They appeared like ghosts through the smoke—six figures moving with inhuman synchronization across the tarmac. Even from a distance, Kasper recognized the threat. Their copper ports pulsed in perfect unison, creating harmonic patterns he'd never seen before.
"Nexus units," he muttered, silver tracery pulsing beneath his skin as his adaptations processed the tactical implications. The exoskeleton grafted to his spine whirred softly, compensating for his exhaustion. The bitter taste of adrenaline and copper blood lingered in his mouth from the earlier firefight.
Across the battlefield, the six enhanced soldiers turned simultaneously toward the delta-seven entrance—exactly where Rivera's extraction team would emerge with his wife and daughter.
Kasper didn't hesitate. His KS-23 felt unnaturally heavy in his hands, the specialized shotgun designed for his enhanced strength now testing the limits of his endurance. The silver tracery flowed like mercury beneath his skin, creating adaptive pathways to bypass damaged tissue and push beyond normal human limitations.
"Command, this is Void," he transmitted, voice raw from hours of combat. "Nexus formation approaching delta-seven. Intercepting now."
Chen's voice crackled through his enhancement ports. "Negative, Void. Return to terminal. That's a direct order." Her copper ports pulsed with urgent patterns, a rare break in her usually controlled demeanor.
Kasper cut the transmission, already moving.
The first Nexus unit sensed his approach before the others, copper ports flaring with alert patterns. The synchronized turn of all six heads made Kasper's stomach lurch—one consciousness distributed across six bodies.
His exoskeleton whined as he pushed it beyond safety parameters, the enhanced musculature accelerating him across the tarmac. The KS-23 barked once, twice, the specialized ammunition designed for enhanced targets tearing through reinforced armor. The acrid smell of scorched enhancement fluid filled the air.
One Nexus soldier staggered, copper ports flickering as enhancement fluid leaked from a shoulder wound. But the remaining five didn't break formation or register concern—they simply adjusted their positioning, filling the tactical gap with mathematical precision.
"Prototype detected," they announced in perfect unison, voices creating an unnerving harmonic that raised the hairs on Kasper's neck. "Priority objective acquired."
The distance between them collapsed in seconds. Kasper fired again, catching a second soldier in the leg, but then they were on him—moving like a single organism with twelve arms, twelve legs, and one distributed consciousness.
Pain exploded through Kasper's side as an armor-piercing round found a gap in his exoskeleton. Silver tracery flowed immediately to the wound, creating temporary neural bypasses around damaged nerve clusters. He staggered, narrowly avoiding a precision strike that would have shattered his enhancement ports. Warm blood trickled down his side, soaking his combat suit.
"You fight as individuals," the Nexus units said in their disturbing chorus. "We fight as one."
A blow caught Kasper in the sternum, the impact driving the air from his lungs. His silver tracery flared, adaptive pathways forming to maintain consciousness despite oxygen deprivation. He dropped to one knee, exoskeleton servos whining in protest.
Five synchronized rifles aimed at his head, copper ports pulsing victory patterns.
"Your adaptations will join the network," they intoned.
For a heartbeat, their copper glow morphed in Kasper's perception—shifting to the cold fluorescent lights of the processing facility where Ghost, Circuit, and Scope had died. Sarah's face flashed through his mind, her final betrayal and death reopening wounds his silver tracery couldn't heal. The momentary dissociation cost him precious reaction time, his silver-traced hands moving a fraction too slowly.
"Wake up, silver!" Torres' voice cut through the memory fog, snapping Kasper back to the present just as the Nexus units prepared to fire.
The air split with the distinctive crack of Vega's rifle. One of the Nexus soldiers jerked backward, a precision shot shattering a critical enhancement port at the base of the skull. The synchronized movements of the others faltered momentarily—the network recalibrating to the loss of a node.
"I told you to watch your six," Vega called from an elevated position near the maintenance buildings, her MAB 38's targeting system already locking onto her next target. Her voice carried the cold precision of a former military sniper who never wasted a word or a bullet.
