Massive Disaster III-22

The shield felt right in his hands. 

Not natural, not yet, but right. Caleb crouched behind the upturned metal table, heart hammering in his chest even as he kept his breathing steady. The royal blue suit hugged his new body in ways his old clothes never could—designed for movement, for impact, for the person he was becoming rather than the one he’d been.

Major Victory. The name still felt ridiculous every time it echoed in his head. But Zedd had insisted they needed call signs, identities separate from their civilian selves. Protection, he’d said. Compartmentalization.

Three training drones hovered at the other end of the cavernous underground room, weapons hot and tracking. ADAM was running them harder than usual today—no pulled punches, no safety protocols beyond the bare minimum. Real stakes. Real consequences if they screwed up.

“I count five points of entry they could be using,” Scot’s voice came through the comms, too analytical for someone facing live fire. The guy was crouched behind a concrete pillar fifteen feet to Caleb’s left, that weird purple visor glowing faintly in the dim light. “If we coordinate trajectories based on their standard movement patterns—”

“Or I could just hit them really hard with my shield,” Caleb cut in, already feeling the familiar itch to move. Sitting still had never been his thing, and now with the serum coursing through his veins, it was practically torture. His muscles hummed with potential energy, eager for release.

Scot’s head turned toward him, expression impossible to read behind that visor. “That approach lacks tactical—”

A blast from one of the drones cut the conversation short, a kinetic pulse scoring the concrete just inches from Scot’s head.

“Tactical discussions work better when we’re not being shot at!” Caleb shouted, already moving. He pushed off from his position, shield raised, feeling the strange lightness that came with enhanced muscles. Still not used to it—the way gravity seemed to have less hold on him now, the way his body responded instantly to commands that would have once been impossible.

The first drone swiveled to track him, weapon whining as it charged. Too slow. Caleb was already in motion, shield angled to deflect the incoming blast. The impact vibrated through the Titanium-V alloy, energy dissipating harmlessly across its surface.

He spun into the movement, letting the shield’s momentum carry him through a full turn before launching it at the drone. The disc sliced through the air, edge catching the drone’s weapon mount and sheering it clean off before ricocheting back toward his waiting hand.

The neural link in his gauntlet hummed, kinetic return system activating. The shield reversed course mid-air, slapping back into his palm with a satisfying thunk that he felt through his entire arm.

Getting better at that, he thought, allowing himself a small grin beneath his helmet. Two weeks ago he’d have missed the catch completely.

“Left side!” Scot’s voice snapped through the comms.

Caleb pivoted just in time to see two more drones flanking, weapons already tracking. He dropped to one knee, shield raised, but knew the angle was wrong—they had him pinned.

Then purple light blazed from behind the pillar. A lance of concentrated energy—like a laser but somehow more—shot past Caleb’s shoulder, so close he felt the heat through his suit. It caught the lead drone dead center, the beam punching through its armored shell and out the other side. The machine dropped instantly, internal components fried beyond recovery.

Scot stepped out from cover, visor glowing intensely, one hand extended slightly as if guiding the blast. His blue-black suit was more streamlined than Caleb’s, built for mobility rather than impact. No armor plates, just reinforced padding over enhanced muscles. The guy moved differently now—more deliberate, more precise, every step calculated where Caleb’s were instinctual.

“Your three o’clock,” Scot said, voice controlled despite the energy he’d just unleashed. “Now.”

Caleb spun again, shield already moving to intercept the attack from the remaining drone. “Son of a bi-” The deflection wasn’t clean, not in the slightest and he could tell before it even hit. 

The angle was wrong, timing was entirely off and he already knew how bad it would hurt before it hit. The blast caught him straight in the shoulder, spinning him halfway around. The suit absorbed most of the impact, but he still felt the sting. God, that would wreck a normal person.

“You do remember what I said about coordination, right, Major Victory?” Scot called, already moving to a new position. “You break their formation, I pick them off.”

“Yeah, yeah, Beacon,” Caleb muttered, shaking off the hit with another grunt. “I’m just used to doing that with someone that talks less and actually picks them off, before I agree with the pl—”

The far wall hissed open, interrupting Caleb’s retort as it revealed the hulking form of a MAGNi security mech. Eight feet of armored combat chassis, guns replaced with twin pulse cannons courtesy of the big boss’s venture into weaponry, and heavy legs grinding against the concrete floor as it advanced.

“That’s… new,” Caleb managed, suddenly very aware of how exposed they were.

Scot had gone completely still, visor’s glow intensifying as he analyzed the new threat. “ADAM’s really not holding back today.”

The MAGNi’s weapons powered up with an ominous whine, targeting systems locking onto Caleb’s position.

Oh shit.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The numbers didn’t make sense.

