Poland.
Outskirts of Warsaw.
Military camp of the 3rd Infantry Division of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Poland.
General Mike Gardner was smoking his sixth cigar, nervously glancing at the vintage mechanical watch on his wrist while tapping his free knuckles against the desk.
The intuition of a battle-hardened soldier was practically screaming of impending trouble in what should have been a routine operation.
Strictly speaking, his division was only stationed here for backup; ideally, they wouldn’t even have to lift a finger.
Ideally, he repeated to himself, his face twisting in displeasure.
As if anything in this godforsaken world has ever gone strictly according to plan.
Mike was a seasoned veteran who had skirted the edge of death more than once, a fact evidenced by his own body, more than half of which had been replaced by metal.
His liver, kidneys, lungs, eyes, and limbs were all high-grade, military-spec chrome.
It wasn’t because a desk-bound general frequently engaged in frontline combat or because he had an obsession with cybernetics; it was simply that his original “spare parts” had been blown up, pulverized, incinerated, poisoned, and everything else down the list.
With that kind of history, a gut feeling for danger inevitably begins to function like a finely tuned radar, warning of trouble well in advance.
And right now, it was pinging constantly, even though there was seemingly no reason for it.
This was an operation honed “to a T” and executed dozens of times before, overseen by the exact same people whose competence the general trusted completely—so where could trouble possibly come from?
His own officers?
Don’t make him laugh; Gardner trusted every single one of them—some simply due to their character, and others because he held a tight steel grip on their livelihoods.
That left the possibility of an outside threat, but…that sounded downright fantastical.
He had forty thousand active-duty soldiers and officers under his command, fully equipped with matching military gear and cybernetic enhancements—and that was completely ignoring the armored vehicles and heavy tech, which every poorly rated infantry squad possessed in the second half of the 21st century.
To go against a force like that in the open, one would need a full-scale army, not to mention a way to march it straight to the capital.
Undetected.
Modern technology might resemble magic in certain areas, but not to that extent.
So the old soldier fretted, racking his brain and occupying his anxious mind with the one thing that still calmed his nerves: smoking.
The authorities certainly didn’t need to look for trouble from Gardner himself.
Over the course of his military career, this skilled tactical commander—who never particularly lusted after political power—had learned a simple baseline postulate: reputation is priceless.
If you possess the right kind of reputation, everything else will sooner or later fall into your lap.
That is exactly what happened to the former NUSA army officer, tossed onto the scrap heap the exact same day his patrons in the Pentagon were stripped of their power and their own analytical brains by way of a very high-caliber bullet to the head.
Yet, Mike remained untouched.
Why?
Reputation!
The general had spent his entire life building a reputation as a soldier honest to his very marrow, capable of military cunning but utterly incapable of betrayal.
Given his word?
He would die trying, but he would deliver.
Formed an alliance?
He would remain fiercely loyal to the end.
It was this exact reputation as an upright man, for whom his own word was anything but a hollow sound, that allowed him to get off quite easily when his faction fell from the Olympus of power.
They simply cast him aside and forgot about him, letting him keep his cyberware and property while granting him a handsome pension, because in the eyes of the victors, he wasn’t an enemy—just a loser.
And it was this exact reputation that eventually brought the Polish ambassador to his doorstep with an offer to enlist in the service of a nation going through far from its finest hour.
He accepted.
Army reformation, streamlining structures, direct backing from the president, massive funding, and absolutely zero subtle political schemes!
What could be better for an honest soldier who genuinely loved his trade?
Perhaps a good salary, a spacious house, and a beautiful wife with a pack of kids.
And his new superiors gave him all of that, including the wife.
Sometimes, having access to the most extensive and lucrative black market in Europe carries its perks—for instance, the ability to approach geneticists unbound by corporate obligations, state laws, or medical ethics.
For a couple of briefcases stuffed with eddies, they could grow you a significant other with a pre-selected appearance, personality, and a hormonally pre-programmed devotion to you.
Amoral?
Mike Gardner didn’t see it that way.
First of all, his own desire was what breathed life into his spouse in the first place; second, he wasn’t some kind of psycho who would mistreat the poor thing.
