Chapter 125. The Wrong Way to Recruit Me

The newest email in my inbox was marked with a red priority flag, but I had not opened it yet.

I had just gotten back from training. My muscles ached dully after an extra all-out sprint, while my brain was practically boiling from forcing Hyperfocus into overdrive. Together, it left me with an unpleasant aftereffect: mild nausea, dry eyes, and a distant, unfocused stare.

In principle, I could work in that condition. For my upgraded body, it was nowhere near a critical limit, but I simply did not want to. I was not some cheap action-movie hero who pushed through agony and grimaced in pain just to earn awed gasps from the audience.

Besides, there was no rush. As far as I remembered from the introductory lectures at the training camp, after the first portal was closed, the central AI server continued analyzing a cadet's personal metrics for some time. The system would then generate and send an automatic assignment to the unit where that cadet could be of the greatest use. From the moment the email was received, the cadet had exactly one week to take care of personal matters, say goodbye to loved ones, and report to the assignment center for specialized training.

In my case, that interval should have been even longer. The Bronze Star gave me the right to choose my field of specialization outright. Only after I signed off in the system and completed the legal protocol would the one-week leave timer begin.

To make a decision like that, my head needed to be completely clear of biological noise. So I calmly stepped away from the computer and lowered my head onto the cool pillow.

[Special Command: Fall asleep instantly and rest until fully recovered.]

My consciousness gently and effortlessly sank into a deep, cold darkness. Perfect.

[Tactical Mode Activated.]

WHAT?!

My consciousness abruptly tore free of my body as I tried to figure out, still reeling from the shock, what kind of glitch had triggered the algorithm. This mode only activated when there was a direct, immediate threat to my health. But I was in my own apartment, in a locked room. There was literally no safer place in the city. Until now.

My mental projection hovered just beneath the ceiling. Time around me had frozen into thick jelly, giving me impossibly long seconds to assess the situation.

A man's hand was reaching toward my physical body on the bed, straight for my unprotected throat. A dark leather glove covered his hand, and a plain baseball cap concealed his head. A mercenary? I had not crossed any serious players yet. Besides, where was the gun? The blade? Was he planning to rip out my Adam's apple with his bare hands or crush my trachea like some kung fu movie villain?

Well, what kind of close-combat expert had come calling for me?

I dropped lower and peered beneath the brim. What I saw made me want to do more than curse. I wanted to howl at the top of my lungs. Fortunately, my vocal cords made no sound in mental form.

Leon. The unhinged colonel had decided to spring another surprise reaction test on me, or maybe he just wanted to mess with my nerves. That explained the complete lack of a weapon. If he had actually wanted me dead, he would have used military hardware to make sure the job got done. I had seen with my own eyes how skillfully the bastard handled firearms in the portal and how effortlessly he shot enemies in the face.

I passed through the partition and quickly inspected the apartment. The locks on the front door were engaged from the inside, which made sense. Leon had simply slipped through the physical barrier. Our abilities overlapped in a lot of ways right now. We were both ghosts. But something else concerned me. Maggie and Stephanie were nowhere inside. There were no signs of a struggle, and the women's purses were missing from the entryway, which meant the girls had simply gone out to walk Lucky. It was evening, right around the time of their usual route through the park. They had missed this amateur saboteur entirely, and that was the best possible outcome.

I returned to the bedroom. In the frozen scene, Leon was still holding his hand poised above my throat.

What was I supposed to do with him? Just open my eyes and show him that his pathetic little performance had failed? That would end the incident, but only for five minutes. Then he would try to bite me again.

I remembered our previous conversation, when Leon had compared himself with a crooked grin to a fighting bulldog. The analogy came to me immediately. A long time ago, I had watched a video about dealing with problem dogs. The dog trainer explained it quite clearly: in most cases, all it took was a firm tone and direct eye contact to make the animal stop chewing on table legs. But every so often, you got an especially stupid, badly behaved specimen. Words were completely wasted on them. They treated any reprimand as part of an entertaining game: first you get a mild scolding, then you go right back to doing whatever stupid shit you were doing.

I looked at Leon's face beneath the brim again. There was the faintest smirk of a cocky delinquent convinced he was untouchable. No matter how many boundaries I set, he treated them as nothing more than an amusing game.

The dog trainer had ended the video with a harsh but rational conclusion: the only effective way to retrain an animal like that was to give it a clear, immediate painful stimulus. If logic did not work, reflexes and bad memories would teach the idiot to stay away from trouble.

Damn it, Leon. You forced me into this. I really did try to handle this like a civilized person.

[Demoralization.]

I mentally returned to my physical body, and time instantly resumed its normal flow. Everything happened in a blur of rapid-fire motion.

