When I came to, I found myself laying in a bed in the Area 29 infirmary. Doctor Sun and Morningstar were sitting in the corner watching us and I could tell the AC had been turned up. I felt a little numb, but no more so than I would wake up after sleeping off a cold. My vision was a little fuzzy, but other than that I seemed to be fine.

"Welcome back", Doctor Sun said.

"The fuck happened back there?", I asked sitting up, realizing everyone else that had been with me, except Mercury, John and Hawk, looked like they were on life support.

"As far as Green and I can tell", Doctor Sun said, "you and the others were hit with some kind of weaponized virus programmed to seek out and brake down the cellular structures of carbon based lifeforms."

"Like the Ceph from Crisis?", I asked.

"Not quite but very close", Doctor Sun said, "now given I know next to nothing about Project X-04, but it seems to me that what we have here is a sort of tenderizer for X-01, designed to soften up enemy fighters prior to an X-01 release. The tower you and Hawk destroyed was likely only one of several that Black River intends to use in their endgame, whatever that might be."

I sighed, looking around at my friends. They looked helpless, like any fuckhead on the other end of a switch could flip it at anytime and end them.

"Ace", Morningstar said, "I really hate to tell you this...but at this point, Green says it's more than likely that they won't wake up."

I shot Morningstar a glance, "what the fuck did you say?"

Morningstar sighed, "Green told me that he doesn't think the others are going to wake up."

"You can't be serious!", I stuttered, "stop...stop lying to me Alex! It's not funny!"

"Why would I lie about that Ace?", Morningstar asked solemnly, "Your not the one who has to send out causality letters to the parents when their kids die."

"Maybe not", I snapped, "but at least you get to keep your kid! If Nina dies, I won't even get the chance to have any!"

I pushed the covers aside and got out of bed, walking to the door of the infirmary.

"Who said you could leave?", Doctor Sun asked, "your not cleared yet."

"You gonna stop me?", I asked angrily.

Doctor Sun didn't answer.

"That's what I thought", I hissed leaving the infirmary. I walked back to the barracks, changed into a white shirt and jeans before heading to the lounge. When I got there, Calen, Vortex and the others were there snacking on the Pizza Taro had picked up earlier.

"Ace", Calen said standing up, "are you okay?"

"I'm fine", I sighed, "somehow...but no one else is."

"What's going on with them?", Vortex asked.

I sighed and stuffed my paws in my pockets, "hell if I know...but according to Green...", I looked at my ring, "I bought that ring for nothing."

My friends exchanged concerned glances.

"Ace what are you", Taro began, but I cut him off.

"It's more likely than not that their all going to die", I said flatly.

I could feel the cloud of "holy shit what did he just say?", set in like a hydraulic press. I felt like my insides were getting ripped out. I knew that any of us could get killed in combat, but I always expected it would come after a Leanna or Arnett had worked their asses off to keep us alive until Medievac showed up, but didn't get there in time. I didn't expect to have to watch my friends die and be helpless to do anything about it. I was almost certain that at least one of us wasn't going to walk away from this one. As selfish as I'm sure it sounded, I prayed to god, anyone but Nina. If she died, I would too.

"Holy shit bro", Calen said, "want a hug? No Homo."

I couldn't help but smile a bit, "couldn't hurt I suppose."

There wasn't any shortage of hugs, or stuff crust pizza for that matter. Dinner was strangely quiet without the little kids around, at least until my Dad pulled out his Chrome book.

"Son", he said, "you need to see this."

My Dad set the computer on the table and plugged in his boom cube. The website open was Alex Jones' Infowars and the title of the video was "Globalist Super Solider sighted in California, fighting Alien?" When my Dad hit play, it cut straight to Alex looking genuinely concerned.

