The Sound of Modern Steel

We returned to the safehouse with our prisoner, Alaric Thorne's right-hand man and the manager of his sordid operation. We had taken casualties, but the mission was a success. Most importantly, none of our own had lost their lives.

The man, Olen, was now bound to a chair in the middle of a stark room.

I stood before him, my face concealed by an olive-drab mask painted with a grinning skull, my eyes hidden behind yellow-tinted lenses. It was an attempt to intimidate. Behind him, Spike leaned casually against the wall, a silent, menacing presence.

"Olen," I began, my voice low and even. "I need to know where you take the girls."

He refused to respond, his glare defiant.

"Listen," I said, my voice dropping to a low threat. "You're going to answer my questions, or things are going to get very, very bad for you."

"I didn't do anything! I swear!" he shouted, his face a mask of desperate denial.

I glanced at Spike. With a subtle nod from me, he pushed off the wall and approached Olen. He placed his hands on the prisoner's shoulders and began to rub them gently. It was a classic psychological tactic, a moment of calm designed to make the ensuing agony all the more unbearable. As a former mercenary from the Aethel Continental War, Spike knew the fundamentals of interrogation. A second later, his hands shot up and slammed into the sides of Olen's head, striking his ears with brutal force.

"Arrrgghh!" Olen screamed, a raw cry of pain. "Please! You don't understand! Mayor Thorne will kill me—"

I cut him off, my hand closing around his throat. "With us," I rasped, "you only have to worry about what happens before you die." I released my grip, and he gasped for oxygen, collapsing into a fit of violent coughs.

"They're taken... to his mansion," he choked out between coughs. "The exchange... it's scheduled for tomorrow evening."

I nodded slowly. "Alright. Last question." I drew my Yamato-made pistol from my plate carrier and showed it to him. "Where did you get this?"

"I don't know! I swear!" he cried.

I reached over to a nearby table, picked up a pair of pliers, and slammed them hard against his kneecap.

"Agh! No! Please, no more!"

I passed the pliers to Spike. "I won't stop until you give me something," I said flatly. The burly man took Olen's thumb and began to apply steady, crushing pressure until the bone gave way.

A pitiful wail escaped him. "I got it from Lyra! Thorne's secretary! That's all I know! I promise!"

I stared into his eyes for a long, silent twenty seconds, searching for deceit. Finding none, I nodded and turned to leave. But then a terrifying realization struck me.

"The YDF uses this model too, don't they?" I mused aloud, scratching my chin. The pieces clicked into place, and my eyes widened. "The only way they could have gotten their hands on it is from... the transport?" The complexity of my mission had just increased exponentially.

We had reconvened in the basement meeting room. Security was tight, as we were now planning a major operation.

Spike unrolled a scroll across the table, revealing a meticulously hand-drawn map. "This is the layout of Alaric Thorne's mansion," he announced. For a low-tech group, their cartography was excellent.

One of the rebels suggested we sneak inside the mansion an hour before the exchange. "Once it starts, we attack, cut off Thorne's head, and save the girls." The man clearly had no idea how an assassination worked.

"I disagree," Brielle said, holding up a hand. "A frontal assault on that mansion would be suicide."

"I also disagree," I added. "To win with surprise, you first have to demoralize the enemy. We need to eliminate their leader or a key component to prevent them from mounting an effective response."

"You sound like a trained soldier," one of the rebels observed.

"I am," I confirmed.

"So, what's the plan, kid?" Spike asked, looking at me.

Consulting the map, I pointed to a spot east of the mansion's backyard. "This is a forested cliff, right?"

"Yes," another rebel affirmed. "What are you planning, Lieutenant?"

"I'm going to set up on that cliff with Brielle," I explained. "The moment that fat bastard shows his face, I'm putting a bullet in him."

"Are you sure about that, Lieutenant Arc?" Melina asked, startled. "That cliff is over a kilometer from the mansion. You can't possibly hit him from there. Even a master musketeer can only hit a target from a hundred yards."

"It's not impossible for me," I said, then turned to the men who had been on the raid with me. "You saw my weapon fire multiple times without reloading, didn't you?" They nodded.

"So, when do we attack?" one of them questioned.

"You'll conceal yourselves in the woodland near the mansion. After I fire three shots, you are to assault the residence and rescue the girls. However, if you see Lyra, Thorne's secretary, I want her taken alive. She has valuable information about the weapons." They all nodded in understanding.

Spike slammed his fist on the table, standing up. "Alright, then! We'll use Arc's plan. Get ready!" he ordered.

Night had fallen, enveloping us in darkness. We were deep in the forest, a few kilometers from the mayor's residence.

"What are you doing, Arc?" Brielle asked, her curiosity piqued.

"Just a minute," I replied. I was applying traditional camouflage face paint, a pattern of black, brown, and green stripes. I layered the black heavily from my left temple to my lower right cheek, then added the other colors to break up the contours of my face and blend it with the foliage. Next, I pulled my ghillie suit from a large pack and donned it. The garment, a cape-like covering of burlap and synthetic leaves, would render me nearly invisible in the woodland environment.

I looked over at Brielle. "Done."

