Kevin sighted down the barrel, squeezed the trigger, and felt the unfamiliar kick as the rifle discharged. It fired not bullets, but pulses of concentrated energy that streaked toward the monster. They struck its flank, leaving scorch marks on its red fur but doing little actual damage. The Cylopear swiveled toward him, its single eye narrowing as it identified a new threat.

  He fired again. And again. The shots connected but seemed to bounce off the creature's hide like raindrops as it avoided being shot in the eye. It was like shooting at a tank with a BB gun.

  "Aim for the eye!" Duncan shouted, diving to new cover as the monster charged her previous position. Kevin adjusted his aim, but the creature was moving too erratically, its head swinging in wild arcs as it attacked. His shots went wide, dissipating harmlessly against the twisted trees beyond.

  The Cylopear reared up on its hind legs, towering over the battlefield, its eye gathering energy for another devastating beam. Kevin fired again, emptying the rifle's charge into the monster's chest with no effect. The creature seemed to laugh at his efforts, its mandibles clicking in a rhythm that sounded like mockery.

  Standard tactics weren't going to work against this thing. Not with the weapons they had. Not with conventional thinking.

  As the monster's eye began to glow with gathering power, Kevin felt something shift inside him. A strange electricity hummed beneath his skin, signaling a potential he'd never felt before. Something new. Something the Medpod, or maybe AIDA, had changed.

  The humming beneath Kevin's skin intensified, like someone had replaced his blood with liquid lightning. As the Cylopear's eye gathered energy for another blast, a calm, clinical voice cut through the chaos of his thoughts.

  "Hello, Kevin. I'm AIDA. We haven't been formally introduced. Your central nervous system is currently experiencing the first conscious activation of your Redz40 integration. This is normal."

  Kevin pressed his back against the concrete barrier as energy pulses from the squad's weapons sizzled overhead. The monster roared, a sound that vibrated his teeth in their sockets.

  "This is hardly the time," he muttered, checking the rifle's charge indicator, which was nearly depleted.

  "On the contrary," AIDA replied, her voice remarkably composed for an entity witnessing a firefight from behind his eyes. "This is precisely the time. You are now approximately three times as fast, strong, agile, and cognitively enhanced as you were before stasis. Your integration with Redz40 particles allows for manipulation of the ambient concentration in the atmosphere."

  Kevin ducked as a chunk of concrete exploded above his head, showering him with dust. "What the hell does that mean?"

  "It means you can theoretically achieve effects such as time dilation, physiological overclocking, and rapid healing. However, I would recommend focusing on mastering the rifle first. Your enhanced reflexes and perception alone should be sufficient for this threat if properly applied."

  The Cylopear's beam sliced through the air where Kevin had been a second before, cutting a glowing orange line across the barrier. The heat seared his face even from two feet away.

  "Three times faster," he repeated, the information slotting into his tactical assessment. If what AIDA said was true, then his perception, his reaction time, his physical capabilities, all of it had been tripled. Not just healed, but enhanced.

  "Correct. Your neural pathways have been reconstructed to process sensory input and motor commands at approximately 300% efficiency. Simply put, you can see faster, think faster, and move faster than any unmodified human."

  Kevin took a deep breath, tightening his grip on the unfamiliar rifle. Three times faster. Three times stronger. These weren't just numbers. They were tactical advantages, if he could trust them. If he could trust himself.

  "The creature's ocular beam apparatus appears to be its primary offensive capability," AIDA continued. "Logic suggests it would also be its most vulnerable point."

  "Yeah, I got that part," Kevin muttered. He risked a glance around the edge of the barrier. The Cylopear was advancing on Duncan's position, its massive legs crushing debris as it moved. Duncan fired a series of precise bursts at its eye, but the creature's rapid movement made targeting nearly impossible.

  Kevin settled back, closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, and made his decision. Trust the AI. Trust the enhancement. It wasn't like he had many other options.

  "Alright, AIDA. Let's test this out."

  He focused on the sensation humming through his body, that electric potential. Not fighting it, but letting it flow, directing it. The effect was immediate and disorienting. The world didn't exactly slow down, but his perception of it shifted. Sounds separated into distinct layers. He heard the crack of energy weapons, the click of the monster's mandibles, and the labored breathing of the wounded soldier beside him. His vision sharpened, details jumping into focus with painful clarity. He saw dust motes spiraling through sunbeams, the individual bristles of the Cylopear's fur, and the microscopic stress fractures forming in the concrete as the creature's weight pressed against it.

  "Holy shit," he whispered, the words feeling thick and slow in his mouth.

  "Neural enhancement active," AIDA confirmed. "I suggest you use it wisely. Your body is still adapting to the changes."