In the very first millisecond, the smug grin on Leon's face gave way to primal panic. The man suddenly looked like he had found himself locked in a cage with a predator. One more instant and he would have bolted. [Demoralization] had worked flawlessly, but simply driving him out the door was not enough. The whole point of psychological pressure was to knock an opponent out of the state of absolute concentration that allowed him to reflexively shift into phase mode whenever he was subjected to any external stimulus.

I grabbed him by the collar, yanked him toward me, and drove a precise strike with my free hand into his lower back, right over the nerve plexus. I knew anatomy well enough. A blow like that would not cause lasting damage, but it would deliver a deep, debilitating shock of pain. I deliberately killed the momentum, switching from a fist to an open palm and reducing the force to the bare minimum. Even that was more than enough. Leon sucked in a shrill gasp, tears springing from his eyes.

There was no need for a second strike. The slippery bastard managed to pull himself together and literally sank through the floorboards.

I calmly got out of bed, went to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of filtered water, and unlocked the front door. I opened it at exactly the right moment. Leon was trudging up the stairs, bent over like an old man after a day of backbreaking farm work. He clutched his lower back like an eighty-year-old with a herniated disc. The effect of [Demoralization] had already worn off, so the fear in his eyes had given way to pure, concentrated fury.

"Ross, you fucking asshole!" he wheezed as he stumbled over the threshold. "I'm gonna be pissing blood for a week because of you!"

"Consider yourself lucky," I replied evenly, without the slightest hint of remorse. "If I'd used my fist, your kidneys would be hamburger. Are we clear?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it... You're one tough son of a bitch. Better not sneak up on you from behind." He hissed as he lowered himself onto his side on the living room couch.

I did not bother commenting on his manners. The colonel looked genuinely awful: pale and rumpled, with sweat beading on his forehead. I even activated [Analysis] to assess the damage. Fortunately, his kidneys and liver were intact.

The situation called for strict self-control. My physiology had become a lethal-grade weapon. Now even a careless slap with an open hand could cause severe injury or death.

"And how did the neighbors downstairs react to your little entrance through the ceiling?" I asked, settling into the armchair across from him.

"Ho-ho-ho, fuckers! No presents for them, because it's fucking August!" he hissed with a nasty grin. "Nobody was home. I got out without making a scene."

"And the Graysons downstairs have a state-of-the-art security system," I pointed out, dredging up the mundane details Maggie had mentioned. "With your ability profile, you've got a promising career ahead of you in residential burglary."

"Me? A combat officer? Breaking into people's homes and hauling off their TVs?!" A deep flush spread across Leon's face, which, given his current condition, almost looked like a sign of recovery. "I've got officer's honor, you know!"

"Which didn't stop you from breaking into my home today."

"It was a combat-readiness assessment for a potential recruit," he shot back without missing a beat. The wording had clearly been prepared in advance. "And you passed with flying colors. My recon guys regularly have to spend hours sitting in ambushes, figuring out the enemy's strength. They lie in the mud, on frozen ground, in shit and leaves, without moving, barely breathing. That's the kind of endurance you still have to develop. But the biggest problem with an ambush is simple: sleepiness. Try lying perfectly still for six hours without a smartphone. Anyone will nod off. And that's when some sneaky bastard can creep up and put a knife under your shoulder blade. I've lost some damn good men that way."

Leon spoke grimly, with the dry authority of someone who knew the subject firsthand. But I had no reason to take his word for it. I already knew he had shown up with a prepared script, and this story could easily have been nothing more than a way to manipulate my empathy.

"You wouldn't go down that stupidly in an ambush, Ross," Leon continued, struggling to sit upright. "You proved once again that you're damn near impossible to break. Recon is where you belong."

"I remember. That's the third time you've made the same point. And I honestly don't understand why you keep coming back to repeat yourself. I'm perfectly capable of getting the message the first time."

"Because you still haven't made your damn decision!" He raised his voice, then immediately winced and grabbed his lower back. "Anyway... I know you're supposed to get an official notice from the Ministry today. I had to talk to you one more time before you submitted your choice."

"I appreciate your touching concern for my career," I said dryly as I rose from the armchair. "Want me to walk you to the door, or are you going to bail through the floor on your own?"

"At least let me take a look at the assignment."

"Why?"

"I never had a choice back in my day. The Corps just threw me into recon as soon as I finished training. I want to see what options they give the lucky bastards who get decorated."

I really did not like the idea of leaving the bastard in my apartment. He would undoubtedly keep pushing me toward recon. Still, setting my personal dislike aside, the man had spent fifteen years in the organization and risen to the rank of colonel. Dismissing his practical experience would have been foolish. His pragmatic observations might prove useful when I weighed my options.

"Get up." I gestured toward the study. "Let's see what they sent."