The Spectre of Project Helix The first thing he noticed wasn’t the broken monitor. It was the precision of the solder. Lab Gamma…
The waiting room of the Western regional train station was damp at midnight, smelling of diesel and sweat. A heavy-duty truck screeched to…
The courtroom felt colder than winter, though the calendar insisted it was late spring. The air was sharp, metallic, buzzing faintly with fluorescent…
CHAPTER 1 — PEACE BEFORE THE STORM That September, the small town of Clearwater—a quiet place tucked beside the river of the same…
The wind off the Atlantic cut through the morning haze, sharp and cold, carrying the taste of salt and rust. A silver sedan,…
The buzzing in the medical tent was a familiar kind of chaos. Drills, shouting, the rhythmic thud of boots on hard-packed dirt just outside.…
The silence. That’s what I remember first. Not the laughter, not the insults, but the sound of the air pressure changing the second I crossed…
The first day back felt unreal. After months in a dusty field hospital, the smell of pine and my mom’s baking nearly made…
Chapter I: The Icy Lunch Hour It was a typical October day at Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base. The cold sea breeze…
The autumn morning at Fort Harrington began like any other: the steady march of boots on pavement, the clank of metal as the…