“You look like shit.” Bella taps her lower lip with a nail, her eyes glancing between John and Casper as they stand around the large circular table in the compound's mission brief room.

  “I feel like shit.” John grumbles, holding his ribs still.

  “Just go to the medical bay, they have all the same special medical tech you were used to back in your special forces days.” Bella winks.

  Casper shrugs, “I was going to let John simmer in it for a while before bringing that particular piece of information to his attention.”

  “Asshole.” John cracks a smile and lets his weight drop down into one of the chairs.

  “Men.” Bella rolls her eyes and takes a seat as well.

  “What's this about men?” Kane asks loudly as he slams open the briefing room doors.

  “Of course you would be interested in men.” John holds out a hand as Kane claps it in his own.

  “Wait...”

  John refuses to let Kane go as he tries to pull away.

  “Fuck off!” Kane finally manages to yank his arm out as he takes up a seat next to John.

  “Bella was just saying how she didn’t understand us, is all,” Casper explains.

  “How you can pound each other into a pulp and then be the best of friends after is beyond me. A fight is a fight.”

  “A fight is a bonding experience,” Kane nods sagely.

  “Have you fought John?” Belle asks.

  “Yea, once, never again though. He kicked my ass. Now we are the best of pals.” Kane extends his hand, and John gives it a meaty high five without a second of hesitation.

  “But hasn’t it been years since you’ve seen him?” Belle cocks an eyebrow.

  “One year, ten years, there is no difference.” Blackbeard echoes the sentiment as enters and grabs his seat around the table.

  “Men...” Bronco rolls her eyes, patting Blackbeard on the shoulders as she passes behind him to get to her own seat.

  “This is what I am saying!” Bella gestures around her. “We need more women on the team...”

  “What, is our masculine aura simply too strong for you?” Kane chides.

  “I believe it is more of a stench than an aura...” Belle notes, wrinkling her nose as she sniffs.

  Kane looks as though he is about to retort, when Spaz walks in and waves a hand in front of his face, prompting the Aussie to instead tuck his nose into his armpit, sniff, and then recoil before trying to quickly regain composure.

  “Where’s the kid at?” Casper asks, craning his neck to see the door.

  “I'm here,” Kid answers casually while adjusting his glasses, making Casper jump slightly.

  “Fuck off…”

  Kane chuckles, handing Kid a crisp $100 bill. He receives money from a few other people, some more reluctantly than others.

  John looks around confused.

  “Running bet. Kid’s got some crazy stealth skills, so does Casper and Bella. A hundred bucks every time one of them manages to slip in somewhere unnoticed,” Kane explains casually.

  John blinks a few times. He also hadn’t seen Kid enter. Was he here in the beginning? If he was, John hadn’t seen him.

  He shakes his head.

  “Yea, we all feel the same way.” Bronco laughs. “Spooky ain’t it?”

  “More like, terrifying.” John admits, crossing his arms.

  These are the best of the best, the top of their class not just among their own special forces but among Blackwood’s special forces. The one percent of the one percent. Casper was right, John didn’t know where he was, but now he has a much better idea.

  “Settle down, we have a briefing to go over.” Blackwood calls out from the doorway, prompting everyone to straighten up and put on their game faces.

  Entering the room, Blackwood positions himself behind the chair that faces the door, with the monitor behind him that displays the logo of their PMC, a three eyed skull with a spear driven through its head. Simple, yet very telling.

  Blackwood clicks a remote, the screen's logo vanishes, and is replaced by the drone view of a town. Brown roofs, brown walls, brown dirt, most definitely Iraq.

  The town itself is positioned at the halfway point between lake Habbaniyah and lake Razazza, where lake Habbaniyah’s outlet stops at a man made dam. The town itself has approximately 12 buildings all in close proximity near the dam site, with a handful of smaller farm buildings positioned near the length of the outlet before expanding out to surround the lakes like tiny barnacles on the back of a whale.

  “Where are the people?” Bella asks, noting the very distinct lack of any human shapes from the drone footage.

  “They are here...” Blackwood clicks the remote, and long range photography shows a view of the town from a slightly elevated position.

  The outlines of vaguely human shapes are visible as dark blotches against the light brown walls of the huts they are in front of. John counts approximately 5 bodies, all of whom set on pikes from ass to mouth, left to rot under the tarps and roof overhangs.

  “What are those circles behind them?” John asks, narrowing his eyes.

  “We don’t know the specifics, but the approximate size and shape resembles what you and Kane found two years back in the Abu Gahr compound.”

  “Fuck me.” Kane whistles.

  “This got you shaking that bad Shell?” Spaz asks, his perfect smile widening at the look of terror on the Ausie's face.