She stared, first at my face paint, then at my suit. A giggle escaped her, quickly turning into a stifled laugh. "Hehe! Arc, you look ridiculous! Like some kind of wandering bush monster! Haha."

I gave her a bored look, feeling a bead of sweat trickle down my temple. "It's not that funny, Brielle."

"Hehe, sorry!" she said, wiping a tear from her eye. I handed her an improvised ghillie cloak—a black leather cape with a hood that I had covered in leaves.

"Wear this," I told her. She nodded and put it on. "Let's go." I stood and unslung my MP5.

We moved through the trees in silence, side by side. I had instructed Brielle not to fire her weapon; the noise would give away our position. My suppressed SMG, however, was quiet enough for close-quarters work.

When we reached the cliff's edge, we dropped to our bellies, keeping low to avoid silhouetting ourselves against the sky. I set down my SMG and fitted my sniper rifle with an AN/PVS-22 night vision scope. The mansion looked immense from this distance. "It's huge," I murmured, peering through the optic. Even with the formidable wall surrounding the property, I had a clear view of the backyard.

"Yes, it is," Brielle whispered back. I set the rifle on its bipod. The scope cast my vision in an ethereal green hue; without it, I could see nothing but blackness.

Her eyes were on me. "Arc, are you certain a rifle can hit a target from a kilometer away? It doesn't seem possible."

"For a novice, maybe. For a seasoned sniper, however, it's like playing blackjack," I said, cocking the bolt. "It's all calculations and gambles, but you have to be confident in your shot, or you're guaranteed to miss. The longest recorded sniper kill was by Royal Army sniper Craig Harrison, at 2,475 meters. He used an L115A3, the same model Cutter uses."

"What? 2,475 meters?!" she half-shrieked in a whisper. I just nodded. "What's your longest kill?"

"856 meters." I dialed the scope to its highest magnification. "If I make this shot," I declared, "I'll be breaking my own record." I pressed my eye to the scope and saw figures filing out of the mansion into the backyard. "Multiple hostiles moving into the backyard," I said quietly. "You got a visual on the target?"

Brielle activated her 'Magic Eyes', her pupils glowing faintly blue. "Yes, Alaric is there. He's in the center of the formation, flanked by bodyguards. The abducted girls are behind him, bound together. Looks like the exchange is about to begin."

I could have spotted him without her help. His portly figure was unmistakable. "What's the range?"

"Nine hundred meters," she said, then shook her head slightly. "No... wait. One thousand, one hundred and twelve."

I scanned my surroundings. "Visibility is clear, weather is calm, no wind." Perfect.

"Are you sure you can do this, Arc?" she asked, her tone laced with worry. "There are innocent people down there. I'm just worried you might miss and hit one of them."

"Don't worry," I replied, my voice calm. Composure was everything in these moments. "One shot, one kill," I reaffirmed, flicking the safety off the rifle.

I cleared my mind, my world narrowing to a tunnel of focus where only the fat bastard in my crosshairs and I existed. In the quiet of my mind, I heard the voice of Mochizuki-senpai, my late drill instructor. Feel your breath permeating every cell. Control your breath, and you control the mind. The trigger pull becomes an unconscious action. You are aware of it, but you are not in control of it. As you exhale, find your natural respiratory pause, the space between heartbeats. It was the mantra from my sniper course, a lesson etched into my soul.

I held my breath, feeling my heart slow to a steady 60 beats per minute. I centered the crosshairs on Alaric Thorne's head. For that boy, and for these girls, I thought. In the perfect stillness between heartbeats, my finger squeezed the trigger.

CRACK!

The rifle's report shattered the limbo, slamming me back to the cliffside. Time seemed to warp, stretching into slow motion. I could see the .338 Lapua Magnum round as it left the barrel, a streak of metal tearing through the air at more than twice the speed of sound. It found its mark, striking Thorne squarely in the forehead and shattering my personal record. He was thrown backward, a puppet with its strings cut. There was no surviving that.

"Tango down," I said softly, working the bolt and ejecting the spent casing.

Brielle stared, her eyes wide at the sight of the mayor's corpse, a clean hole in his head. "Wow... Amazing!" she breathed.

Below, chaos erupted as people scattered in panic, unsure where the shot had come from. I scanned through the confusion and found one of Thorne's men frantically searching the perimeter. I aimed for him and fired again. An unexpected gust of wind pushed the round off course, and instead of his skull, it tore through his right forearm. He'd live, but his career as a guard was over.

Chambering another round, I acquired a nearby guard. Factoring in the wind, I lined up the shot and fired. The bullet struck him in the side of the neck, severing his spinal cord and dropping him instantly. Another clean kill.

I was searching for a new target when my eyes landed on Lyra. She was staring directly at our position. Just as I was about to put a round in her leg, she vaulted over the high wall and vanished into the jungle.

"Shit," I swore. She wasn't human. She must have known exactly where we were. The rebels would see to the girls. I folded the bipod, slung the sniper rifle over my back, and grabbed my SMG. "I think Lyra spotted us!" I said, getting to my feet and turning to my partner. "We have to go!"

"Right!" Brielle nodded, scrambling up. We plunged back into the forest.