  Kevin rolled to a crouch, then to his feet in a single fluid motion that felt unnaturally smooth. The rifle in his hands no longer seemed foreign. His enhanced perception immediately cataloged its weight distribution, trigger tension, and energy output potential.

  He stepped out from behind the barrier, raising the weapon. The Cylopear was twenty meters away, its back half-turned to him as it focused on Duncan and two other soldiers who were desperately scrambling between cover points. Its single eye swept the battlefield, the pupil constricting as it gathered energy for another blast.

  Time to hit back.

  Kevin breathed out slowly, allowing his enhanced senses to fully engage. The world crystallized around him. Sounds sharpened, colors intensified, and movements became predictable patterns rather than a chaotic blur. He tracked the Cylopear's head motion, calculating its pattern, feeling rather than thinking through the math of trajectory and timing.

  He squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times in rapid succession. The energy pulses left the barrel at the speed of light, but to his enhanced perception, he could almost see their path. Three perfect lines converged on the monster's massive eye.

  The first shot struck the orbital ridge above the eye, the second hit the lower lid, but the third one punched directly through the pupil.

  The Cylopear's roar shifted from rage to pain, a shrieking wail that sent birds exploding from distant trees. Its eye sizzled and popped, leaking a viscous amber fluid that steamed when it hit the ground. The creature reared back, clawing at its face with massive paws tipped with serrated claws, its movements suddenly uncoordinated and frantic.

  "Direct hit to the ocular nerve," AIDA observed. "Accuracy improvement of approximately 287% over your pre-enhancement baseline."

  Kevin was already moving, his body responding with a fluidity that felt like cheating. He circled to the creature's blind side, firing again at the damaged eye. This time all shots found their mark, each burst of energy drilling deeper into the wounded organ.

  The Cylopear thrashed wildly, its coordination completely disrupted by the precision attack. Its beam fired randomly into the sky, a dying star throwing its last light. The monster spun, searching for its attacker, but Kevin stayed in its new blind spot, moving with it, continuing to target the damaged eye with methodical exactness.

  "The orbital cavity leads directly to the brain," AIDA informed him. "Each shot is penetrating deeper. Three more should reach the central nervous system."

  Kevin didn't question how she knew this. He simply adjusted his aim, compensating for the creature's erratic movement, and squeezed the trigger again. And again.

  Completely emptied by the final shot was the rifle's charge. The pulse struck deep in the monster's ruined eye socket, and this time the effect was catastrophic. The Cylopear convulsed, its massive legs buckling. It released a sound unlike anything Kevin had heard before. It was half roar, half electronic shriek, as if the creature's biology and the Redz40 within it were tearing apart.

  Then, instead of collapsing, the monster turned and fled. It crashed back through the treeline, moving with the desperate speed of a wounded animal, leaving a trail of smoking amber fluid behind it. Trees snapped and splintered in its wake, the sound of its retreat fading gradually into the distance.

  The sudden silence felt like a physical weight. Kevin stood motionless, the empty rifle still raised, his enhanced senses slowly returning to normal. His body hummed with residual energy, muscles twitching with unused potential. Sweat poured down his face, not from exertion but from the intensity of the experience.

  "Well done," AIDA said quietly. "First combat test of your enhancements: successful."

  Kevin lowered the rifle, his hands steadier than they had any right to be. Around him, the squad emerged cautiously from cover, faces tight with shock and something else. It looked like awe.

  Duncan approached slowly, her own weapon still raised. She looked at Kevin, then at the smoking trail the Cylopear had left, then back at Kevin.

  "What the hell was that?" she asked, voice rough with dust and tension.

  Kevin glanced down at his hands, seeing them as if for the first time. "Apparently," he said, "I've been upgraded."

  The moment of victory evaporated like mist when Kevin heard the wounded soldier's moan. His enhanced senses picked up the wet, labored quality of her breathing. It was the sound of someone going into shock. He dropped the empty rifle and spun toward where he'd left her behind the concrete barrier. The world snapped back into urgent clarity.

  "She's bleeding out," he said, already moving, pushing past Duncan without waiting for permission.

  The wounded soldier lay curled around her missing limb, face ashen beneath smudges of dirt and blood. The burned stump where her arm had been was a mess of charred flesh and exposed bone, as torn arteries found fresh paths to bleed. A spreading pool of dark red crept across the concrete, each heartbeat pumping more life away.

  Kevin dropped to his knees beside her, combat medical training overriding everything else. He'd seen this before. Different war, same wounds. It was the same countdown to death if he didn't move fast.

  "I need a tourniquet," he barked, already pulling at the belt from his tactical pants. When no one moved immediately, he looked up, finding the squad frozen in place, staring at him. "Now!"

