Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Over 200 companies across the world race to build the next evolution of warfare—super soldiers armed with bleeding-edge artificial intelligence. Stronger, faster, more obedient. Each one vying for a slice of the next trillion-dollar military contract. 

Inside the White House, dim lights hum weakly above the long polished hallways. American flags drape limply between portraits of dead men with cold eyes—leaders, heroes, conquerors. The silence is heavy, broken only by the echo of footsteps across the marble floors.

An older man, heavy set and wearing a newly-pressed suit walks alone through the building. His face is set in stone, betraying nothing about him. It’s dark outside; everyone should have left hours ago. But he moves through the halls with purpose, like a man used to walking through locked doors. At the end of the hall, he slips into a private office and closes the door behind him with a soft click. He pauses at the blinds, peering through the thin slits to scan the hallway—still empty. Good. 

The plaque on the door catches the light:
MAJOR ZACHARIAH ALDER
Chief — Robots Division

He lets the blinds fall back into place and crosses to his desk. The idle computer screen glows with the American eagle, the nation’s trademark stamped over a background of circuitry and steel. He sits down, pulls out his phone, and dials a memorized number, “Let’s see what they’re really capable of.”

Halfway across the globe, the jungle presses in on all sides, dripping with heat and the hum of insects that never seemed to die down. Each breath was earned, suffocating, thick and difficult to swallow in the humidity. Everything seems to stop and go quiet for a moment before the silence snaps. Gunfire tears through the trees like a jagged blade, deafening and brutal. 

Branches rip at Bela’s arms and face as she barrels through the undergrowth, her heart punching against her ribs in a frantic drum of survival. She doesn’t look back. She knows if she does, she’s dead. Her lungs are on fire and her legs threaten to buckle, but she crashes forward, exploding out of the trees into a field of tall, sharp grass. The blades lash at her skin, slicing fine red lines across her legs, but she doesn’t slow—she can’t. She can’t let it catch her. Her backpack slams against her spine and the straps cutting into her skin with every stride, a useless weight she can’t afford to shed. 

Another crack spilts the air. 

The bullet punches into her side, snapping bone and tearing flesh. The force spins her mid-step and she slams into the dirt, a broken scream strangling in her throat. 

Bela lies crumped, gasping for air as the sweet metallic stink of blood blooms around her. Pain explodes through her body as she instinctively clutches her side; blood pours through fingers in hot, pulsing waves. 

“Shit,” She hisses. Her voice raw and broken. “Shit, shit, shit.”

Somewhere behind her—thudding steps. Heavy, measured and coming closer. 

As she tries to force herself up, every nerve screams in protest. Her head swims and she barely manages to turn and look over her shoulder—just enough to see it. The thing stalking her isn’t human. It wears the shape of a man—tall, thin, dressed in a sharp black suit—but there’s something wrong with the way it moves. Too robotic. Too empty. It cradles an automatic rifle in its arms like an extension of its own body. Its face is blank, almost serene as its eyes lock onto her like a hawk spotting its broken prey. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t rush. It simple moves, inevitable as the grave. 

“Oh, fuck,” Bela whimpers, barely a breath as terror seizes in her chest. 

She forces herself to keep moving forward, dragging her blood-slicked body across the dirt leaving a gruesome, glistening trail of crimson behind her. She doesn’t think or plan. She knows she could never outrun it. She just crawls, mindless with fear. 

In his dark corner office, lit only by the glow of monitors, Zachariah leans back in his chair, watching the grainy feed on his screen with an unfazed expression—Bela’s broken crawl, her blood. Her terror. A small tag blinks in the corner: BTML_2

He adjusts his tie with lazy fingers and lifts his phone to his mouth and mutters with bored detachment, “Hurry it up.”

Bela’s muscles give out as her fingers scrape against the dirt, bloody and useless. Her body refuse to listen. She forces her head up as a shadow falls over her. The figure stands directly above her—silent, still as death.Bela sobs, and an ugly noise rips from her throat as she flips onto her back and raises her trembling hands above her like a useless shield, pleading, shaking her head in desperate, animal denial. 

BTML_2 doesn’t lift its gun. 

It lifts its foot. 

In a single, final movement, it slams its boot down. 

The scream that starts on Bela’s lips is crushed before it can even escape. Her skull caves in under the force, blood and shattered bone splattering across the ground in a grotesque burst of red and grey, painting the grass around them. Her body twitches once and then goes still.

The jungle falls silent once more, except for the heavy, robotic-like footsteps as BTML_2 turns, emotionless and vanishes back into the tree line. 

Chapter Text

The military hanger sits nearly empty, a cavernous space echoing with the distant hum of generators. A massive cargo plane waits, engines whining with its rear ramp open. Four figures approach—tall, thin, moving in eerie, synchronized steps. Each one wears a sharp black suit under a tan trench coat, their movements almost mechanical. Too exact. Without a word, they file up the ramp single file and disappear into the plane’s hallow belly. 

The ramp lifts with a heavy groan as they take their places, sealing them inside. The engine roars and the plane shudders as its wheels begin to turn, dragging its weight toward the runaway. A moment later, it thunders down the strip and lifts into the sky, swallowed by the clouds. 