Even the most hardened sadist would treat a person who loves them unconditionally with a gentler hand, to say nothing of the more-than-pleasing appearance of said person.
And finally, human beings spend their lives searching for meaning anyway, whereas individuals born with a specific purpose receive that answer from the very moment of their birth, granting them the luxury of dedicating their entire existence to the cause for which they brought into the world.
Plus, Mike himself was already way too old to be going out on dates with young girls, and tracking down a decent—or even just sane—woman in modern realities was an arduous task even for someone with his resources.
A gold-digger?
Easily!
But that wouldn’t be a beloved fiancée or the future mother of your children; it would be mere meat for a roll in the hay.
Even then, men of his financial stature preferred to purchase high-end androids specialized for that sort of business, who didn’t play mind games.
The only exceptions were old conservatives and lovers of antiquity, like certain Asians, who clung to the old ways with the frantic ferocity of a starving viper gripping its favorite prey.
In short, Mike Gardner was far from the worst kind of man.
He was true to his word but possessed flexible enough principles to actually have them, and his qualifications, forged through years of military campaigns, added heavy weight to his value as one of Skalk’s men—painting a massive bullseye on his back…though no one had managed to hit it yet.
Frontline officers, if they are the real deal, nurture paranoia with love and tenderness, coddling it like a favorite child because their life and health depend on it.
A military officer looking through a door peephole without a pistol in hand?
What kind of fairy tales are you trying to sell me here?!
Even now, sitting in his office in the dead center of troops fiercely loyal to him, the general was dressed not in a field uniform, convenient and practical though it was, but in a full suit of heavy armor, guaranteed to be breached only by electromagnetic weapons or a laser.
It wasn’t as comfortable, it was hot, it pinched in certain spots, and it hindered free movement, but it was safe.
Just like the presence of a mini-arsenal of modified firearms in his office, a couple of automated turrets, mines rigged in the door frame, and an armored desk with a built-in flamethrower.
If he’d had a bit more time, he would have stationed a couple of robots in here too—and not those pathetic excuses for real soldiers, but true military hardware: walking tanks packed with missiles and heavy machine guns.
A knock at the door broke his train of thought, and a sleek female silhouette stepped into the room, clad in a tight-fitting netrunner bodysuit.
“Kalyn,” the general nodded to his chief network security expert.
“What’s the word?”
“Business as usual,” she replied, taking a seat in an armchair in the corner of the room where a small guest area was set up, her shoulder twitching slightly in irritation.
“A few overconfident idiots trying to breach the military network ‘just for the hell of it.'” The venom dripping from her lips clearly reflected her opinion on the intellect of such individuals.
“A mountain of spam coming from the external Net the second we hooked into the municipal servers, and a handful of shadow fixers checking if they can buy some military hardware and combat stimulants.”
“They’ve completely lost their fear,” the man nodded, internally acknowledging the brewing necessity to thin out the over-bold criminals once again.
“You didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary, for sure?”
“No,” she shook her head in denial.
“Why, is something cooking?”
He and Kalyn had worked together for quite some time, making them close associates if not friends.
They knew each other inside out, which was why they allowed themselves to drop protocol and other military hierarchy fluff when behind closed doors.
“How bad?” she arched an eyebrow.
“Bad enough to keep a fully loaded gun and a dozen spare magazines within arm’s reach.”
“Hmm,” came the thoughtful reply.
“That’s bad,” the mistress of the Net and software concluded, leaning her head back.
She trusted the general’s premonitions; there hadn’t been a single instance where he’d missed an incoming problem.
It was like magic to some people…or just the excellent work of a subconscious mind picking up on underlying indicators far earlier than a sluggish conscious mind.
People called it intuition.
“Bel—get down!” Whatever Mike intended to say remained a mystery, as a pair of EMP grenades flew into the office through the abruptly forced door, detonating instantly.
It was a calculated toss by someone experienced, capable of setting a timer down to fractions of a second.
The netrunner, whose cyberware was located predominantly in her head, was fried and knocked out on the spot.