  “It was a fuckin nightmare, yea. I'd rather not go through all that again if I can avoid it.”

  “How about for a nice bonus from Blackwood?” Kid asks, picking his nails.

  “How much?” Kane perks up.

  “One million each.”

  “Fuck Blackwood I’d go to hell for a million of your money.” Kane cracks a crooked smile of his own, any sense of danger or apprehension gone with just a few zero’s.

  “How’d you get the name Shellshock again?” John prods.

  “I told you, you’ll see!”

  Blackwood clears his throat, pulling their attention back to the task at hand.

  “The United States has tasked us with entering the town and doing some digging. The reason you are seeing such shitty intel is because we can’t fly anything closer. Our coms go down, electronics of every type start to fail and we can’t get boots near the place discreetly without a HALO jump to avoid their jammers or detection.”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Damn, day one HALO? Must be our lucky day.” Spaz drums his hands against the table.

  “What's our exfil looking like?” John asks, trying to figure out how the hell they would be getting out of there if getting in was so hard.

  “Alpha exfil is to take out the jammer most likely causing this mess and then get a pickup via Specter. Bravo exfil is a hike to the west, you march until you are cleared from the jammer and again, pickup via Specter, Charlie, our Cas-evac is fifteen clicks east to the road that runs north-south. That will be a pretty hot extraction via land vehicle and only if someone can’t make the hike west.”

  “Not giving us a lot of options, are you Blackwood?” Kane sucks in some air through his crooked teeth.

  “Not a lot of options to give I’m afraid.”

  “Any details on why the feds want us looking at this cult in particular? They don’t have a nuke this time around do they?”

  “No nuclear device, instead they believe that there is something deeper underground. People come into the town but no one leaves. The volume of bodies would be impossible to store even shoulder to shoulder in all 12 buildings around the town's center. Because of the jamming tech, intel about the place is lacking. Feds want eyes inside to confirm if their suspicion of a tunnel network is true.”

  “Damn, no door kicking?” Kid lets his head drop.

  “Not this time, boots on the ground recon only, it’s John’s first mission after all. I’ll give you all a HALO but I'm not so cruel as to send him in hot on his first day down range.”

  “Yes you are,” Bella notes in an almost hum.

  Blackbeard and Casper both nod in agreement.

  Blackwood cracks a smile of his own.

  “ROI is standard as per your contracts for operation in Iraq, you all do what needs doing, so long as we get results. It goes without saying you will be without comms or air support. Recon the location, give me details, and if you need to do anything else while you’re there make sure it's clean. The feds are itching for intel and it does us better to give them a steady stream as opposed to solving the problem for them. They want it solved? That's a different contract.”

  John can’t help but scowl a little bit. It was damn near evil but who is he to judge? The government has more than enough money to spend, and god knew he didn’t see much of it after getting out.

  It’s easier to stomach the fact that they would be doing only what is necessary, not what is right, if he considers the contract money backpay for all the times the VA fucked him both while getting out and after being out.

  It doesn’t look like anyone else has hang-ups, or if they do they aren’t showing it.

  “The bird will be in the air at 1800 hours local tomorrow. Take the day to make your preps, and Kid, show John to the playground and get him whatever he needs.”

  “Yes sir.” Kid stands, as do the rest of the mercenaries.

  Following Kid out, John is greeted with a self satisfied smile and a twinkling in the kid’s eyes.

  “What's got you so damn happy?” John chuckles, following him out of the main building and out into the exterior pathways.

  “You’ll love it. I hear you enjoy fixing things up?”

  “It’s a hobby of mine. Cars, electronics, machinery, anything that moves really.”

  “Then yea, you’ll love it.”

  John has to admit, his curiosity is piqued, and it only grows as he is brought across the tarmac to the air hangar that’s remained closed the whole time he has been here.

  Kid approaches a side door and scans his key card, entering inside to an airlock style chamber, before scanning his card on the next set of doors before finally being allowed inside.

  John’s mouth falls open in awe, as an engineer’s wet dream is splayed out before him, metaphorical legs spread wide to receive—

  He shakes his head, he doesn’t like where his mind is going with that particular analogy and has to keep himself under control before he starts drooling all over the floor.

  The hangar features a shiny new Williams fabricator, essentially an industrial 3D printer with a sizable catalog of materials on standby. Engines lay half open on mounts near the back, weapons pulled apart on the smithing table, among a number of other tools that would make any inventor practically cream—

  John smacks himself in the face. Dammit it’s been a while. He is fucking losing it over some tools.