Miles away, a sleek black helicopter cuts across the glittering skyline of a sprawling American city, its rotors chopping through the night air. Inside, a woman in a dark, perfectly tailored suit sits stone-faced, barely glancing out the window as the city blurred beneath her. The chopper sets down hard on a private rooftop helipad, where a waiting bodyguard opens the door without a word. She barely acknowledges him as she climbs into a tinted, black car idling nearby. The door slams shut behind her, sealing her away from the noise of the city. 

Almost immediately, her phone rings. She answers it without looking, “Yes, Gadreel?”

A voice crackles over the line—younger, tense. ”Ma’am, we’ve landed.”

Gadreel sits outside an airport pickup zone in the choking heat of Vietnam. He’s dressed in a wrinkled dress shirt and khakis, already sticking to him from the humidity. Two others sit nearby: Anna, a sharp-eyed woman guarding an equipment bag between her legs, and Metatron, a heavier man already sweat-soaked and irritable. 

“Are we still a go?” Gadreel asks.

“We are a go,” Naomi says flatly as she hangs up. 

Gadreel starts to say something but the line goes dead. He blinks at the phone, then shrugs and shoves it back in his pocket. 

“Are we on?” Anna asks from where she sits on the curb. 

“Looks like it,” Gadreel says, scanning the road for their ride. 

Metatron groans, dragging his long, greasy hair into a half-hearted bun. His shirt was clinging to him like a second skin. 

“Is it gonna be this hot the whole time?”

Gadreel gives him a look like he’s too tired to answer stupid questions and sighs, “What do you think?”

”This humidity’s gonna be hell on the computers,” Metatron grumbles, adjusting his damp collar. “Anybody plan for that?”

“You don’t think this country has computers?” Anna snorts. 

“The guy knows,” Gadreel cuts her off, distracted. 

Metatron throws up his hands. “The guy? The guy, where is the guy?” As if summoned, a battered gray van screeches to a halt inches from Metatron’s toes. “Oh!” He yelps, hopping back up from the curb. 

The passenger door slams open and a mountain of a man steps out—shaved head, thick arms and a permanent scowl etched into his face. The man walks over to them, looking them up and down and asks, “Naomi team?”

“Yep,” Gadreel answers hesitantly. 

The guy looks at them a moment longer and then yanks the side door open, motioning them in. Metatron hesitates, gawking at him openly. Uriel stares right back at him with a scary look in his eye and Metatron keeps whatever he had planned to say to himself. 

“I’m Gadreel,” Gadreel offers, sticking out a hand. 

The man ignores it completely, grabbing their equipment bags instead. Gadreel awkwardly scratches the back of his neck like he meant to all along. “Okay. Uh, this is Anna, and Metatron.”

Gadreel motions to his two companions and Metatron throws his hands up again is disbelief, and jabs a thumb towards the giant man who tosses their gear inside the trunk like it weighs nothing. “Your guy?”

“Not my guy,” Gadreel mutters and walks over to the back of the van. “Your name?”

“Uriel,” He answers flatly. 

“Did the gear arrive?” Gadreel asks since Uriel offers up nothing more about himself. 

“Already at the house.” He says, slamming the trunk shut. 

“Fine,” Gadreel mumbles to himself as he walks over to the others as they pile into the van, the heat inside far worse tan outside. 

The side door slams shut as soon as they all take their seats and Uriel points the driver towards the street and they shoot off into traffic. Motorcycles weaving dangerously around them as they speed away. Anna shifts uncomfortably in her seat, nudging a black case out of the way of her foot. Uriel notices and looks back. His hand shoots back and grabs the case out of her hands when she leans over to pick it up since it’s not one of theirs. 

“Hand that up.”

“Would you relax?” Anna scoffs, brushing him off. 

Gadreel places a warning hand on her arm. “Not worth it,” he mutters quietly to her. 

“Are you kidding me?” She hisses under her breath. She glares at the back of Uriel’s head and huffs angrily to herself as she sits back. 

Metatron fiddles desperately with the vents in the backseat, trying to summon even a whisper of cool air. Metatron sighs heavily, “Hey, does the AC work, man?” No response. He raises his voice and yells across the car, “Can you at least open a freakin’ window?” Still nothing. Instead, Uriel casually pulls a concealed carry from under his jacket and places it on top of the black case in his lap—just enough for them all to see. Metatron immediately raises both hands in the air. “Hey, it’s great. Fine, love the heat.”

Uriel turns around and looks at him with narrow eyes and he falls silent. Gadreel shakes his head at him to keep quiet the rest of the ride and turns back to watch the road ahead. The gray van pushes through the crowded city streets, the roar of traffic and noise pressing against the windows. It pulls unto an alleyway beside a food stand, the brakes squealing to a stop. 

Uriel already sliding the door open before the van fully stops, the black case clutched tightly in his hands. “We get out here,” He says without waiting for a response and circles to the back and throws the trunk open. 

Anna looks to Gadreel, who nods for her to get out. She hops out and Metatron and Gadreel follow, dragging their gear behind them. 

“How much is that?” Metatron asks the food stand woman, pointing to a churro. Before she can answer, he slaps some cash into her hand to try and catch up to the others who are already moving, following Uriel towards a building up ahead. “Shoot. Okay, uh, keep the change.”

