherry, Becky, you go save civilians. The impostor called Carla is on the carrier in the port. She's sitting on intercontinental missiles loaded with C-Virus. That one's mine."
"Got it. We'll split here!" Sherry and Becky nodded.
"Works for me. Once I've got Simmons, drinks on me." Leon racked a fresh magazine into his rifle and vanished with Helena into the rain-soaked streets.
...
At the same time, inside the heavy aircraft carrier anchored offshore.
The bridge control room, once heavily guarded, was now littered with J'avo corpses.
Red alarm lights strobed wildly down the corridors.
"Ada Wong! You think you can stop me?!"
Carla's hysterical scream blasted through the carrier's PA system. That face, identical to Ada's, was projected on the surveillance monitors, twisted with fury and desperation.
"The missile launch sequence is locked in! This is my revenge! This world, and Simmons, will all burn with me!"
The real Ada sat on the main control room's console, legs crossed. She didn't spare the monitor a glance. Her slender fingers flew across the keyboard as she plugged a custom black USB drive bearing the Star Fire logo into the main terminal.
"Revenge? You can't even write your own script. Pathetic shadow."
Ada's tone was flat, dripping with contempt.
She hit enter. The logic bomb Ryan had provided flooded the carrier's systems. The red countdown digits on screen stuttered, then shattered like snowflakes, all of them replaced by glaring ACCESS DENIED warnings.
"What did you do?! My launch authorization... no! This is impossible!" Carla's voice over the PA cracked with despair.
"Just confiscated your toys." Ada pulled the USB drive and hopped off the console with casual grace. "Now be a good girl and sit tight in the lower decks. There's a very angry man outside who just got a serious shot of adrenaline, and he's coming for you."
...
Thousands of meters up, aboard the Star Fire command ship.
Ryan was still sitting on that wide leather sofa, his cup of green tea at the perfect temperature.
"Ryan, the team synced over the ledgers and footage from the Cathedral basement." Jill set a data tablet in front of him. "Vice President Benford is fully conscious. He says as long as the evidence is airtight, he'll take over the White House emergency broadcast network within the hour and make a global announcement."
"Good." Ryan's lips curved into a satisfied smile. "Package everything and send it to Benford. Time to show Simmons what total public annihilation looks like."
With a tap of Ryan's finger, ironclad evidence capable of triggering a political earthquake and destroying The Family for good shot through Star Fire's encrypted satellite network, crossed the Pacific in an instant, and landed in the Vice President's classified inbox.
Ryan picked up his teacup, checked the time, then keyed a special frequency code into the console. Simmons's personal top-level encrypted line.
A few seconds later, the call connected.
"How are things on your end?..." Simmons's voice came through, forcing calm but unable to hide the exhaustion underneath.
"Good evening, Chief Advisor. Or should I say, former advisor." Ryan's voice was leisurely, almost amused.
Dead silence on the other end. Nothing but Simmons's heavy breathing.
"Who is this?!"
"Who I am doesn't matter. What matters is your interior decorating in the Cathedral basement in Tall Oaks. Really tacky."
Ryan took a sip of tea and dropped the words like a bomb, light as air. "Your virus research logs, The Family's financial records, and your not-quite-dead Vice President are all getting ready to meet you at the press conference."
"Impossible! The security systems there..." Simmons's voice finally broke apart, raw with the terror of watching everything crumble.
"Nothing's impossible. Oh, and here's some good news." Ryan's gaze cut through the holographic display to the tallest tower in Lanshiang below. "That perfect fake you're so proud of? Her missile launcher just got bricked. You don't have to worry about her going off the rails anymore. Though I'm not sure if that's good news or bad news for you right now."
"What do you want? Money? Power? The Family can give you..."
"I want you to shut up and wait to die quietly. Next time, don't clone someone who shouldn't be cloned."
Ryan cut the line.
He walked to the bridge's floor-to-ceiling windows and looked down at the vast city flickering with neon in the rain.
The game was over. Now it was a one-sided slaughter.
[This novel is now COMPLETE. Read the entire series right now on Patreon: patreon.com/NiaXD]