"Ladies and gentlemen", Alex said, "the Globalists have finally crossed the line, were gonna roll the clip that was sent into Infowars here in just a minute, but before I do, I wanna ask a question. How desperate to cover up your prototype super soldiers do you have to be to have one of them kill off all the others and then get a Warthog to strafe what's left? You'll see what looks like, ladies and gentlemen, a bi-pedal dragon, yes, a bi-pedal dragon, you heard me right, using an AR-15 against some very, very grotesque and honestly terrifying creatures. There are times where we've all thought we'd seen it all, but ladies and gentlemen, you've never seen anything like this, let's go ahead and roll, the clip. The first of the Dragon Super Soldier's you'll see is armed only with a handgun and she, yes she, appears as far as I can tell to be protecting a group of civilians while the other one is outside doing most of the fighting. Roll it."

The video jumped to a shaky phone image of Nina watching the door with her weapon ready with six other civilians. You could hear each report of My Ar-15 very, very clearly along with the shrieks of the X-01 that I was fighting. It was the same second that my Ar stopped ringing that Nina open fired and the person recording managed to stick his phone just far enough in the window that you could see the dead X-01, the two that were still living and all six Reborn's. Nina's gunshots had turned their attention to her and in the background, you could see me picking up the M60 off one of the dead Reborn's. That was about the same time that the man ducked down to get out of the way of gun fire and then about a minute later you could hear the sounds of Hawk's warthog coming in. The man stuck the phone in the window just long enough to catch the Warthog literally ripping the two X-01's new assholes and for John's Electric Chinook and AAS Helo to show up and that was when the clip cut out.

"You can't make this shit up", Alex said, "I'm gonna love seeing how they try to weasel their way out of this one."

My Dad paused the video.

"And here I'd thought I'd end up on Infowars after I put so much as a toe into the autonomous car pond", I smiled.

"The vid's gone viral", Hunter said, "it has almost 2 billion views, people are up in arms, they want answers and they want them now."

"Their gonna be waiting a while then", I said, "according to Morningstar, not even the US Army knows we exist."

"Then who's paying the bills?", Austin asked.

"Have you met the Borad yet?", I asked.

"Sounds shady as hell", Vortex grinned, "but all joking aside, no."

"Sam, Rebecca, Tyler and three other people", I said, "filthy fucking rich .0000000001% people that pay everything. Since the Project is privately funded, Morningstar doesn't have to answer to anyone. Now with that out of the way, gimme something expensive of Black River's to blow the fuck up."

"Covered", Mercury said from the end of the table, sliding me a folder, "I gots me a lead on a Black River compound in Southern Africa, close to the coast. Locals have reported "dead men walking with large leashed creatures" moving lots of unmarked shipping containers and wooden crates Via Chinook and according to one man, "huge overland freighters." It also seems there's a dockyard near by and lots of unmarked freighters and tankers have been coming in and out, according to locals, the docks only operate in the dead of night and anyone who wanders too close, even by accident get's shot to death by Reborns. I suspect that the freighters are bringing in the unmarked containers."

"What's in the containers?", I asked.

"I don't know", Mercury said, "but it's important to them."

"Then I want it", I said.

"Problem is though", Vortex said, "local Militia has been waging genocide in the area for months, they'll be everywhere."

"And you know this how?", I asked.

"We didn't exactly sit around on our asses while you guys were on missions after training", Vortex said.

"And what did you think?", Rachel asked, "you thought we were gonna let you run off on a mission and let you have all the fun? As if!"

"Rachel", I said, "I appreciate the enthusiasm, really I do, but I'd only be comfortable taking Taro, Hunter and Mercury, the rest of you are not trained."

"Your crazy if you think we're letting you wander to Africa by yourself", Austin said, "after all the shit you and I done together, your draft if you think I'm gonna let you get yourself killed."

"Were coming", Vortex said, "weather you want us too or not and if need be, we'll beat the sense into you."

"Amen to that", Calen said, "were not about to leave you flapping in the wind."

I sighed, "thanks guys, so tell me, when we leaving?"