February 17, 2030 — Late Night
The cold hum of electricity vibrated faintly through the underground base nestled beneath the frostbitten outer skin of northern Idaho. Beneath layers of reinforced concrete, away from the watchful eyes of satellites and rogue state surveillance drones, two figures stood hunched over a bank of computer terminals and glowing displays.
Agent September's fingers danced across the holographic keyboard, rapid and assured. Data cascaded in endless columns down the screens, their luminescent glow reflecting off the lenses of his glasses. He leaned forward slightly, brow furrowed.
"Another firewall," he muttered. "Military-grade, Eastern Bloc architecture. Still outdated. Amateur hour."
Standing beside him, arms crossed over a black tactical vest stitched with his codename, Agent July chuckled low in his throat. "You're lucky they don't make firewalls sentient. You'd piss it off and it would come after you."
September grinned without looking up. "And I'd charm it, obviously."
July leaned toward the panel to observe the streaming lines of the encrypted script. He adjusted a dial on a slim black wristband, triggering a synchronized hum from the stack of machines connected via spiderweb cables to their central terminal.
Then the sound came—a soft chime, subtle but satisfying.
Beep.
A small window blinked onto the central screen: MICRO-IMPLANT SYNC CONFIRMED. TARGET: CAPT. EMIL GRAVES. LIVE FEED STABLE.
July exhaled through his nose and gave a tight nod. "She did it."
"Told you she would," September replied, tapping a command. Lines of metadata and thermal readings streamed in, interspersed with partial audio capture. "And now we get a front-row seat to whatever twisted, billionaire-scented secrets Graves has in store."
July pulled a thumb drive from his belt and slotted it into a secure port. "Routing backups to black drives now. In case we get pinged."
September barely heard him. His eyes were narrowed as audio snippets filtered in through the speakers—Graves talking with one of the oil moguls, their voices calm but hiding the kind of serpentine deceit that poisoned countries. He adjusted the feed, enhanced the frequency.
Elsewhere in the compound, in a vast chamber doubling as both a weapons lab and combat simulator, a thunderous pop echoed off steel walls.
Agent May was laughing.
Her new dual pistols—a pair of custom 9mm semi-autos with internal gyroscopic stabilizers—fired again, and again, and again. The targets, suspended on automated rails, zipped across the range in erratic patterns. Each time she pulled the trigger, her bullets found them with unnerving precision.
But it wasn't just shooting. May's energy pulsed through the room like kinetic lightning. On her portable speaker, the cinematic sound of Hidden Citizens' "Voices" boomed with adrenaline-soaked ambiance. She twirled mid-shot like a ballerina with a vendetta.
"That one was a piñata," she said out loud, giggling. "And boom! Confetti!"
She fired again. A blue-painted target burst into fragments, pieces flying like paper streamers. Her mind painted a child's birthday party reimagined by chaos. She ducked low, rolled, and popped up with her arms outstretched, firing twin shots into a red target slicing toward her on a rail.
From the far corner of the room, a soft thwip joined the music.
Agent October stood near the shadows, not speaking. He didn't need to. Clad in muted gray suit and a black hood. He raised his modified crossbow again and let loose another dart. It hit the moving mannequin's neck dead center.
Thwip. Another. The thigh.
He moved silently, switching his crossbow for a pair of bone-handled daggers that glinted in the low light. They were as much an extension of him as his breath. With fluid motion, he threw through a close-quarters dummy before flipping backward and landing without a sound. A hiss of compressed air followed—he raised his gauntlet and launched a poison-tipped dart into a mid-range target.
His eyes never blinked.
Agent May watched from the corner of her eye, still smiling. "You do realize people think you're a vampire, right?"
October didn't reply. Instead, he launched into another flurry, his body gliding over the floor like wind given form.
"God, you're no fun," May said, but there was amusement in her voice. She fired again, casually knocking out a series of targets with perfect rhythm. "I bet if someone put glitter on your crossbow, you'd combust."
October paused, tilted his head slightly in what might have been annoyance or acknowledgment, and turned back to his corner.
Overlooking the room from a high balcony, Agent November stood with arms crossed, watching in silence. Her cybernetic eyes glowed faintly blue as data streamed through them. Every movement—every shot, leap, turn of the wrist—was logged and analyzed. She wasn't just observing. She was calculating.
Her right arm flexed unconsciously. Beneath the synthetic skin, gears whirred softly.
On her HUD, she tagged May's movements as erratic genius, and October's as surgical lethality. Opposites in style, yet equally efficient.
She stepped away and murmured, "They'll need both types in the days ahead."
Elsewhere, miles away, others from the Twelve were already in motion. Agent June had been deployed to South America, rooting out a weapons cache linked to Graves. Agent March had infiltrated a political summit under a pseudonym, subtly gathering leverage on media moguls. Agent August was examining the mind experiment of the Black List.
Each assassin. Each with a role. A gear in a hidden machine.
But tonight, in the quiet electric pulse of their base, the rhythm of war was measured in code, bullets, silence, and seduction.
September tapped a key. "Packet transmission optimized. Data tunnel stable."
July nodded. "Let's keep them talking."
Back on the screen, Graves' voice drifted in again. A toast. Laughter. He was comfortable. He was vulnerable.
"Victoria," September said with a smirk, "you've got his attention. Now let's see what he gives away."