The alley smells like hot in and sewage. Stray dogs bark somewhere deeper down the way. Mothers rock crying babies outside small, broken restaurants with hole-in-the-wall kitchens. Uriel leads them through a crooked side door into a rundown building. The fluorescent lights flicker green overhead. The floors are cracked tile, the walls streaked with grime. They head up a staircase so narrow they have to haul their equipment awkwardly one at a time. 

By the time they reach the second floor, Metatron is visibly dripping with sweat, panting like he just ran a marathon and is visibly unhappy as he sees the room is small, almost bare—a table, some plastic chairs and a busted fan in the corner. 

“Are you shitting me?” Metatron blurts, throwing his equipment down with a thud and glares at Uriel. “We’re above a sweatshop, no AC, not even fans? Seriously, what the fuck?”

“It is what it is,” Gadreel cuts in sharply, waving him off before Uriel, already turning to glare at him, can say anything. 

Anna pats Metatron’s shoulder and gives him a small nod. “We got this.”

Uriel rolls his eyes and walks over to the fan and flicks the switch. It rattles loudly and churns to life. Metatron immediately beelines toward it, planting himself in front of it and dropping his head onto the table, practically melting. “Oh, thank goodness!”

Uriel doesn’t hide his disgust. He jabs a finger towards Anna and Gadreel. “Which one of you two is coming to set up the link.” He jerks a thumb at Metatron. “‘Cause I know it isn’t him.”

Metatron lifts his head to look back at Uriel with an offended look. 

“Me,” Gadreel says, raising a hand. 

“Grab your gear, let’s move,” Uriel orders as he starts back down the stairs. “We got a two-hour drive.”

Gadreel sighs as he watches Uriel disappear and addresses the others, speaking quietly. “Get set up, we’ll communicate once we’re synced.” He slings his bag over his shoulder, grabs one of the heavier cases and follows Uriel back down the rickety stairs. 

Uriel climbs into the passender seat of the gray van without a word as Gadreel throws his gear into the back and slides into the side. Uriel leans forward, speaking low to the driver, giving directions. Then he pulls out a phone and dials a memorized number. Across the world, a cellphone rings against a polished desk, and Zachariah picks it up. “Go.”

“OPS team secured,” Uriel says. “Tech Gadreel en route to Alpha.”

“Confirmed.”

The line cuts off abruptly as Zachariah hangs up and Uriel puts his phone back into his pocket. Gadreel watches him carefully from the backseat waiting for him to explain, but he never does.

“Who were you talking to?” He asks. 

Uriel finally turns around to look at him, slow and deliberate. “You do know why we’re here, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Janice forces a quick nod, looking away out his window and clears his throat. “Sure.”

He lets the silence settle after that, no more questions. The city outside starts to thin out and the buzz of cars fades into the hum of wildlife as concrete gives way to dirt roads and thick lush trees. They keep driving for a long while until the van rumbles down a dirt path carved into the jungle, the last signs of human life swallowed by the thick green around them. 

“Pull up here,” Uriel says, pointing at what looks like a random patch of trees and yanks a heavy automatic rifle over his shoulder. 

The driver hits the brakes and Uriel is already out of the van, moving fast. Gadreel scrambles after him, stepping out into the dense, humid air. It smells like wet earth and plants left to rot. Gadreel stares after him as he bolts into the trees in a sprint, shocked at the speed he was able to move at his size. He quickly grabs his bag and stumbles after him, dragging the heavy case at his side. He jogs after Uriel, but quickly starts falling behind. He swears under his breath and breaks into a run. 

Ahead, Uriel charges up a hill and slides between two massive rocks, disappearing like he knows exactly where he’s going despite the lack of trail and markers. 

Cars honk and rattle down the street outside the building. On the roof, Anna wrestles with a thick cable, running it down the side of the building. She threads it through a cracked hole in the second-floor wall where Metatron looks at it from inside.

“Hello?” She calls, wiggling the wire until he snatched it. “Thanks.”

“Yeah,” Metatron sighs, plugging it into his laptop and flopping back into his chairs. “Can’t believe they got us working on these million-dollar toys, and they shack us up in this dump. Freakin’ tightwads.”

Anna chuckles as she boots up her system and sees him typing aggressively on his keypad. “Connection’s good. Playing games down there?”

Metatron bangs away at his keyboard, shaking his head. “Coding the new combat program.”

“Combat?” Anna’s smile fades. She swivels to look at him. “Not for this exercise. It’s just a nav test, right?”

Metatron stops typing and slowly turns in his chair, staring at her like she’s insane. “You *do* realize that we work for a weapons company, right?”

Anna looks away, her expression hardening as she focuses back on her own screen. 

Uriel pushes through the jungle, finally slowing once they reach a narrow trail beaten into the undergrowth by people who’d come through there before. Gadreel catches up, dragging his heavy case behind him, grateful for the slower pace. He sticks close to Uriel’s side, trying to keep up without looking like he’s struggling. Uriel scans the ground as they move, his eyes cutting back and forth. Without warning, he throws an arm across Gadreel’s chest and shoves him back. 

Gadreel opens his mouth to snap at him—until he sees Uriel kneel down, flipping out a small pocket knife. With a careful hand, Uriel traces the blade along a nearly invisible tripwire stretched across the trail. He brushes aside a few leaves where the wire ends, revealing a landmines buried shallow in the dirt. The words ‘FRONT TOWARD ENEMY’ stare up at them. 

