RONAN I was about to drive my elbow back when one of my feeds spiked hard, sharp enough to pull my focus without warning. Cell signals flared all at once. Too many to be normal. They were pouring out of a five story office building that overlooked the Interlink Highway. The angle was perfect. Too perfect. I zoomed in, slowed the feed, and isolated the source. My fingers moved without thinking. I highlighted it and sent it straight to Victor. He reviewed the data fast. No questions. No pause. A flight of drones peeled off and redirected toward the building. Thermal returns bloomed on the display. Human shapes. Top floor. Moving. "Did I find something?" I asked, keeping my voice steady."Possible OP," Victor said. I opened my mouth to ask what OP meant. The armored vehicle lurched violently instead. A heavy blast slammed into us. Metal groaned. The air compressed. The sound filled every inch of the cramped space. Davis and the communications officer started talking over each other on their lines. I still could not remember the officer’s name. Words blurred together, but I caught enough. Nguyen’s recon unit had hit a large 4x4 racing along the rail line. From the size of the blast shaking us, I did not need more detail. It had been loaded. Probably meant to take out the overpass. Probably meant to split the brigade in two. My attention snapped back to the drone feed. The glowing white figures on the fifth floor were running now. Then they came apart in an instant. Each body burst into dozens of pieces that cooled as they fell. "What the hell just happened to the guys in the OP?" I asked. "They tried to outrun HVDs," Victor said. "They did not make it. They are not the only spotters. Just the least smart ones. Stay alert." A new message cut in from the communications officer. "Elements of Owen have located fiber optic lines running alongside the Interlink Highway." "Are they using that to communicate?" I asked. The answer never came. An alarm klaxon howled through the vehicle. The turret above us spun fast. I saw the boots of the vehicle commander and gunner turning in my side vision as the system tracked targets. The conveyor beside my head came alive. Darts rattled through it in a solid, grinding roar.Even with my ear protection, the noise felt physical. My hands came up on instinct. I pressed them against the sides of my head. The vehicle shook once. Then again. The turret kept rotating. One direction. Then the other. Back and forth, hunting. The buzzing stopped. Then started again. Short bursts. Each one meant we were firing at something I could not see. I forced myself to look at my feeds. Everything had fallen apart. Buildings burned on both sides of the highway. Flames reflected off glass and metal. Drones vanished from the display and were replaced by backups. Data streams dropped and reappeared as soldiers and vehicles brought reserve systems online. One window held my attention.A siege crawler exploded into fire. The blast tore through it. Flames swallowed the hull. I saw men charging from both sides of the Interlink Highway. Too many of them. Gunfire cracked and then bullets started striking our armor. Each impact made my body tense. I could not understand the logic. Who would close distance with the Army like this. Then something else stood out. A single cellular signal crossed an empty lot between a gas station and another office building. I took control of the drone and switched to high definition video. The field was empty. No movement. No figures. Nothing. I checked the radio spectrum again.The signal was still there. Strong. Moving fast. Already halfway across the lot. My chest tightened. Memory surfaced. The Armory. Old briefings. Documentaries from the Chinese Taiwanese War. How the Army learned to bend light and texture. How soldiers learned to vanish using smart materials. I typed fast. Clean and direct. Marked it high priority. Sent it to Victor. A second later, I heard him swear over the shared line. The turret shifted toward the open lot. The conveyor roared again. The vibration ran through my jaw and rattled my teeth. On my screen, hundreds of darts burst in the air above the field. Over it. Around it. Smoke and flame swallowed the view. I saw nothing solid. Whatever had been there did not survive.Then a brief flash caught my eye. Light reflected from the ground floor of the office building. The alarm screamed again. Louder. Sharper. Cutting through everything else. God’s hammer hit us. I felt it before I heard it. A crushing force slammed into the vehicle. The roar shook my bones. The siege crawler rocked hard on its tracks. I was thrown forward into my display, face first, then ripped backward into the seat as the vehicle crashed down again. One tread lifted clear off the ground before slamming back into place. Heat rolled over me. Panic followed close behind. Was I on fire?Smoke filled the compartment. My vision blurred. Systems failed all at once. Screens went dark. Power vanished. The interior fell into blackness. The only light left came from inside the vehicle. Fire had started somewhere close. It flickered, then spread, casting uneven light across metal and smoke as it began to consume the vehicle from within.