Scot didn’t see the mech. He parsed it. Heat balance across the frame. Power surge along its left-side coil. Air ripple on barrel discharge. The thing was heavier than the specs Zedd gave them, faster too. Not training-grade. Live-mode patterning, energy output cranked.

His visor swept over it—targeting pings echoing off his jawbone, data folding in across his periphery. Weak points highlighted by impulse, but the armor rating was wrong. Off by at least forty percent. That didn’t match anything in their calibration set.

Something Zedd forgot to tell them. Or something ADAM was testing without asking.

Caleb was already moving. Of course he was. Broad sprint, shield drawn, that new ease in his gait still not calibrated to his own instincts. He moved like someone who believed his body now, which meant he moved fast and sometimes forgot what he used to need to brace for.

The first cannon blast slammed his shield. Hard contact. Good angle. Still kicked him back, boots skidding across floor tile that was too smooth for grip.

“We need to fall back,” Scot said, breath threading evenly despite the spike in output flashing against his HUD. “Regroup at junction point Charlie.”

“In English!” Caleb shouted back. The angle of his voice said he was diving low, rolling wide—more muscle memory than formation.

“The damn door,” Scot snapped, hands already up, vectoring the psionic lance toward the mech’s sensor suite.

The blast hit. It pinged, fizzed, scorched—but didn’t disable. Too much shielding.

Still no reaction from ADAM. Which meant this wasn’t a glitch.

The mech rotated toward him. Not full turn—partial vector, tracking correction. The thing already prioritized him as threat. Heat signature bumped. Targeting re-syncing. He moved—two steps, deliberate, toward concrete. Behind cover before the pulse went off.

The shockwave hit the column he ducked behind—heat rebounded across his forearms. Static crawled through the underlayer of his suit.

Visor recalibrated. Movement trace. Current spikes. That mech was pulling from a backup feed. Direct link from power to mount, skipping safeties.

“Caleb,” Scot called, volume even. “I need a distraction. Five seconds.”

No hesitation. Just breath, then a crash. Caleb’s shield slammed cannon, redirected angle. The shot went vertical, ripped out a chunk of ceiling like it owed him money. Debris hissed down.

Scot found the override dial on the underside of his visor. Two clicks left. One forward. Pressure lock undone. This was Zedd’s “never touch this unless you want to black out” setting. They’d argued about it. Zedd won. But he’d still shown Scot how.

He twisted the dial.

Heat hit first. Not temperature—pressure. Behind his eyes. Through his teeth. Spine locked. Jaw clenched. Everything overlit. Sound amplified. Gravity shifted.

He stepped out from cover. The mech was more shape than object now—every seam, joint, cable burned into his retinas in negative violet. The air around it warped. Energy bloom tracked off its shoulders. He could see its internals firing.

His hand rose. Not intentional, a clear reflex, his body already channeling the power Zedd had gifted him.The moment before release, he felt her—Madelyn. Bandaged. Still healing. Her breath had a tremor like his used to. She needed the same fix.

“Let it out!” Caleb yelled. Close, too close.

The beam tore free. No line. No containment. Not a Lance. A rupture. Bright, void-purple at the core, violet-white at the edge. It didn’t hit the mech. It erased it.

Armor went fluid. Components burned out in sequence. Energy surged through frame and passed right through the back wall. Fire didn’t spread. It just stopped being cold.

Silence stretched. His breath felt uneven. Couldn’t hear anything else at first. His knees folded without warning. One hand caught the wall—textured grip paint, warm from feedback.

Warning pings flooded his HUD. 

Neural strain 94%. 

Optic dampeners offline. 

Psionic channel destabilized.

Behind him, Caleb exhaled. “Holy shit.”

Footsteps approached and slowed the closer they got to him.

“You cut it in half.”

Scot forced his eyes open. Everything swam in afterimage—violet pulse along the edges, the inside of his skull still humming. The mech was in pieces. Perfect division. No splatter, no scatter. Just a seam that hadn’t been there five seconds ago.

The edges were still glowing.

His breath stuttered once. Not panic. Calibration lag. His body had tried to brace for output, hadn’t caught up.

“That was…” The words came out too slow. He paused, corrected. “Not supposed to happen.”

He felt the shift in air before Caleb landed beside him. Breath quick, boots loud. The warm stink of cooked wiring and adrenaline still clung to both of them.

“You obliterated it,” Caleb said, voice carrying that wide-open Brooklyn glee. “Like, actually. Just—” he made a sound with his hands, a little too close to Scot’s left shoulder, the gesture more kinetic than helpful. “Gone. Gone-gone.”

Scot tilted slightly toward him. Tracked the voice, measured his tone. Familiar cadence, familiar weight behind the vowels. But the register had shifted—lower now, fuller. Caleb still didn’t quite know how to regulate his volume. Or his new strength.