“Drug runners probably set this up,” Uriel mutters. “You can tell by the amount of tracks of people stepping over it. The locals know its here.”

He gestures to the gap in the footprints on the ground under the wire. Gadreel swallows hard and nods. 

Movement flashes through the trees ahead and without a moment to react, Uriel yanks Gadreel backward into the brush, both of them crouching low as a group of Vietnamese men tromp down the trail. Each one grips an automatic rifle. Uriel shoots Gadreel a look and puts a finger to his lips: quiet. He points to the men as they pass. Gadreel’s eyebrows are practically climbing off his face as he watches them, frozen in place—until he sneezes. 

Uriel’s shoulder drop in exasperation. He slowly turns, giving Gadreel a look of pure disbelief. 

One of the men in the back of the group pauses right in front of their hiding spot. He wears a tattered black tank top, a faded tattoo curling around his bicep. His eyes scan the trees, alert for any movement. Uriel raises his gun, sighting down the barrel. A tense second ticks by as the man lingers, then finally moves on. Uriel lowers his weapon and Gadreel sneezes again once the group is safety out of earshot. Uriel just shakes his head and keeps moving. 

After a while, Uriel finally stops near a small, hidden clearing beside a moss-covered boulder, just off the trail and almost completely concealed. He scans the area. “Let’s stop here.”

Both of them shrug off their packs and Gadreel lowers the heavy case to the ground, unlatches it, and carefully lifts out a compact satellite unit. He straps it to a thin tree growing out of the rocky crater-like dip they’re standing in. Uriel doesn’t help. Instead, he circles the perimeter with a pair of binoculars, scanning the treetops and brush for movement. Gadreel digs a rugged laptop from his pack and crouches beside the satellite, connecting a mess of cables with quick practiced hands. Once everything’s linked, he pulls out a satellite phone and dials back to the base. 

“Metatron, you there? Are you there?”

“Yup. Yo,” Metatron‘s voice crackles on the other end. “Hey, the link’s at 75%. Just, uh… pan it left or right a tad.”Gadreel walks over and nudges the satellite a bit to the left. “Perfect, done. Lock it off.”

“Is Anna set up?” Gadreel asks, stepping back carefully to avoid messing with the signal. 

“Okay, we’re live,” Anna chimes in as Metatron switches to speaker phone. 

“Okay, good,” Gadreel says, eyeing Uriel, who’s strapping a small camera to a nearby tree with silent efficiency. “The drop’s in four and a half hours,” He adds. “We’re gonna head back.”

“Copy that,” Metatron replies and the call clicks off. 

Gadreel watches Uriel for a second, squinting at the small device. “What’s that?”

“It’s a backup plan,” Uriel mutters without turning around, adjusting the angle of the camera. 

“Backup plan for what?”

Uriel finally turns, shooting him a sharp look and then ignores the question. “Is it up?”

“Yeah.”

“Good,” Uriel nods and secures the camera’s base with a final tug. “Cover it up. Let’s get the hell outta here.”

Deep in the jungle, Dean Winchester stands barefoot on a handmade ladder, hammering a nail into the edge of a rusted sheet of metal roofing. His shirt has a hole at the shoulder, worn down from constant use, and the edge of a faded tattoo peeks out from under the sleeve. His beard is scruffy, like he hasn’t been bothered with a mirror in weeks. 

At the base of the ladder, Linh approaches. She stops and looks up at him for a beat, then shifts her gaze to  the little boy hopping around outside the hut. 

“Minh, we should really burn those shoes,” She says in Vietnamese, eyeing the mud-caked Flipflops he was wearing. They seemed to be surviving solely on hopes and dreams. 

“I like them,” Minh calls up with a grin, completely unbothered. 

“They’re falling apart,” She says, crouching to poke at one of the straps hanging on by a clump of dried mud. 

Up above, Dean sets the hammer down on the ladder to fish out another nail, but the tool slips and drops to the ground with a dull thud. 

“Hey, Minh,” Dean calls, his voice easy. “Toss me that hammer, would ya?”

Minh runs over and grabs it, joined by a pack of kids his age all holding stick rifles like they’re on patrol. Minh winds up to throw the hammer, but misses badly, nearly hitting Dean in the face. The boys burst into laughter and Dean raises his brow and tries to look annoyed, but the corner of his mouth threatens to give away a small grin. The kids scatter, laughing and pretending to shoot each other with their stick weapons. Linh stands with her hands on her hips, watching them vanish down the dort path. 

“Minh! Minh, Minh,” She calls after him, but none of the kids come back. She sighs and walks over to pick up the hammer herself as Dean climbs down, landing next to her with a quiet thump in the dirt. “Sorry…”

She hands the hammer back to him and he brushed her hand just slightly more than necessary as he takes it. 

“It’s fine,” he says with a smile. There’s something deliberate in the way he lingers—gentle but uncertain. 
 

Linh tucks her hair behind her ear, glancing up at him nervously. A Sudden beeping ruins the moment—sharp and rhythmic. Dean quickly shuts off the alarm coming from his old watch. 

“That alarm goes off every day,” she notes, her voice careful. When she looks back at him, his face has changed. Whatever ease he had is gone now, replaced with something heavier—buried. 

