Maverick was already pulling on his matte-black tactical gear. The Alpha Strain wasn’t a virus or a weapon. It was a cure. A genetically tailored phage capable of erasing a specific, manufactured flaw in human DNA—a flaw the Serpent’s Hand had secretly seeded into a third of the world’s population ten years ago. If they destroyed the strain, they could hold humanity hostage to their own genetic defects.
“You never learned, Fenris,” Maverick whispered. “The cure isn’t in the vial. It’s in the will to protect it.” maverick igi
“I’m not here to save them,” Maverick said, calm as a frozen lake. “I’m here to save you from yourself.” Maverick was already pulling on his matte-black tactical
He slung his rifle and rappelled silently down the back wall of the gallery, landing behind a row of server racks. He removed his helmet, then his boots. Barefoot, he crept to the edge of the crowd. He found a lab coat, shrugged it on, and smeared coolant grease on his face. Then he stood up, hands raised, and stumbled into the hostage group. A genetically tailored phage capable of erasing a
Maverick climbed the maintenance gantry to the overhead walkways, looking down into the cryo-vault’s viewing gallery. Fenris stood in the center, tall, shaven-headed, with a mechanical arm that glinted with chrome and malice. He held a dead-man’s switch. Around him, fifteen heavily armed mercenaries. The hostages were huddled against the far wall—scientists, janitors, a group of children on a school tour.
Maverick had two options. Go loud and risk the switch. Or go deep.
Inside, the air smelled of ozone and copper. The main atrium was a cathedral of glass and steel, now strung with motion sensors and IR lasers. Maverick moved like smoke. He disabled two guards with silent, brutal efficiency—one dart to the neck, one disarmed and knocked unconscious with the edge of his hand. He took their comms, patched into their frequency, and heard Fenris’s voice for the first time in eight years.