“Zedd’s gonna lose his shit,” Caleb added, half-laughing. “We’re so getting benched for this. But also? Maybe promoted.”

The name pulled everything back into orbit.

Scot straightened. Visor running diagnostics behind his eyelids. Voice flatter now. “That was a MAGNi-class unit.”

Caleb blinked. “Yeah. I noticed.”

“Do you know how much one of those costs?”

There was a pause. “A lot?”

“Base model runs three forty-five K. Pre-tax. That one was customized.”

“Okay, so—maybe don’t lead with that when Zedd shows up,” Caleb said, glancing toward the wall they’d cored. “Just open with ‘We lived!’ and see where it goes.”

ADAM’s voice dropped clean into the space between them. “Training session concluded. Performance assessment: marginal success. Collateral output exceeds intended parameters. Recommend 60-minute cooldown.”

The drones clicked back into dock. Emergency lights powered down. Full fluorescents activated across the floor, washing every scorch mark and crater in bright white.

“Marginal,” Caleb echoed, making a face. “Guess ‘accidentally cracked a war machine in half’ wasn’t on the rubric.”

Scot didn’t answer. He was already walking. Legs unsteady, but controlled. Calibration still resettling. He kept one hand near the wall.

“You good?”

“No,” Scot said, adjusting his visor as the internal cooling system fought to catch up. “I need the telemetry logs. That output level wasn’t modeled.”

“Right,” Caleb said. “Science brain. Forgot.” He caught up in two strides, then clapped a hand on Scot’s shoulder—too hard, just barely.

The jolt hit Scot’s nerves like a firework. He jerked without meaning to.

The silence after was awkward.

“Sorry,” they both said.

Recovery was two doors down. Small room, medical-grade everything, all sleek surfaces and whisper-quiet machines. Scot sat. Not collapsed—sat—with precision, like the motion still mattered.

He pulled the visor off. The world dulled immediately. Pressure dropped behind his eyes.

Across from him, Caleb propped the shield against the wall and flexed his hands, cracking joints like he wasn’t used to how far they moved now. “You did good,” Caleb said. “Once we sync better, we’re unstoppable.”

Scot nodded, fingers tracing the outer edge of his visor. “The output spiked beyond parameter by at least thirty-nine percent. Possibly more.”

Caleb tilted his head. “In English.”

Scot frowned. “I shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

“But you did,” Caleb said, tone easy. “Maybe Zedd missed something.”

“Zedd doesn’t miss by this margin,” Scot said, then paused. “Not unless he wanted to.”

Their comms pinged in tandem.

Scot checked his. “Inner circle. Zedd’s place. One hour.”

Caleb groaned, already peeling his outer suit. “Time for a shower and a believable lie.”

Scot didn’t reply. His hand went to his private comm. Nova Kasiopea. No updates. Still stable, but that wasn’t saying much when she still had yet to wake up.

“She’s gonna be okay,” Caleb said.

Scot looked up to meet his purple eyes. “What?”

“Madelyn,” Caleb said. “I can tell. You check every ten minutes. Zedd said he’d fix it. He will.”

Scot hesitated. “You’re sure.”

Caleb spread his arms wide, flexing slightly as Scot watched. “Look at us. Ten weeks ago, I was breaking just walking uphill. Two, you were blind.”

Scot didn’t correct him. He remembered every version of the dark.

Caleb leaned forward, forearms resting on his knees. “Whatever else Zedd is, he’s real about the fix. If he says she’s gonna be okay? Then she’s gonna be okay.”

Scot nodded. Once. “I hope you’re right.”

Caleb grinned. “I am right.” He stood, stretched. “Now come on. Let’s go see what the boss is planning this time.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

The lab was quiet except for the low hum of equipment, just the way Zedd liked it. Everyone would be at his place in an hour for the meeting, but for now, he had time to finalize the projections, run the numbers one more time. The expansion plans were ambitious—dangerously so—but the timetable was tight after Anderson’s visit.

Three more facilities in the Terminus Systems. Additional production capacity for VEST units. Two more research stations focused exclusively on MELD refinement. And, most critically, a secure location for Project GUARDIAN to expand beyond its current test subjects.

His omnitool pinged, drawing his attention away from the holographic projections hovering above his workstation. A message notification blinked in the corner of his HUD, sender identified as Nina Vasquez.

He opened it with a flick of his wrist, expecting an update on her business program, questions about Victory’s latest financial reports, or just a pretty picture of her.

The text that appeared was neither.

“Adele just sent me a photo of Caleb. What did you do?”

Zedd froze, fingers hovering over the interface as implications cascaded through his mind like falling dominoes. Nina knowing about Caleb. Adele sending photos. The enhanced physique. The purple eyes. The questions…

Shit.