The momentary disruption was all Kasper needed. Silver tracery flared visibly across his exposed skin as he rolled away from the kill zone, exoskeleton compensating for torn muscle tissue. His KS-23 came up in a fluid movement, catching a Nexus soldier in the torso at near point-blank range.
Torres appeared from behind a damaged transport, his chrome-plated Beretta delivering precision shots to exposed enhancement port clusters on the nearest target. The veteran's tactical eye whirred as it calculated trajectories through the smoke-filled battlefield.
"Three o'clock, vulnerable junction point," he barked, his clipped military cadence unmistakable. "Diaz, suppressive fire!"
Diaz flanked from the opposite side, the big man's modified MAB 38 laying down suppressive fire. "These copper bastards don't die right, no?" he called, religious medallion catching the light as he vaulted a barricade. Unlike Torres' economic speech, Diaz's words tumbled out in a rush, his accent thickening under stress. "Santa María, guide my bullets!"
The Nexus units recalibrated instantly, copper ports pulsing as they established a defensive formation. Their movements remained synchronized but had lost the perfect harmony from moments earlier. Four remaining soldiers moved like fingers of the same hand, covering each other's vulnerabilities without a word exchanged.
"They're sharing tactical data through their enhancement networks," Moreno shouted from his position twenty meters behind them, fingers dancing across his portable interface. His thin face illuminated by the glow of scrolling code. "Attempting disruption now! Three-second window coming up!"
For a split second, the copper ports on all four Nexus soldiers flickered—just long enough for Kasper to capitalize. Silver tracery flowing like quicksilver, he crossed the distance to the nearest soldier in a blur of motion, enhanced reflexes guiding his hands to the precise weakness in the copper enhancement architecture.
His fingers found the primary neural junction beneath armored plating, silver tracery briefly interfacing with copper enhancement. The soldier convulsed as conflicting signals cascaded through its system, eyes rolling back in their sockets.
The remaining three Nexus soldiers compensated instantly, concentrating fire on Kasper's position with inhuman precision. Rounds tore through the air where he'd been standing a heartbeat earlier, his silver-traced reflexes barely keeping him ahead of their targeting algorithms. The concrete where he'd stood exploded in a shower of dust and fragments.
Without warning, the Nexus units' copper ports shifted to an unfamiliar pulsing pattern. Their eyes rolled back simultaneously, revealing only whites as their consciousness seemed to withdraw from their physical forms.
"What the hell—" Torres began.
The answer came with horrifying clarity. Every operational enhancement port in the vicinity—including those in Torres' tactical eye, Vega's targeting system, and Moreno's interface—began to emit copper-toned feedback patterns. Even Kasper's silver tracery momentarily took on a copper sheen as the Nexus network attempted to force-integrate their systems.
"They're trying to hijack our enhancements!" Moreno cried out, his interface sparking violently against his fingers. "Direct neural intrusion!"
Diaz, the least enhanced of them all, was the only one unaffected. "Rip them out!" he shouted, already moving to Torres' side to physically disconnect his friend's tactical eye.
Kasper's silver tracery burned like acid beneath his skin as it fought the copper intrusion. His vision split—half seeing the battlefield, half seeing through the Nexus units' networked perspective. The Director's programming flashed through the copper signal: capture the prototype, eliminate the rest.
"We can't take them head-on!" Torres shouted, yanking his tactical eye's connection free with a grunt of pain. Blood seeped from a fresh wound in his leg, enhancement ports along his thigh flickering with damage-assessment patterns. "They're calculating our movements faster than we can execute!"
"Diaz, now!" Kasper ordered, his silver tracery fighting back against the copper intrusion, reclaiming control system by system.
The demolitions expert had used the chaotic exchange to place charges at key structural points around the battlefield. At Kasper's signal, he triggered the detonation sequence. Not to kill—but to disrupt.
Concrete barriers erupted in precisely calculated patterns, sending debris and dust clouds between the Nexus soldiers and their targets. Not enough to harm, but enough to break line-of-sight and sensor connectivity. The blast wave washed over them all, carrying the smell of explosive compound and pulverized concrete.
