Then, the clearest memory yet emerged with perfect tactical detail… Tactical teams surrounded a warehouse. Brock stood just outside the perimeter, watching me through the window as I realized I’d been set up.
“You’re worth more to me as property than as a partner,” he said through my earpiece. “I’d say I’m sorry it had to come to this…but I’m not. Not even the slightest bit.”
My voice responded—unfamiliar yet undeniably mine, with a confidence that didn’t belong to Reaper. “I will remember this. And I will find you.”
Brock’s laugh cut through the connection with cruel amusement. “That’s the beauty of it.” White noise obliterated my name again, a surgical excision. “Why bother? Your memory is empty, so why bother?”
The chip rotated faster between my fingers, driven by rage building within me—cold, focused, and entirely different from the programmed aggression of conditioning.
Now, it was all hitting me at once. I could recall more of the shattered memories of the life I’d left behind, tailoring them together, so they made sense. The amount of information that flooded my mind was overwhelming, but Brock had partially done me a favor with the programming when it came to this. I was able to catalogue them methodically, one by one, in a way that made sense.
Mission flashes interrupted like intrusive code—targets I had eliminated. But now I saw them differently. The banker in Geneva. The technology executive in Singapore. The political fixer in Buenos Aires. All people who had crossed Brock during our partnership years before.
He’d been using me—using Oblivion’s resources—to settle his vendetta. Using me as his weapon against those who slighted him.
And still, my own name remained a maddening absence—a white noise that represented the most fundamental theft. Brock hadn’t just betrayed me; he had erased me.
I pocketed the poker chip; its weight was now a talisman connecting me to the man I was. My movements combined accuracy with the muscle memory of my original training—a deadly fusion of both identities.
Specter observed from the doorway, his clinical gaze cataloging every micro-expression that crossed my face.
“Your memories are returning,” he observed. “Without the usual physical distress.”
I met his eyes. “Not all of them. Just enough.”
“Enough for what?”
I checked my weapons with methodical efficiency, each movement flowing with a lethal grace that felt like my own, not programmed.
“Enough to know Brock wants more than just Maeve. He wants to use her to destroy me, to watch me shatter as I finally remember everything he took.”
My name remained frustratingly beyond reach, but Brock’s betrayal was clear. I didn’t need my name to know what I must do.
I laid out three tactical knives on the coffee table, testing each edge against my thumb. Beside them sat four handguns, field-stripped and reassembled faster than my training protocols dictated. My fingers moved with unfamiliar flourishes—muscle memory from someone I used to be.
The safehouse had transformed into an arsenal, weapons arranged with meticulous care. Specter worked silently across the room, his movements mirroring mine with professional efficiency. Neither of us acknowledged the surreal contrast—how the morning light streaming through the windows created an illusion of normalcy that mocked our preparations.
As I sat on the bed, my foot brushed against fabric—Maeve’s t-shirt. I paused, my hand hovering before making a decision my programming would flag as compromised behavior. I lifted it to my face before I could analyze the impulse. Her scent lingered—jasmine and something uniquely her. I hesitated, neural pathwaysbattling between tactical efficiency and human impulse, then folded it before tucking it inside my tactical vest, directly over my heart.
“Brock won’t expect me to be functional so soon.” The tactical assessment flowed naturally, but my voice contained undertones that training never instilled—colder in some syllables, warmer in others.
I holstered the Glock, then spun a second handgun with a flourish that belonged to someone else—to the man who owned the red poker chip.
“Is she making you stronger or compromising you?” Specter asked from across the room, voice clinically detached but eyes sharp with professional assessment.
The question should have triggered defense protocols, warnings of mission compromise. It didn’t. Instead, clarity bloomed in my mind.
“Both,” I answered, certainty replacing doubt. “And that’s why Brock won’t understand what’s coming for him.”
I felt my programming attempt to reassert control—the familiar pressure building behind my eyes like hydraulic force against a failing dam. Instead of pain, there was only a fading echo as my altered neural pathways rejected the intrusion. Something fundamental had changed.
Glass exploded inward with a sound like ice breaking. Shards sprayed across the room as a bullet punched through the exact spot where my head had been seconds before. Specter and I dropped simultaneously into a combat stance, weapons drawn, moving in perfect synchronized motion despite never having trained together.
Three more shots tore through the apartment in sequence—professional rhythm, not panic fire.
“Single shooter. Rooftop across the street. Professional,” Specter assessed, our backs pressed against the wall beneath the shattered window. His expression darkened. “This was too fast. Brock must have had a contingency team ready once he secured Maeve.”
The implication struck harder than any bullet could. “Or Maeve told them our location under interrogation.”