He takes a step toward the ladder, then pauses. “Look… I don’t mean to be rude, okay?” He doesn’t elaborate and turns to climb back up the ladder. 

“It’s only a watch,” she says, looking confused as she lingers below him before slowly turning away. At the hut entrance, she looks back up at him. “You can eat with us, if you like.”

Dean doesn’t respond or even look at her as she turns away and steps inside the hut. He pauses as soon as she leaves and lets out a long breath. He clenches his jaw for a moment and then goes back to hammering.

Only a few miles away from him, a white van bumps along a calf-formed trail, the jungle pressing in on all side. The engine groans as it fights the terrain. 

“Sam, stop—stop, stop!” Someone shouts from the passender seat. 

Sam slams on the breaks just as the glimmer of metal on the path goes under the front of the van. Too late. The front tires slam down on a row of hidden spikes. There’s a sickening crunch, a hiss, and the engine lets out a final rumble as something tears through it. 

“Shit. Sorry,” Sam mutters as he awkwardly turns to look at the others in the van. 

“What the hell?” Garth asks in disbelief as he leans out the window and stares down at the spikes jutting out of the tire like bones. 

Everyone inside exchanges a quick glance and piles out of the vehicle to get a look. 

“Watch your step,” Garth warns, already out of his seat and crouching by the popped tire. 

Sam drops to one knee beside him and peers under the front of the car. “Damn it…” Three spikes punch straight through the tires and into the engine block. “Engines toast. This is bullshit, who does this kinda thing?”

Garth grabs hold of one of the untouched spikes and wriggles it out of the ground. It’s long, rusted, and sharp as hell—almost the length of his forearm. “Someone who obviously doesn’t want us to go any further.”

Sam frowns as he looks at the spike Garth turns over in his hands and stands up to walk toward the others. 

Jess and Bela hope out of the side doors with a paper map between them, turning it around like they’re trying to read a treasure clue. Behind them, Charlie and Gilda grab their packs to put on. 

Charlie shrugs. “Why don’t we all just grab our bags and walk back the way we came?”

“We’ve been driving for five hours,” Sam says, motioning a hand at the empty trail behind them. “There’s nothing back there.”

“No—if the map’s right,” Bela says, not looking up. “There’s a village somewhere nearby.”

“You sure you got the map the right way up?” Sam asks with a small chuckle. 

“Sam,” Jess says in long drawn out annoyed tone.

“What?”

“Shut up,” she scoffs. “Why are you always such a smart ass?”

“I’m trying to bring a little—“

“Guys, come on,” Garth cuts in. “I say we just stick to the map, for what it’s worth. It’s already getting dark, and Sam’s right—we haven’t seen anything for miles.”

Sam nods. “Let’s grab our Go Packs and start walking.”

Gilda hesitates. “You guys… Everyone says the Golden Triangel is full of opium labs, heroin runners, pot farms—and landmines. Us all being doctors, do you think they might leave us alone?”

“Yeah, you know, I don’t think the landmines are checking for medical degrees before they blow you up, Gilda,” Sam laughs at his own joke. 

“Sam, shut up,” Jess rolls her eyes and slings on her pack. 

“Hey, I mean, no one goes into the theater expecting to get killed or raped or skinned or blown up or any of these sort of things,” Gilda keeps going, her voice climbing. “Can you show me if we’re in the Golden Triangle—“

“You’re starting to scare me,” Bela mutters, narrowing her eyes and holds the map closer to her chest. 

Charlie steps in front of her and slaps a hand down on her shoulder. “Hey, relax, okay?” She smiles and turns towards the map. “Which way, Bela? Jess?”

Both point—in opposite directions. The group stares at them and Sam sighs. “Fantastic.”

“Sam—“ Jess starts. 

“Just chill, okay?” He cuts her off. 

She looks ready to snap back, but Bela places a hand on her arm and shakes her head. “Calm, girlfriend.” Bela raises a brow at them both.

Sam ignores her and adjusts his pack. “If we stick to the worn tracks, we should be fine.”

“We should be fine, or we will be fine?” Gilda eyes him.

Charlie smacks her arm with a grin. “Stick with me, Gilda. We can be blown up together.” Unsurprisingly, this doesn’t help at all to calm her down. 

They all step over the spikes, one by one, and disappear into the trees—leaving the van, and the road, behind them as they go deeper into the jungle. 

Metatron’s phone rings and he answers it quickly, tapping speaker. “Go.”

“Connectives are two-four-three-two-six-seven into our team’s cameras and comms,” Says the voice on the other line—his boss, Naomi. 

“Who’s this, ma’am?” Metatron asks, already sitting up straighter. 

“CIA.”

“Oh, shit. Okay,” he says quickly as he sets the phone down on the table and starts typing the numbers into his terminal. 

The moment he inputs them, a separate monitor flickers to life—in the secure corner office in the White House. Code scrolls fast down the screen, and the display divides into four feeds labeled: THEO_1, BTML_2, VRGL_4, and CSTL_4

“He’s in,” Naomi confirms. 

“I thought this was for an internal test, ma’am,” Anna adds hesitantly. 

“Enough questions,” Her tone sharpen and they both freeze. “They’ll be watching closely, so make it perfect. Objectives may change—stay flexible.”

