Page 1 of Rage

One

AX2

“Activate.”

Bright light floods his vision as consciousness returns. Mechanized beeping follows, and then the acrid, familiar smell of disinfectants.

And her.

His body tenses on blind instinct, muscles engaging as a snarl rips from his throat. But he doesn’t move to follow through on the threat; he has learned not to.

“Temper,” she warns him, unfazed, over the tapping of her fingertips over keys. “You will be pleased to know your body has fully healed during stasis. Your vitals are perfect.”

Pleased. He breathes evenly. In. Out. He holds the exhale until the sinking sensation of despair fades to numb indifference. This is not unexpected. Every assignment they send him on, every time he feels his body rip apart, he falls into unconsciousness with the faint hope that this time… this time, even she won’t be able to bring him back.

Every time, he wakes in the stasis chamber. Whole. And tasked with a new mission.

At least there is comfort in the predictability.

“How long?” he grinds out.

“Just five days this time. Faster than we anticipated, considering the damage. Any pain?”

“No.”

She taps on her keyboard. The light searing his retinas finally dims, allowing his pupils to dilate enough to take in his familiar surroundings.

The stasis chamber is as sterile as the lab beyond: white walls; a chair and a desk with a computer for her; a steel table and glass cylinders, tubes, and needles for him; and the mirror.

“Sit up,” she commands.

He obeys instantly, though the lack of pressure in his brain tells him she hasn’t activated his chip. She rarely needs to anymore.

He stares blankly at his own reflection as she moves from her chair to his side to detach the many tubes from his body. The mirror has been there since day one—hung on the wall, where it is the first thing he will see once he has been given permission to sit up.

In the beginning, he felt horror at the reflection staring back at him. They brought him back from the brink of death, he’s been told. Made him better. Stronger. And as a result, skin fused seamlessly with silvery metal, giving the appearance of a creature neither human nor machine.

Now, though, there are no visible hints of the engineering that went into crafting the U.S. Military’s strongest soldier. Artificial skin covers gleaming alloy, allowing him to blend in with the general population when out on assignment.

Not that it matters—he knows what he is underneath his human facade: something less than a person.

So does she. “Stand.”

Once again, he obeys her command without hesitation. The concrete beneath his feet is cool, every unevenness in the surface sparking along his hyperaware nervous system, just as every detail of the stasis chamber and the lab beyond lodges in his brain as he scans his surroundings.

“Eyes straight ahead,” she snaps, unexpected irritation flaring in her voice. She rarely offers any emotional response around him, her demeanor always carefully dispassionate, crafted to provide no added stimulation as he returns from stasis.

AX2 flicks his gaze forward. “Yes, ma’am.”

She huffs as she steps close enough that he can feel her body heat against his skin—both artificial and real—and any curiosity her minor burst of annoyance may have awakened in him withers to dust.

Focusing on nothing but his own slow breaths, he stares at a point on the wall above her head. When she brushes her palm over his bare chest, he wills his body to remain still, even as a tremor works its way through every nerve ending she touches.

He has learned to endure pain during his training. Exhaustion. Defeat. Endless exposure has forged the soldier they sought—unbreakable, even under torture.

But this?

This is the one weakness they have not been able to carve out of his flesh and replace with steel.

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