"¡Vaya con Dios!" Diaz shouted through the dust cloud, a fierce grin visible through the settling debris. His normally jovial face hardened with purpose as he reloaded. "Let's see them calculate through that!"
For critical seconds, the Nexus network faltered as environmental interference disrupted their shared tactical awareness. Kasper felt it through his silver tracery—the momentary confusion as distributed consciousness struggled to reestablish cohesion.
Vega exploited the opening with cold precision. Three shots in rapid succession found vulnerable junction points between armor plates, targeting the copper enhancement architecture beneath. Not kill shots, but system disruptions.
"Their network depends on synchronized ports," Moreno called, interface lighting his features with a ghostly glow. His voice pitched high with excitement as he analyzed real-time data. "Target the tertiary clusters at the base of the skull! Pattern recognition suggests a 78% vulnerability!"
Kasper relayed the information through combat sign language, his team adjusting their aim accordingly. They'd fought together long enough that words were unnecessary—a flick of his silver-traced fingers conveying tactical adjustments instantly.
But the Nexus soldiers were adapting, their copper ports cycling through recalibration patterns. Where individual soldiers would have panicked or hesitated, the networked consciousness simply rerouted around damaged pathways with algorithmic efficiency.
"Fall back to the terminal!" Kasper ordered, silver tracery pulsing with tactical calculations. "Covering fire, alternating pattern!"
Torres and Diaz moved first, laying down suppressive fire while retreating toward the terminal entrance. Torres moved with precision despite his injury, each shot placed with economy of motion. Diaz's style was more chaotic but equally effective, his larger frame providing covering fire for the smaller man.
Vega provided overwatch from her elevated position, each shot finding vulnerable enhancement clusters with uncanny precision. "Last magazine," she called, her normally stoic voice tight with concentration. "Make it count!"
Moreno continued electronic countermeasures, his damaged interface sparking occasionally with the strain. "Thirty seconds until their adaptive protocols fully recalibrate," he warned, sweat beading on his forehead as he worked feverishly.
Kasper held position, exoskeleton whining as it compensated for injuries that would have incapacitated an unenhanced human. The silver tracery beneath his skin pulsed with accelerating patterns, burning through biological resources at an unsustainable rate to maintain combat effectiveness. His vision tunneled briefly, black edges creeping in as his system struggled to compensate.
The Nexus soldiers advanced with mechanical precision, copper ports synchronizing as they reestablished network cohesion. Each shot they fired came progressively closer to finding its mark as their targeting algorithms incorporated new data.
A round grazed Kasper's shoulder, the impact sending feedback surges through his exoskeleton's neural interfaces. Pain bloomed like molten metal through his nervous system, silver tracery struggling to establish workarounds. The smell of his own scorched flesh reached his nostrils.
Another shot caught Diaz in the side as he provided covering fire for Torres. The big man stumbled but remained upright, religious medallion clutched in his free hand as he continued firing.
"Brother's hit!" Torres called, his tactical eye assessing the wound even as he dragged Diaz toward the terminal entrance. "Upper abdominal perforation, possible enhancement damage."
Vega's position suddenly erupted in concrete dust as concentrated fire from two Nexus soldiers located her sniper nest. She rolled away from the impact, but not before taking a hit that shattered enhancement ports along her shoulder. Her cry of pain cut through the battlefield cacophony, raw and human against the mechanical efficiency of their adversaries.
"Moreno, get Vega!" Kasper ordered, silver tracery flaring visibly across his skin as he drew the Nexus units' attention with a direct assault.
His KS-23 roared, specialized ammunition finding vulnerabilities in the lead soldier's armor. The Nexus unit staggered but didn't fall, copper ports cycling damage control patterns as the networked consciousness compensated for the injury.
Kasper's exoskeleton gave a high-pitched warning tone as it approached catastrophic failure, overtaxed systems beginning to short-circuit. The silver tracery pulsed erratically beneath his skin, evolutionary adaptations fighting to maintain combat functionality despite mounting biological strain.