“Changes?” Metatron echos, but the line cuts dead. He locks eyes with Anna, confused. “What the fuck is she talking about?”

Anna just shrugs, and he’s already dialing Gadreel on his phone—neither of them noticing the small red light that blinks to life in the corner of their screens as Zachariah watches them from his office across the globe. 

The shrill sound of a ringtone breaks through the jungle nose, louder than the constant hum of insects. Gadreel scrambles for it. “Gadreel,” He answers.

“You hear anything about an objective change?” Metatron’s voice crackles over the line, annoyed and entitled. 

“No—who said tha—“

Before he can finish, Uriel storms over and snatches the satellite phone out of his hand. In one fluid motion, he yanks Gadreel down and slams his face into the dirt. Gadreel gasps, struggling, but Uriels weight pins him. He can’t move. 

“Keep your *fucking* mouth shut, keep it shut!” Uriel hisses, barely audible and tight with fury. 

Behind the trees, the sound of footsteps stomps toward them. 

“Shh, shh,” Sam says to the others behind him. He stops, hearing something strange just off the path. 

He glances towards the bushes, brow furrowed as he listens. Garth touches his shoulder and nudges him forward. Sam hesitates, but keeps walking. 

Uriel and Gadreel stay hidden, pressed into the brush, watching as the backpackers pass by, completely unaware until they vanish into the green. Once it’s clear, Uriel lets go and stands up. Gadreel gasps to catch his breath after it’d been knocked out and spits out dirt. 

He looks up at Uriel, furious. “What the fuck was that? Drug runners?!”

Uriel shoves him back and bends down, inches from his face and jabs a finger at him. “One last time, stay quiet!”

It’s the most terrifying whisper Gadreel had ever heard. He swallows hard and nods as he pushes himself to his feet. The broken phone lies nearby, the antenna snapped clean off. Gadreel scoops it up and glares into the back of Uriel’s head as he follows him back out of the jungle. 

Back at the base, Anna climbs up to the roof to check the satellite feed again after Gadreel’s signal had been abruptly cut. Everything seems fine on her end so she scans the city below as she enjoys the bit of airflow being outside—just in time to spot the gray can from earlier pulling up to the same spot on the street. Uriel and Gadreel jump out, no longer carrying the black case and quickly make their way inside. She hurries down the stairs of the roof to try and meet them. 

Gadreel scrambles up the stairs faster than Uriel. His face is tight with nerves as he looks at them, but Metatron barely acknowledges his return when he enters. “Cutting it close, guys,” he says dryly. 

“We set?” Gadreel asks as he drops into the chair beside him and pulls up the keypad. 

“Is my team in?” Uriel asks the moment he entered the room. 

“Team?” Gadreel echos, shooting him an annoyed look and then glances at Metatron. “What team?”

“CIA, apparently,” Metatron mutters with a shrug. “Naomi’s call.”

“CIA,” Gadreel repeats, gawking. “This is getting serious.”

“We’re deploying a secret until of robots into a country we’re not supposed to be in,” Metatron snaps, motioning to the tangle of equipment surrounding them. ”It got serious the moment we powered this thing up.”

Uriel looms behind them, scanning the monitors over their shoulders. The door creaks as Anna steps inside quietly, but before she can say anything, Uriel whirls and pulls his gun on her. Anna screams and stumbles back, hands up in the air. The rest of the team jumps in their seats. 

“Get a habit of knocking!” Uriel barks at her and lowers his weapon. He shoves Gadreel’s shoulder back towards his computer. ”Focus on your job. Are we connected?”

“Yes, cowboy,” Gadreel mutters, his breath shaky. He throws Anna a brief look of sympathy. 

Uriel grabs a headset from the table and clicks it on, speaking directly to Zachariah watching through the uplink. A red light on one of the monitors flashes again. Everyone subtly straightens up as they realize they are being observed more closely than expected. 

“Alpha, Quebec, Nine-Zero-Zero-Nine, Alpha, confirmed,” Uriel says into the mic. 

“Confirmed,” The voice replies through the earpiece. “Line is secure. Drops is in fifteen minutes.”

“Establishing links now,” Uriel nods and taps the back of Gadreel’s shoulder to signal him. 

“Comms one through four confirmed,” Gadreel calls out clearly, making sure the man on the other end can hear. “We should have solid comms once they hit the ground.”

The group of doctors walks single file along a narrow dirt trail, carved out from frequent use by locals who love somewhere deeper in the jungle. Vines twist across the path, and the buzzing of insects fills the air. They pass a large red sign nailed to a crooked post. Bold white letters scream: DANGER!! MINES!! with a white skull painted underneath, followed by a long warning in Vietnamese. 

Jess slows a little as she passes it. “Bela, are you sure this is the right way?” She asks, unease creeping into her voice. 

“I told you—I got this,” Bela replies, way too confident to be reassuring. 

“Who gave Bela the map?” Garth jokes, looking to Sam to see if he thought it was funny or not. 

“Okay, time out,” Bela rolls her eyes and comes to a complete stop. “I’m too thirsty to be dealing with any of this. I need a drink.”

“Yeah, me too,” Charlie says, shrugging her heavy pack off. 

The others follow her lead, taking quick sips from their water bottles and stretching their legs. 

