“East group’s moving faster than expected. Looks like they’ve got heavy gear,” he warned.
“Benoit’s alpha team,” RITA confirmed. “They’ve got thermal cutters and jammers. ETA five minutes.”
Cosmos opened his mouth to respond—then paused as he saw her.
RITA was gone.
“RITA?” he barked.
A flash on the screen to his left caught his eye. She was outside—fully solid, crouched behind a fallen log with two mercenaries approaching.
“Oh hell no,” Cosmos growled. “RITA! Get your perky holographic ass back inside!”
“Too late,” came her voice over comms, deceptively light. “FRED’s been teaching me hand-to-hand. This one’s mine.”
The feed shifted. Cosmos watched in disbelief and amazement as RITA launched herself forward with military precision. Her fist met a merc’s jaw. He went down like a sack of bricks while her body flashed through it as he collapsed. The other merc turned, spraying the area. RITA reappeared, spinning in an arc to swept the remaining merc’s legs out from under him. Before striking him with a blow that knocked him out cold with a well-placed boot to the head.
“I really like this advanced body. It’s much more stable,” she chirped.
“Damn. I saw that. I’m definitely falling in love here,” Colemuttered.
“Down boy. She’s said she was married,” Lucas added.
“Trust me when I say, you don’t want to piss off FRED,” Cosmos said with a scowl. “RITA, take out the drones.”
“On it, love,” RITA replied, blinking out again.
Explosions rocked the screens and rumbled through the walls of the safe room. Cosmos ignored the echo of screams coming through the mic and the mercenaries falling like dominos on the screen. It was beginning to dawn on them that they were unprepared for what they were dealing with. It didn’t matter. They were expendable. Benoit was using them as disposable distractions.
He didn’t care if there were alien warriors, a deathless soldier, a genius AI, and a booby-trapped cabin run by a man who collected surveillance drones like candy.
A low curse resounded through the feed when Kiki appeared on the screen. He turned in his seat. The door was closed behind him, but he was alone in the room. With a hiss of frustration, he turned back and connected directly to Nikos’s comm.
“Nikos, Kiki has left the safe room. She is coming out,” he warned.
“Damn it,” Nikos muttered.
Twenty-One
The world narrowed to the man in black.
Benoit’s voice was low and melodic, like the echo of a song you couldn’t quite remember but couldn’t get out of your head. Each word slithered through the air, wrapping around Nikos like smoke: thick, cloying, invasive.
Nikos’s jaw clenched as the pressure built. He took a step back, blinking hard as a haze crept into the edges of his mind. It wasn’t just his thoughts that felt sluggish—it was the way the light bent, the way sound dulled, like reality was being smothered by invisible hands.
He shook his head, trying to clear it.
Benoit took a step forward as he took another one back. He drew in a deep breath, trying to clear his head.
Then, like a rush of crisp wind cutting through fog, the haze vanished.
His spine snapped straight. His senses sharpened just as suddenly as they had been dulled.
A familiar warmth touched the edge of his consciousness—soft, protective… fierce. Kiki.
She was there. She’d felt the shift. Felt what Benoit was doing—and stopped it.
His grip on the rifle tightened.
