The ride back to Centurion Headquarters could barely be called a ride. For all intents and purposes, he had succeeded in his first mission, but failed in the second mission, just as the SPECTRE before him had. The frustration he felt was palpable. So much so that he allowed it to show on his face. No, it was more that he wanted it to. The men would leave him alone. That was, save for the other SPECTRE.

  “What the hell happened in there?” Cyrus asked as he and Andvari took the elevator up to where Commander Lara was stationed.

  “Classified,” Andvari said.

  “Fuck, what the hell for? You and I are both SPECTREs. Come on, spill it.”

  “You know I can’t,” Andvari said, glaring at the man with a side eye. “So don’t ask me to.”

  Cyrus clicked his tongue. “Fine.”

  As the elevator came to a halt, Andvari and Cyrus stepped off, each of them carrying their helmet under an arm. Andvari took the lead, knocking on Commander Lara’s door.

  “Come in,” came her sharp tone.

  “Great,” Cyrus said with a tone that implied he knew they were going to get chewed out.

  Andvari and Cyrus entered the room, each man offering a crisp salute.

  “At ease, men,” Lara said with her arms crossed behind her back. Andvari and Cyrus did as such and the woman drew a deep breath. “SPECTRE Cyrus, you are dismissed.”

  “Ma’am, if I may speak freely?” Cyrus said.

  “You may not. Dismissed.”

  Cyrus’s lip twitched. “I understand.” He turned and left, shutting the door behind him with a quiet click. His footsteps echoed down the hall some ways before Lara continued.

  “Explain what happened, SPECTRE. I want your full report.”

  Andvari frowned. “Ma’am, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage. I know less than you do.”

  She crossed her arms and raised a brow. “Now.”

  Andvari cleared his throat. This was unusual, even for her. Typically speaking, he would detail the most pertinent information through a written report. Something about the mission had her on edge, and he had the feeling she had no intention of informing him as to why. “I infiltrated the facility as I was asked. I proceeded through a long tunnel just barely large enough for a man to fit through. Whoever built that tunnel had no intention of it being found.” He waited for Lara’s response. She tapped her foot and Andvari continued.

  “I came upon a large room filled with lockers and shelves. The equipment looked old, decades or even more so. There wasn’t much to see, but I could hear the sound of electronics nearby. I followed the noise and came upon a room with two dead bodies. A quick glance revealed them to be the scientist and the prior SPECTRE. The scientist’s head had been blown clean off, so I had no way to identify him.”

  “And what of the data?” Lara asked, her tone snappy and irritated.

  Andvari paused. No concern for the SPECTRE, nothing on the scientist. All about the data. Just what was so special about it? “The data was corrupted.”

  “You know this for certain?”

  Andvari sighed and refrained from averting his gaze. It was difficult, considering the woman’s eerie ability to hear the hidden meaning behind his words. “With almost utmost certainty. I tried to collect the data, but my helmet couldn’t read it.” He slid the chip out of the helmet and handed it to Lara. “Maybe the tech gizmos can recover it, but I have my doubts. I might not be as sophisticated as them, but I’m no slouch with tech. I think this was a bust, Commander.”

  Lara took the chip and balanced it between her pointer finger and thumb. She sighed and set it on the desk behind her. “Anything else to report?”

  “Nothing of relevance to the mission itself, but I’d be careful when analyzing that data.”

  Lara frowned. “Why?”

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “I think it messed up my gear. My helmet’s glitching out and the suit isn’t performing how it should. I’m going to have the guys downstairs take a look at it, but I thought it was worth mentioning.”

  Lara blinked, then hummed. “Noted. You are dismissed, SPECTRE Andvari.”

  Andvari considered asking her the details which had to be hidden regarding the mission, but he knew the answer. Besides, she was clearly already on a short fuse, and he didn’t want to be the one to push her over. Despite her sharp tone and short temper, she usually had good reason for why she did these things, so he tried to put it out of her head. Though it was an unspoken relationship, he liked to believe they had an amicable friendship outside of the chain of command. Because of that, he offered her a casual wave before exiting her office and returning to the elevator.

  The elevator hummed as it descended, and Andvari waffled between thoughts of Chiaki and the mission. His jobs had been on the peculiar side as of late, and he was eager to get away and relax for a while. Perhaps Chiaki would be open to another night on the town tomorrow. Despite his attempts to keep his mind on the woman he was enjoying his company with, however, the mission’s parameters continued to poke and prod at his mind, provoking his curiosity.