Charlie turns to Jess and asks, “Hey, Jess? Are your parents happy that you’re going to a medical school in Chicago?”

Jess lets out a dramatic sigh and rolls her head back. “Ugh, I hope so. They’re helping me pay for it.”

“Well…” Sam starts, and Jess immediately shoots him a warning look. “I don’t know how much you’ll learn in Chicago compared to where we are now.”

“Sam, why are you so mean to me?” Jess groans 

“Look, in Jess’s defense,” Garth chimes in, stepping between them. “Chicago’s actually a solid program. We did our research—“

“Shh, shh!” Bela suddenly cuts in, holding a hand up. 

Everyone goes still. 

“What?” Sam asks, lowering his voice. 

Bela narrows her eyes towards the bushes ahead and they all stare after her trying to follow her eyes. “Hear that?”

The group holds their breath and tries to listen. Suddenly, a small Vietnamese boy bursts out of the greenery, brandishing a stick shaped like a rifle. Behind him, seven more kids explode from the underbrush, pointing their own fake weapons at the stunned group. Everyone instinctively steps back. 

Silence. 

Then, then group realizes the ‘guns’ are just sticks—and lets out a collective breath. The kids keep their sticks trained on them for a second longer before darting off across the trail, vanishing into the jungle with laughter. Garth bursts out laughing and the others chuckle nervously and shake their heads. 

“What was that?” Jess asks, still staring after them. 

“I almost fainted!” Gilda says, pale and rattled, running a shaky hand through her hair. 

“Me too,” Charlie laughs and fake wipes her forehead. 

“Man up, guys, it was just a bunch of kids,” Sam says as he slings his backpack on again. 

“Yeah—with guns, Sam,” Gilda mutters, and Charlie wraps her arms around her in a comforting side hug. 

The group starts moving again, and Sam glances at Bela and Jess with a grin. “Actually, I don’t feel so lost now.”

“Oh, ha ha, you’re so funny,” Jess says sarcastically, trailing after him as they follow the direction the kids ran—deeper into the jungle. 

Above them, a plane thunders across the sky, its engines roaring as the belly hatch yawns open. Wind tears through the compartment, but the four figures inside stand completely still, unfazed by the sudden blast of cold air. 

On the ground, Bela spots it first. Sho points to the sky, her eyes widening. “Uh, is that a plane?”

“Did you just say a plane?” Charlie asks as she squints upward—but the dense canopy blocks her view.

“Help!” Gilda shouts, startling them all for a second as she jumps up and down, waving her arms frantically. “Help us!”

“Gilda, there’s no way they can see us,” Jess says, tugging on her arm to get her to stop failing. 

The group of kids they were following behind stop running themselves a ways ahead of them, skidding to a stop. They heard the plane too. They all look up, trying to stop whatever had distrusted the quiet hum of the jungle. 

Farther still, Dean was still working on the tin roof when the sound of a low rumble made him freeze. He looks up and scans the sky—but saw nothing. His eyes lower back down to the roof which looks good enough for now and tosses his tools back into a cracked jacket and climbs down the ladder. 

Inside the belly of plane, the robotic-like men suddenly stir and start to march toward the open edge with mechanical precision. One by one, they hurl themselves out of the plane and start free-falling towards the ground. The wind screams around them as they fall, their tench coats flapping wildly against their body’s as they cut through the air. For a moment, they drop in perfect formation until they reach a designated altitude and parachutes deploy from compact packs on their back. The sudden deceleration jolts them to slow decent—except for one. 

A sharp snap rings out as the strap on the chute tears loose from the sudden stop, and the man begins to plummet violently downward. He seems to have no reaction to the situation besides looking up to see his shredded parachute flapping uselessly above him while the other three men float steadily toward earth, drifting far away from his straight plummet down. 

“Four’s picking up speed,” Anna says sharply. She activates her console, pulling up the live feed from CSTL_4’s camera. The screen shows the failed chute dragging behind him. 

“Chute malfunction,” Uriel confirms, leaning in and shaking his head. 

“You want me to blow it?” Metatron offers, eyes already on the command switch.

“No,” Uriel responds immediately. “You want to alert everyone in a five-mile radius that we’re here? We let it go.”

Onscreen, CSTL_4 crashes into the treetops—and then the feed cuts to black. 

“Well, it landed.” Metatron mutters, silencing the alarm beeping on his computer with a single keystroke. “Signal’s lost.”

Uriel grabs the headset from the table. “Major?”

Zachariah’s voice comes in cool and commanding. “Continue with the operation. No noise until we complete the objective.” Then the line dies dead as Zachariah rips off his headset, slamming it on the table. He stares at the black screen in disbelief. “You gotta be shittin’ me.”

“We’ll let the other three detonate Four after the mission,” Uriel says calmly, stepping back from the table. 

“Sending codes now,” Metatron announces. 

His fingers fly across the keys, and a moment later, the three remaining camera feeds flicker to life. One by one, the three bot’s internal AI systems active, taking control as they land softly in an open field, far from CSTL_4’s last known location. Their parachutes drift down and blanket them completely. THEO_1’s command link activates first as he comes online and BTML_2 follows without issue, but VRGL_3’s screen glitches and ‘MODULE ERROR’ flashes red across their displays. 

