All Chapters of MARCUS CHEN; The Reborn: Chapter 11
- Chapter 20
25 chapters
CHAPTER 11
THE BOXThe facility looked like a corporate office park.Manicured lawns. Bland architecture. A sign that read "Northern Research Associates" in forgettable letters. The kind of place you'd drive past without a second glance.Which was exactly the point.Marcus crouched behind a treeline three hundred yards out, scanning the building through binoculars. The system highlighted heat signatures, security cameras, patrol routes. Twelve guards visible. Probably twice that many inside."That's not a research center," Aria whispered beside him. "That's a fortress pretending to be an office.""Reinforced walls. Bulletproof windows. Underground levels that don't appear on any blueprint." Dr. Reeves studied her tablet. "The building's official permits say it's three stories. Ground-penetrating radar shows six levels below ground. That's where they're keeping your father."Marcus's jaw tightened. Six levels down. Might as well be a mile.The system updated: [MISSION FOUR: 4 HOURS, 33 MINUTES. G
CHAPTER 12
THE BOX cont’d"You can barely walk," Dr. Reeves protested."Then I'll crawl. But I'm finishing this." Thomas looked at his son. "Together."Marcus nodded. "Together."They moved toward the elevator. Father and son. Both broken. Both refusing to quit.Behind them, Vance called out: "You think you've won? This operation is just one cell. One program. The conspiracy is bigger than you know. Bigger than you can imagine. Kill me. Arrest Cross. It doesn't matter. Someone else will take our place.""Probably," Marcus agreed. "But today, we're taking you."The elevator doors closed.And for the first time in twenty years, Marcus Chen stood beside his father. Not as memories. Not as ghosts. But as soldiers in the same war."You've grown up," Thomas said quietly."You've gotten old.""Yeah, well. Twenty years of being erased will do that." Thomas managed a smile. "You did good, son. Better than I ever did at your age.""You set the standard pretty high.""And you exceeded it." Thomas gripped h
CHAPTER 13
GHOSTS AND ECHOESMarcus woke up in a hospital bed for the second time in two weeks.This was becoming a pattern he didn't like.Sunlight filtered through thin curtains. Medical equipment beeped steadily. His body felt like it had been run through a meat grinder, reassembled wrong, then run through again for good measure.The system pulsed weakly: [HOST VITALS: STABLE. NEURAL INTEGRATION: 94%. RECOVERY TIME ESTIMATED: 48 HOURS.]Forty-eight hours. He had seventy-two until Mission Five.The math wasn't encouraging."You're awake." Aria sat in a chair beside the bed, looking like she hadn't slept since the Box. Dark circles under her eyes. Coffee cup in hand. But alert. Always alert. "How do you feel?""Like I fought an army and won by being slightly less dead than them.""Accurate assessment." She set down the coffee. "You've been out for sixteen hours. The doctors wanted to keep you sedated longer, but your father convinced them you'd just wake up anyway and cause problems.""Where is
CHAPTER 14
THE CALM BEFOREMorning came too fast and too bright.Marcus woke to the smell of burnt coffee and the sound of Danny arguing with a wood stove that clearly had opinions about cooperating. Sunlight slanted through gaps in the cabin's walls, painting golden stripes across rough-hewn floors.For exactly three seconds, he forgot where he was. Forgot the missions. Forgot the conspiracy. Forgot everything except the simple pleasure of waking up without immediate danger.Then the system pulsed: [MISSION FIVE: 52 HOURS, 34 MINUTES.]Reality crashed back.He sat up, every muscle protesting. The bed—if you could call a thin mattress on a wooden frame a bed—had not been kind to his healing body. The system had kept him functional yesterday, but it couldn't erase the toll two weeks of constant violence had taken."You look like hell," Aria said from the doorway. She held two tin cups, steam rising. "Coffee. Or what passes for it when you're brewing in a pot meant for stew."Marcus took the cup g
CHAPTER 15
INTO THE LION'S DENThe first guard died without a sound.Marcus's hands moved on instinct—left hand covering the mouth, right hand applying pressure to the carotid artery. Three seconds. The guard went limp. Marcus lowered him gently into the shadows behind the perimeter fence."Clear," he whispered into his comm.Thomas emerged from the darkness, moving like a ghost despite twenty years away from field work. "Second guard neutralized. Patrol pattern suggests we have four minutes before the next rotation."They'd breached the outer fence three minutes ago. Cut through chain-link with wire cutters that made barely a whisper. Now they were inside the kill zone—the open space between perimeter and building where motion sensors, cameras, and thermal imaging should have detected them instantly.Should have.The system was earning its keep. [SECURITY PATTERN ANALYZED. OPTIMAL INFILTRATION ROUTE HIGHLIGHTED. SURVEILLANCE BLIND SPOTS: 7 LOCATIONS.]Marcus followed the glowing path only he co