The general, however, merely grimaced, diving behind his reinforced desk and pulling out his favorite “Carnage” shotgun from Budget Arms, modified by military tech-smiths.
With his very first shot, he took out two operators who decided to push their luck after the blast, assuming the EMP had disabled the general as well.
Unluckily for them, being a heavy cyborg, he had taken immaculate care to shield his cybernetics against the primary hazards to metal: EMPs and water.
Without waiting for more enemies to close in, he tossed a fragmentation grenade into the doorway.
He didn’t particularly expect to catch anyone with the blast, but it could buy him a couple of seconds, which he would gladly spend rebooting his turrets and prepping the flamethrower.
While his hands executed the tasks automatically, his mind frantically analyzed the unfolding situation.
The men rushing the doorway were his own personal bodyguards, which, in the general’s mind, should have been impossible.
He had personally hand-picked these people, pulling many off the streets and giving them a ticket to a better life; he was certain of their loyalty.
Not just out of a sense of gratitude, but due to their institutional attachment to him—should he die or lose his post, they would be kicked out of the army, stripped of their implants, denied state benefits, and stripped of their handsome salaries.
Given that he kept an extremely close watch on their characters and habits, ruthlessly discharging anyone greedy or dependent on vices, he refused to believe anyone would choose to trade a stable income and the prospect of a dignified pension for a reckless gamble that would leave them without a patron, a job, or state backing, but with a pile of eddies and a whole list of enemies, most of whom were literal hounds of war.
There were no such idiots among his men.
Activating his defenses and keeping his sights trained on the door frame, he attempted to establish contact with his second-in-command, but the comms channel was dead.
Are they jamming us?
he thought.
On my own base?
He fully grasped the sheer depth of the problem.
“General, please, come to your senses!” a voice bellowed from beyond the door.
“Why are you doing this?!” a different voice shouted.
“He’s gone cyberpsycho!” a third chimed in with theatrical hysteria.
The little bastards, he thought, preparing to deliver a lethally unpleasant surprise to his adversaries.
He didn’t know how these unknown entities had managed to buy off his guard, much less how they had pulled it off right under his nose, but the old soldier knew how to keep aces up his sleeve.
Yes, his men were protected against fragmentation grenades by both armor and chrome, but he kept a couple of laser babies right here.
Prototypes fresh out of Militech’s labs, capable of firing dozens of laser beams with a five-square-meter kill radius.
Catching a blast from that was a death sentence, especially in a cramped, windowless room with half-meter-thick walls.
Even temporary military structures were engineered by him to withstand an artillery barrage.
Tossing two grenades into both ends of the corridor, listening to the shouts of the traitors, he executed two rapid movements.
The first was toward the unconscious Kalyn, whom he unceremoniously threw behind his desk for cover.
The second was toward an inconspicuous panel housing a flare gun.
Primitive and simple, but above all, reliable.
If the enemy thought they could execute their plans without a hitch, they should have chosen a less spiteful target.
Hunkering down behind his desk, he shot out the window of his own office without a second thought.
Ostensibly, the glass was bulletproof and couldn’t be opened remotely, but being a deeply paranoid veteran, he had rigged the manual release lever right under his desk.
People used to tell him it was overkill, but look at that—it came in handy!
Having sent a physical distress signal to the city, confident that President Skalk would be alerted, he pulled out a stimulant and injected it into Kalyn, snapping his sole remaining ally back to consciousness.
“How bad is it?” was the first thing she asked upon opening her eyes.
“I’ve been turned on by my own bodyguards, that’s how bad.”
“We’re screwed,” she concluded.
“Completely,” Gardner readily confirmed.
“We’re being jammed. Try to breach the Net and alert the others. The enemy is playing out a cyberpsychosis scenario with me in the starring role.”
“Copy th—”
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!!!
The office’s automated turrets roared to life, cutting her off.
There was no need to worry about the enemy hijacking control; isolated from external signals, the hard-wired guns would contemptuously spit at even the most cutting-edge daemons and hacking methods.
You can’t hack what isn’t connected, Mike noted maliciously to himself, pumping another round into the advancing Polish army soldiers.
Three shots, seven fresh corpses clogging the entryway.