  Some old tech probably. Doubt it was anything to worry about.

  Centurion keeping secrets from its own taskforce wasn’t unusual, but it was exceptionally rare. The fact that the information was being withheld from two SPECTREs—presumably three, assuming the same attributes regarding the dead SPECTRE—was nothing he’d heard of before. There was usually at least one or two SPECTREs who were in the know.

  It doesn’t do any good to think about it. Just ignore it for now.

  The elevator came to a stop where his room was located. Zealous to get out of his suit and go home, he entered his private quarters and set his helmet on the couch and set to removing the suit. Removing the suit was mostly easy, but it also hooked into the cybernetic implants on his back, between his shoulder blades. The suit was a tight fit, however, and one wouldn’t be any the wiser looking at him from the back.

  Andvari grazed his finger across a section on the nape of his neck, then found two grooves where he fit his ring and thumb fingers. The suit wouldn’t disengage or unclip from his body without a direct circuit loop from the hands of the one wearing the suit, making removing the suit a complicated ordeal for anyone else. Designed with the purpose of allowing the outfit more complex and sturdier technology, it also added a layer of security if anyone tampered with it. He thought most of the tech was overblown and focused too much on secrecy. The reality was, in the heat of combat, the suit was more likely to be destroyed than stolen or compromised.

  He pulled off the top portion of the suit and carefully set it to the side next to his helmet. Rolling his shoulders, he rubbed the section of his back where the suit connected to his implants and breathed a sigh of relief. Taking off the equipment always felt like taking off a large weight. It was easy not to notice it when the suit was hooked in, but there was always an immediate loss of tension when it was removed. Something about how the suit and the implants worked together to improve the body’s performance made it more noticeable when the job was done.

  He took a quick whiff of his armpits and reeled with a grunt. It came as no surprise after all of the blood, rainwater, dirt, and sweat he accumulated, but he’d hoped he could go the night without a shower. Seeing as how the night was groaning on, he relented and rinsed off. He could be a little more thorough tomorrow, assuming Chiaki would be up for his invitation.

  When he stepped out, a sudden sense of vertigo swept over him and he caught himself on the nearby counter. He shook his head, and the sensation left him.

  Am I just tired or should I go get checked out?

  He clicked his tongue and shook his head. No, he was fine. It would take enough time as it was just to get his gear checked out and okayed for mission use. Waiting for the okay from a specialized Centurion-grade doctor could be a quick visit or an extensive stay. A good night’s rest was what he really needed.

  He threw on some clothes and returned to the elevator with his equipment in a duffle bag, and an umbrella. Two floors down and he was welcomed with the sterile scent of running electronics and men and women clacking away at their keyboards. It was getting late, and there were considerably fewer of them at this hour, but no matter the hour, there were always at least a few people in this division working on something.

  Andvari approached the clerk and tapped his fingers on the counter to grab their attention.

  The woman—Isabelle Wright—looked up and gave a soft smile. “Evann. Haven’t seen you here in a hot minute. What’s going on?”

  “Suit’s glitching up. Some corrupted data messed with it, I think. Can your team check it out for me?”

  “Sure,” Isabelle said, nodding and rising to her feet. “What happens when you wear it?”

  “The displays don’t come up sometimes and when they do, they’re pixelated. Can’t read what I’m looking at.”

  Isabelle hummed and nodded again. “Gotcha. Okay, yeah. I’ll make sure we get a good look at it.”

  “Oh, and uh, be careful with that. I can’t say too much as to how, but to give you a better picture, I ran into some weird code, and it messed with the suit when I inserted the chip. Don’t want it corrupting anything in here.”

  “Oh, don’t worry about that. Whenever we check out equipment, it’s on a secured station disconnected from any of the other hardware, so it won’t be a concern.”

  “Gotcha. All right then, I’m out of here. Have a good one.”

  “Take care, Evann.”

  Relieved to have that over with, he left the Centurion building in a hurry, eager to get home and shut his eyes. Once he was outside, he unfolded his umbrella and marched down the steps. The storm had descended to a drizzle now, offering him a comfortable bit of white noise on his way home. He perched his chin on his palm while he observed the city from the window of a bus, his mind drifting away faster than he could catch it.

  The sense of vertigo came over him again, and he grunted.