CHAPTER 16
COUNTDOWN TO CHAOSMarcus crashed through the security door at full sprint.The hallway beyond was narrow. Six guards. All armed. All turning toward the sound of shattering metal.No time for strategy. No time for tactics. Just momentum and violence.He hit the first guard like a missile. Drove him into the second. Both went down. Third raised his rifle—Marcus grabbed the barrel, yanked, used it as a club against the fourth guard's temple. Fifth and sixth opened fire.[TRAJECTORY ANALYSIS: ACTIVE. DODGE VECTOR: CALCULATED.]The system showed him the bullets before they arrived. Paths of death drawn in glowing lines. Marcus moved between them. Impossible. Inhuman. He closed the distance in three strides.Fifth guard's neck broke with a sound like breaking wood. Sixth tried to run.Marcus caught him. Slammed him into the concrete wall hard enough to crack both.[7 MINUTES, 43 SECONDS.]Seven minutes before the emergency protocol burned him out completely.Marcus kept moving. Past office
CHAPTER 17
ZERO HOURMarcus had eighty-seven minutes to escape a locked room and stop the end of American democracy.He started with the door.Standard issue. Reinforced steel. Magnetic locks. No handle on the inside. The system flickered weakly, trying to analyze it.[DOOR ANALYSIS: ELECTROMAGNETIC SEAL. REQUIRES 480 VOLTS TO DISENGAGE. HOST CAPABILITY: INSUFFICIENT.]"Then I'll make it sufficient."Marcus scanned the room. Weapons. Explosives. Communications equipment. And there—tucked in the corner—a laptop connected to something that looked like a portable power station.He moved to it. Opened the laptop. Password protected, of course. The system tried to crack it, stuttered, crashed. His neural pathways were too damaged from the emergency protocol."Come on. Work. Please work."[ATTEMPTING BYPASS... FAILURE. ATTEMPTING ALTERNATE ROUTE... FAILURE. NEURAL CAPACITY: 23%.]Twenty-three percent functionality. Not enough for the sophisticated hacking the system usually handled. But maybe enough f
CHAPTER 18
THE LAST STANDThe helicopter banked hard over the Catoctin Mountains.Marcus gripped the safety harness, watching trees blur into green smears below. His body was shutting down. The system kept feeding him damage reports he couldn't fix. Cracked ribs. Internal bleeding. Neural pathways burnt beyond repair. Running on borrowed time.[HOST VITALS CRITICAL. COLLAPSE IMMINENT. RECOMMEND IMMEDIATE MEDICAL INTERVENTION.]"Recommend faster," Marcus muttered.Beside him, Thomas checked weapons. Aria was on comms coordinating with Secret Service. Danny monitored radar. Leon—somehow Leon had insisted on coming—stared out the window looking terrified but determined."ETA three minutes," the pilot called back. Marine Corps. Young. Probably wondering why he was flying civilians into a presidential security zone during an active threat.Rhodes's voice crackled over the radio. "Chen, Secret Service is refusing to delay the landing. They say Air Force One is safer on the ground than in the air. They
CHAPTER 19
GHOSTS OF THE FUTURE[47 DAYS LATER]Marcus woke to the sound of gunfire.His hand moved on instinct—reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. Heart hammering. System activating. Then awareness crashed in. Not real gunfire. Danny was watching an action movie downstairs in the safe house, volume too loud.Marcus exhaled. Checked the system display: [HOST RECOVERY: 73%. NEURAL PATHWAYS: RECONSTRUCTED. COMBAT CAPABILITY: RESTORED.]Seventy-three percent. Dr. Reeves had been right. Three months of rest, proper medical care, and whatever experimental treatments she'd been running had brought him back from the edge. Not perfect. But functional.He stood. Stretched. Felt muscles respond without screaming protest. The cracked ribs had healed. Internal bleeding stopped. The system hummed quietly in his mind—present but not overwhelming.Almost normal.Almost.[MISSION SIX: ACTIVATION IN 8 HOURS, 43 MINUTES.]Eight hours. After forty-seven days of recovery, of planning, of preparing—the next dis
CHAPTER 20
FIRE AND RESOLVE Marcus crashed through the science fair like a storm given human form. Students scattered. Parents screamed. Display boards toppled. The system painted his vision with overlays—heat signatures, structural weaknesses, threat vectors. Too much information. Not enough time. [EXPLOSIVES: GYMNASIUM - 2 DEVICES. AUDITORIUM - 3 DEVICES. CAFETERIA - 2 DEVICES.] [CHEMICAL AGENT: VENTILATION ROOM, BASEMENT LEVEL.] [HOSTILE WARDENS: DISPERSED THROUGHOUT BUILDING.] [TIME TO DETONATION: 14 MINUTES, 12 SECONDS.] Aria's voice crackled in his earpiece. "I've got the ventilation room. Danny's with me. We'll stop the chemical agent." "Thomas, take the gymnasium," Marcus commanded, still running. "Leon, you're on evacuation. Get as many people out as possible. Prioritize the main exits." "What about the auditorium?" Thomas asked. "Three devices there." "I've got it. Just move!" Marcus hit the stairwell at full sprint. Third floor. The auditorium was a converted thea