  “It’s all good, it’s a nice spot. Blackwood really pulled out the stops for this place.” Kid walks over to one of the tables where a pair of heavy looking gauntlets rest. They resembled something like medieval knights armor, though made from a heavy coyote brown painted metal, with radiator like vents cut into the sides at a steep angle.

  “What are those?”

  “Shellshock’s gauntlets, made ‘em myself for when things go hand to hand. Makes a massive concussive blast, a shockwave that directs itself to the target of the punch. Compensators out the side offset the blast so you don’t rip off your arm. Here, take a look.” Kid hands the gauntlets over to John, who eagerly inspects them.

  Turning the gauntlets over in his hands, he grabs a flashlight off the table and clicks it on to see inside.

  “What material are you using for the shock dampeners inside?”

  “It's a custom composite of polyurethane and sorbothane. I coated the insides entirely in the substance with buildups here and here for the points of highest impact.”

  “Right... that’s smart, and your compensator, its back blast is redirected via the venting systems, but that would also counter the initial impact. If you add smaller, auxiliary vents around the surface using some gates you can direct flow across the surface to have Kane pick the direction the compensation blast directs, giving him finer control of his own movements.”

  “Right... shit you are so right. But how would we protect the routing chambers? The compression is enough to—”

  John taps the inside of the glove with a knowing smile.

  “Ohhhh! Use the custom compound itself to direct the flow, that would even make it spongier and even more shock absorbent!”

  “You were right kid, I do love this place.” John runs a hand over his chin, his mind already spinning with a million ideas. Sure he is good at fixing things but that doesn’t necessarily make him a good engineer. However, being an avid user of a number of high level experimental pieces of tech over his years of special forces operation gave him quite the discerning mind for how he might make things better. On top of this, even with special forces funding, the military liked to keep their wallets closed, meaning modifications had to be made as combat went longer than expected or a particular item went without proper servicing.

  He might not be a genius inventor like the Williams family, but with a shop like this he sure as shit can come up with at least a handful of good ideas.

  “As for what we typically use for our HALO jumps...” Kid rushes over to a large crate where some other more finished projects sit. “This is the first one I made. We have a bunch of newer ones on standby so feel free to use this model to get familiar with the functions.”

  Kid hands John a helmet, something between the prototype m40 gas mask and the HGU-55 fighter pilot helmet. A ballistic glass window spans from just below the eyebrow to the nose in one panel, not unlike a motorcycle helmet but much more flush to the face. The respirator piece sits snug against the bridge of the nose and extends down to the bottom of the chin making a nice firm seal. The space where the filters would be has nothing, instead it features only very minimal protrusions of solid semicircles that weigh next to nothing.

  “It feels nice.” John says, his voice coming out clear as he puts it on. “What are these?” he taps the semicircles.

  “I call em gills, the membrane inside helps function like a second set of lungs. It separates the gasses in the air and even in water. It strips oxygen, stores it, and lets you use it. Works as deep as the glass will hold under water and as high as oxygen exists.”

  “God damn. That's some next level shit. You made that in this machine shop?”

  “With a lot of math and the Williams fabricator, yea.”

  “Well I'll be...”

  “There is more!” Kid presses a button on the masks temple, the world shifting to display a rudimentary heads up display over the glass panel, showing a local radar that pings the other masks in the crate, as well as his own vitals and the flatline vitals of the other masks

  “You ever consider adding something like night vision or thermals to this thing?” John asks, looking around, watching the display from the corners of his eyes.

  “I’ve wanted to, but can’t figure it out.” Kid admits.

  “Hmmm. I'll swing by, let's see if we can work something out together then?”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Kid extends his hand for a fist bump, and John happily obliges.

  It’s nice having someone who can talk shop. He was so used to being the only person willing to fix shit he forgot what it was like to bounce ideas around. He could spend weeks in a place like this and never get bored.

  Casper wanted John to find something to live for? Fuck it, it might just be this. The chance to wrench away on some tech and plug in numbers for a fabricator had his heart rate spike enough to display on the HUD.

  “Now, let's go out and get you a name!” Kid turns off the mask as John hands it back to him.

  “What, just John won't do?”

  “Nope, everyone needs a field name.”

  “How about—”

  “No no, everyone else picks it for you, it's tradition.” Kid corrects, making John sigh. “If it helps, I don’t think we’ve picked a bad one yet.”

  “Bronco? Because she's ‘built like a truck’?” John raises an eyebrow.

  “Well, one bad one. But she likes it so it barely counts.”

  “You better not fuck me over, Kid.”

  “No promises.” Kid winks. “Now let's bounce. We got a HALO jump to do.”

  “Right, see you on the bird.”

  “See you on the bird!” Kid fist bumps John again as they both head for the door.