“We’ve got solid comms with One, Two and Three. Four is dead,” Gadreel reports—then stops as VRGL_3 lets out a string of warning beeps. 

“Shit,” Metatron mutters, sitting up in his chair. 

“What?” Uriel demands from behind him, arms crossed as he leans against the wall. 

“Damn engineers,” Metatron grumbles, tapping furiously on his keyboard trying to fix the error. “We told them that the comm modules weren’t sitting tightly.”

“And if we lose connection with the modules,” Anna chimes in, “They become free agents.”

“Meaning no control?” Uriel frowns. 

“Sort of,” Anna replies, shrugging. “No module means they’re—“

“Dumb Terminators,” Metatron cuts in. “No module, no objective.”

Gadreel jumps in before Uriel can look any angrier. “Metatron’s terminology is slightly exaggerated. Look—layman’s terms? These bots have two brains. The model that caps their artificial intelligence, that allows us to communicate with them. It helps them assess risk, make the best decisions in the field possible, whether that be jumping off a cliff or pull a gun. With it, we direct the mission, but they determine how to execute what we say in the most efficient way possible.”

Uriel glances at the screen. The bots are upright now, scanning the tree line, waiting for input. “So they make their own decisions?”

“Yeah, pretty much. I mean, these robots have full-blown AI, okay?” Gadreel says, standing up from his seat and starts pacing around the room. “They’re fully autonomous, so they’re way smarter than any of us. But without that module connected, it— it’s not a complete package.” He gestures towards Metatron. “It’s like a person with acute autism—clever as hell, but useless in the real world.”

Metatron pauses his typing and turns to look at him. “Dude,” he mutters, flipping him off. 

Gadreel ignores him and continues. “They can walk around aimlessly, trying to figure out what the hell they are, but they’re not gonna learn much in the middle of the jungle. That’s why we’ve never let them self-learn, for obvious reason, no grid, no satellite uplink unless fully controlled. It’s kinda like, uh…”

“Zombie Terminator,” Metatron offers, still trying. 

Gadreel nods. “Exactly. Zombie Terminator.”

“Can we fix it?” Uriel asks, flatly and uninterested in the why. 

“Well,” Metatron exhales dramatically, glancing at Gadreel and then turns back to his screen. “With a highly technical and acutely autistic, delicate adjustment… sure, why not.” Uriel rolls his eyes as Metatron slams a finger down on the enter button. VRGL_3’s hand twitches, lifts, and reaches back to its
neck and shoves the module that sticks out of place, firmly back into its neck. “And done,” Metatron says as VRGL_3’s warning display turns off, and leans back with a smug grin. 

“You think this is a fucking joke?” Uriel snaps, stepping forward and Metatron’s face drops. “You do understand that, if this mission fails, and you get caught, you end up in a very nasty jail for the rest of your lives?”

“Can you chill out?” Metatron says and pulls a mock-serious face and starts making exaggerated expressions. “There, here’s a game face for you—“

Uriel’s face starts to grow an angry shade of red and Gadreel cuts in, sitting down in his seat. “Let’s run a small nav check to see if they’re still calibrating with CSTL_4. Anna—have them rendezvous at the nav-com point.”

“On it,” Anna replies, fingers already flying across her keypad. 

The moment the command is sent, the three men tear away their parachutes and sever the tethers. Then, with smooth, steady precision, they begin marching with unhurried, deliberate strides as they cut through the underbrush towards the satellite station Uriel and Gadreel set up. Their pace never breaks or slows as they move and Uriel watches them curiously through the feed of VRGL_3 who walks in the back of the formation.

“Why the hell are they wearing trench coats?” Uriel asks, narrowing his eyes at the monitors. On the scene, the three bots move in formation, long tan coats swaying with every step—utterly incongruous against the dense green around them.  “They stick out like a sore thumb.”

Gadreel doesn’t even glance up from his screen. “It’s part of the standard outfit package. You’re boss should know that.”

“Trench coats and suits?” Uriel scoffs. 

Metatron swivels in his chair with a sigh. “The robots aren’t solely meant for jungle expeditions, they are made to blend in with humans. They wear the trench coat to cover the module so they can blend in, duh.”

Anna chimes in, spinning slightly in her chair. “Plus, the trench coats look badass.”

“We’re not going for stylish, we’re trying not to get noticed.” Uriel shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

“They’re modular,” Metatron rolls his eyes. “You can put them in whatever you want, and apparently your boss went with the standard outfit. So… not our fault.”

Anna nods and points at the screen. “This is actually a step up from how they used to look. I mean, they’re built to look like real people—eyes, face, hair. It’s uncanny. Everyone gets a unique human skin overlay. Custom builds. Different faces, proportions. But underneath? Full metal skeleton and synthetic muscle—“

“Are you hearing yourselves?” Uriel stares at them. “This isn’t a fucking fashion show. The entire point of this mission is to not be seen. Tell them to lose the coats.”

Metatron sighs and starts typing the new commands. On-screen, the bots receive the updated command and they all pause mid-step and start t shrug off the heavy fabric, letting it fall to the ground. As soon as the trench coats are off, they resume walking towards the nav point and he frowns at the screen as they leave the trench coats in piles on the ground. “Happy now?”

“Ecstatic,” Uriel replies, deadpan and leans back against the wall. The bots blend much better into the jungle in their black suits.