A Nexus soldier flanked him with inhuman speed, enhanced reflexes anticipating Kasper's dodge. The stock of a rifle caught him across the temple, sending him sprawling. His vision fragmented into kaleidoscopic shards, silver tracery working frantically to maintain consciousness. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth as his teeth cut into his cheek.
Through tunneling vision, he saw Moreno reaching Vega, helping her toward the terminal entrance where Torres and Diaz had already reached safety. His team would survive—if he could buy them enough time.
The Nexus soldiers converged on his position, copper ports pulsing with satisfaction patterns as they surrounded their primary target. Their rifles aimed with perfect synchronization, ready to deliver disabling rather than lethal shots. The Director wanted him intact.
Kasper's hand found a fallen piece of rebar, silver tracery flowing along his arm as adaptations enhanced muscle response beyond sustainable levels. With one explosive movement, he drove the improvised weapon through a gap in the nearest soldier's armor, finding the critical junction where enhancement architecture interfaced with the spinal column.
The networked consciousness faltered again—more severely this time as the soldier collapsed. The remaining two Nexus units staggered momentarily, copper ports cycling recalibration patterns as they adjusted to the abrupt loss of a node.
It was enough. Kasper's silver tracery flared one final time, pushing his damaged systems beyond safe parameters. He broke through their closing circle, exoskeleton screaming in protest as it delivered one final burst of acceleration.
Each step toward the terminal sent spears of agony through his nervous system, enhancement rejection warnings flashing across his peripheral vision. Behind him, the Nexus soldiers regained coordination, their movements once again synchronized as they pursued with relentless efficiency.
"Door's closing!" Torres shouted from the terminal entrance, his tactical eye calculating trajectories and time intervals with military precision. "Ten seconds, Void!"
Kasper's world narrowed to those final meters—each one purchased with biological resources he couldn't spare. The silver tracery burned beneath his skin, consuming muscle tissue for emergency energy as his battered systems reached absolute limits. The ground beneath his feet seemed to ripple and distort as his perceptual systems began to fail.
A round caught him in the back, the impact driving him to his knees mere meters from safety. Error messages cascaded through his enhancement ports as critical systems began shutting down. The silver tracery pulsed once, twice, then began receding beneath his skin—evolutionary survival protocols drawing resources away from non-essential functions.
Strong hands grabbed him—Torres and Diaz dragging him the final distance as security teams provided covering fire from the terminal entrance. Armored doors began sliding closed as the Nexus soldiers closed the distance with inhuman speed.
The last thing Kasper saw before the doors sealed was their copper ports pulsing in perfect unison, targeting solutions resolving across their networked consciousness. Then darkness as the security protocols engaged, massive barriers separating them from the hunters outside.
"Crazy silver bastard," Torres muttered, applying emergency biofoam to Kasper's wounds. The veteran's own leg leaked blood and enhancement fluid, yet he worked with unwavering focus. "That's twice today you've nearly gotten yourself killed."
"Third time's the charm," Kasper managed, silver tracery pulsing weakly as adaptive functions struggled to stabilize critical systems. He coughed, a fine spray of blood misting the air.
Diaz knelt beside him, massive hands surprisingly gentle as he helped Torres with the medical intervention. "You should have seen the look on their copper faces when you jabbed that rebar," he said, attempting to lighten the mood despite the pain evident in his eyes. "Worth getting shot for, no?"
Across the terminal interior, orderly chaos reigned as evacuation procedures continued. Military personnel directed civilians toward waiting transport aircraft while medical teams treated the wounded. Security forces maintained defensive positions at all entry points, buying precious minutes for the evacuation.
"Can you stand?" Torres asked, injecting a stimulant compound directly into Kasper's primary enhancement port.
Silver tracery flared briefly as the compound hit his system, temporary chemical pathways establishing where biological ones had failed. Kasper nodded, allowing Torres to help him upright. The world tilted alarmingly before stabilizing.
"Command center," he said, each word requiring conscious effort. "Rivera needs to know—the Nexus units aren't standard copper-enhanced.
The Director is deploying prototype tech."