On the whole, General Gardner wasn’t panicking.
The capital had been warned, he didn’t believe the entire division had turned traitor, which meant time was on his side; he just needed to hold out for a while and victory would be theirs.
And holding out in an office whose walls even tanks couldn’t breach, stacked with his favorite arsenal, a mountain of ammunition, and emergency rations, would be an absolute breeze.
All he had to do was bottleneck the singular entrance and return fire from time to time.
The attackers were caught in a total stalemate: there was only one avenue of approach, held by a veteran of a dozen wars armed to the teeth and packed with military cyberware, flanked by automated large-caliber turrets.
As if that weren’t enough, they faced a flamethrower loaded with an incendiary cocktail so vicious it could melt a full borg.
Their only option was to throw bodies at him until he ran out of ammo, which regular military personnel simply wouldn’t do out of a baseline understanding of the suicidal nature of the act.
As for using expendable grunts…there weren’t any!
And even if there were, he had a heavy machine gun hooked up to a ten-thousand-round backpack matrix loaded with explosive ammunition.
The moment they tried to swamp him with numbers, he would drown the corridor and his own office in a literal river of blood.
All things considered, Mike Gardner didn’t see a single scenario where the enemy could rapidly take his position by storm.
Or so he thought.
“AAAAAGGGHHH!!!” Kalyn suddenly shrieked, clutching her head.
Red lightning crackled across her body, she wept tears of blood, and her implants burned a deep, dark crimson.
The moment she cast her eyes toward the general—who had already trained his barrel on the netrunner who had clearly lost her cyber-warfare duel—he felt his internal icy composure literally fracture.
His own implants began to overheat, and his metallic hands started shaking as if gripped by an epileptic fit.
Worst of all, they began pulling the shotgun barrel away from the target, forcing it directly toward his own head!
So they did breach us?
He felt no fear; having shaken hands with death so many times before, he had come to view it not as something terrifying, but as a natural presence always standing right behind him, ready to receive him into its cold but gentle embrace.
Someone clearly spared no expense, he concluded.
Even though his understanding of network security was strictly baseline, it was enough to gauge the sheer volume of resources poured into this operation.
Not millions, but tens of millions of eddies, paired with an incredibly potent—albeit completely burned out from overclocks—mainframe server, whose processing power had been weaponized to subjugate his guards, an act previously deemed impossible.
Good to know my boys didn’t actually betray me, was General Mike Gardner’s final thought before a blast from the shotgun took off his own head.
Warsaw Network Space.
Agent: Target neutralized.
Operative: We know!
The whole city knows, because the bastard managed to fire off a distress flare!
The entire city is on high alert, the police are opening fire on anyone who fails to comply with orders, and those damn Harbingers are shooting anyone who looks even remotely suspicious!
How do you expect us to operate in an environment like this?!
Agent: Not my problem.
My directive was neutralization.
Everything else falls to the Handler.
Handler: Confirmed.
The division is under total lock.
But we must act swiftly, otherwise the soldiers will realize something is amiss.
Operative: And a flare going off in the dead center of the camp is supposed to be an insignificant detail?!
Let me remind you, we aren’t dealing with yesterday’s civilians here; these are career military personnel!
Handler: Everything is under control; we anticipated this scenario.
Our people are already working to ensure the general’s murder is pinned on the Harbingers.
Agent, what is the status of the second phase of the plan?
Agent: The transmission has been compiled and broadcasted to the Net.
Handler: Narrative points?
Agent: The loyal general managed to broadcast a video feed to the government before the Harbingers executed him.
The motive: a coup d’état.
Operative: Then we move out.
The public doesn’t exactly hold those guys in high regard anyway, and now we’re handing them an exquisite catalyst.
Agent: Hurry up.
Without your direct intervention, I won’t be able to secure total control over the police network.
Operative: Yeah, yeah, I know.
Just waiting for the green light from upstairs.
Handler: Proceed.
Warsaw.
At the same time.
Robert was moving as fast as his body could carry him.
His augmented physiology could handle up to a hundred consecutive activations of his Sandevistan, allowing its user to wage a one-man war against entire armies.
Not for prolonged durations, and it required a subsequent rehabilitation period spanning a couple of months, but that was an utterly trivial price to pay for hundreds, if not thousands, of enemy corpses dropped in a single heartbeat.
Right now, however, Robert felt more than ever that he was simply too slow.
The operation had been unfolding exactly as planned: the Harbingers, supported by special forces units, were systematically dismantling heavily entrenched gangs, clearing out one coordinate after another.
Everything was proceeding routinely, just as it had dozens of times before.
But at a certain juncture, the comms network vanished.
Just like that, the invisible threads linking all operational units were severed—an outcome virtually impossible without the coordinated sabotage of an elite netrunner team backed by a massive data center and state-of-the-art infrastructure.
There was also the possibility of physical interception, but that would require striking more than a dozen heavily fortified and well-guarded communication hubs across Warsaw simultaneously.
And then…then a red star ignited over the skyline, soaring up from the direction of the military sector.
It could only mean one thing: Robert’s absolute worst-case assumptions had materialized, and they had walked straight into an ambush.
Rapidly assessing the chessboard, he made the only logical move available: he abandoned the field and sprinted toward Claire.
He was certain his wife would be there, inside her own personal mini-fortress, attempting to establish a secure uplink with their home so the Omnissiah could initiate maximum alert protocols.
As time would tell, the old intelligence officer’s instincts were dead on, because shortly thereafter, law enforcement units began engaging Harbinger agents, ruthlessly neutralizing them without a single care for casualties.
In a single instant, the organization lost more than half of its active operatives inside the city to a knife in the back.
This new complication forced Robert to chart his route with extreme caution—not so much out of fear of the threat posed by the police, but due to the catastrophic risk of leading them straight to Claire’s safehouse base.
Its exposure in the current climate was merely a matter of time, but every single minute Claire managed to remain online worked in their favor.
Had it been otherwise, Robert wouldn’t have thought twice about tearing through the police ranks.
The military is the real wildcard, he concluded, wondering how quickly the forces that were supposed to act as their safety net would march into the city and begin hunting Harbingers.
He knew General Mike, and could easily see him managing the situation, but standard protocol dictated operating under the assumption of the worst-case scenario; survival rates were markedly higher that way.
Peripheral thoughts didn’t distract Robert from scanning his environment, including the rooftops.
And on one of them, he caught a subtle distortion in the air.
It could have been pocket gas or simple heat shimmer rising from a ventilation shaft, but he elected to investigate.
A dead sprint, a massive leap, and he was already level with the fifth floor.
A sharp pull with his hands, and he landed silently on the roof’s edge, instantly drawing a throwing knife laced with a potent paralytic agent.
He visualized the approximate silhouette of the obscured adversary, threw…and immediately heard a muffled groan of agony as the silence was broken by the thud of a collapsing body.
The strike was immaculate, severing the spinal cord.
In the past, it would have been a fatal injury that left a person crippled even if they survived; nowadays, it was merely a temporary inconvenience.
Stepping quickly toward the unknown combatant while drawing his pistols, Robert flipped the sniper onto his back, completely indifferent to the knife sinking deeper into the tissue.
The active camouflage flickered and failed, revealing a well-equipped operator clad in a stealth suit with light ballistic plating, urban camo texturing, and an optical visor helmet.
Militech, he noted.
They had made a quality effort to scrub the gear of identifying markers—there was no overt material proof linking them—but the unmistakable signature design of the American arms corporate titan was woven into every piece of hardware.
Take the SL-12 stimulant, for example, engineered to let the human body tap its deepest reserves for a week of continuous operation without sleep or rest, or the general cybernetic framework of the operative himself.
This is bad.
Poland stood absolutely no chance against Militech, definitely not in its current fragmented state.
The opening salvo had already landed, and it was devastating; central authority was severely compromised, leaving President Skalk with no choices left but to sell out to Arasaka or negotiate a new lease on life with both global superpowers under entirely rewritten terms.
Time to say goodbye to Poland, Robert realized, finishing off the wounded sniper and resuming his sprint toward his wife.
There wasn’t a single second to spare for an interrogation.