  That broke the spell. Two soldiers rushed forward, one with an actual medkit that he tossed to Kevin. The Green Beret training took over, his hands moving with drilled efficiency despite the century-long gap in practice. He pulled a modern tourniquet from the kit, which was similar enough to what he knew, and wrapped it just above the wound, cranking the tension rod until the bleeding slowed to a trickle.

  The soldier's eyes fluttered, unfocused. "Cold," she whispered, a bad sign. Her skin was taking on a waxy quality, shock dragging her toward unconsciousness.

  "I know," Kevin said, his voice dropping to the calm, steady tone he'd used with wounded fighters in jungles and mountains across a dozen forgotten wars. "Stay with me. What's your name?"

  "Lin," she managed, teeth chattering despite the warm air. "S-specialist Lin."

  "Good, Lin. You're doing great." He checked her pulse. It was rapid and thready under his fingers. Her body was shutting down peripheral circulation, redirecting blood to vital organs. Classic shock progression. "I need you to stay awake, okay? Talk to me."

  He elevated the stump, packing the wound with hemostatic gauze from the med-kit. The material was more advanced than he remembered. It seemed to bond with the blood on contact, forming a temporary seal, but the principle was the same. Stop the bleeding, prevent shock, evacuate.

  "Medic!" Kevin called over his shoulder, not looking away from Lin's face. "She needs fluids and something for the pain."

  "On it." A compact woman with close-cropped hair and medic insignia shouldered past the others, carrying what looked like a field surgeon's kit. She knelt opposite Kevin, giving him a quick, appraising glance. "You know what you're doing. Good. Hold her steady."

  Kevin nodded, shifting to cradle the soldier's head and shoulders while the medic worked. The wounded woman's eyes locked onto his, pupils dilated with pain and fear.

  "You're the Old World guy," she said, voice barely audible. "The one who... shot the Cylopear."

  "That's me. The Old World guy." Kevin managed a tight smile. "And you're going to have one hell of a story to tell when we get back to base."

  The medic snapped open her kit, revealing an array of equipment Kevin didn't recognize. She pulled out a clear packet of fluid. That much hadn't changed. She efficiently inserted an IV line into Lin's remaining arm. The fluid in the bag wasn't clear, though; it had a faint bluish tint and seemed to shimmer slightly in the sunlight.

  "Polysynthetic plasma with oxygen nanites," the medic explained, noticing Kevin's questioning look. "Better than the old stuff. Carries more oxygen, promotes clotting, and contains mild analgesics."

  Next, she produced what looked like a metallic disc about the size of a hockey puck. She positioned it over the tourniquet and pressed a button on its side. The device hummed, then separated into a series of interlocking rings that expanded to encircle the wounded limb.

  "Hemorrhage cap," she said, working quickly. "Seals the wound, maintains pressure, prevents infection, and starts cellular regeneration."

  The rings contracted, forming a tight seal around the stump. The outer surface immediately began to pulse with soft blue light, matching the rhythm of Lin's heartbeat.

  "Will she keep the arm?" Kevin asked quietly, still supporting Lin's upper body.

  The medic shook her head. "Not this one. But we can grow her a new one back at Fort DC. Takes about six months, but she'll have full function again."

  Kevin blinked, the casual mention of limb regeneration reminding him just how much the world had changed while he slept. Lin's eyes had closed, her breathing steadier now as the pain medication took effect.

  "She's stabilized," the medic announced, standing. "We need to move her now."

  Duncan appeared at Kevin's side. "Transport's ready. We need to go before that thing comes back with friends."

  Four soldiers quickly assembled a collapsible stretcher, transferring Lin onto it with skillful movements. Kevin helped secure her, making sure the IV line didn't tangle and the hemorrhage cap maintained contact with the wound. The squad moved as one unit toward the waiting aircraft, half of them on alert with weapons ready, scanning the treeline for any sign of the Cylopear's return.

  The transport wasn't quite a helicopter in the way Kevin understood them. Its rotors were arranged in overlapping rings rather than traditional blades, and the body was sleeker, more insectoid than the military choppers he remembered. The side door slid open automatically as they approached, revealing a compact medical bay alongside rows of jump seats.

  "Secure her to the crash webbing," Duncan ordered as they loaded Lin's stretcher. "Moore, you're with me."

  Kevin followed the captain to the cockpit, where a pilot in a lightweight helmet was already running through pre-flight checks. The control panel was mostly glass displays rather than physical switches, but the fundamental purpose was clear enough.

  Duncan strapped herself into the co-pilot's seat, then nodded to the jump seat behind her. "Buckle in. This thing moves fast and hard when it needs to."

  Kevin secured himself, watching as the rest of the squad finished loading and took their positions. The wounded soldier was now connected to monitoring equipment built into the transport's medical bay. Her vitals displayed on a screen above her stretcher. They were stable, for now.

  The pilot engaged the engines, and the overlapping rotors spun, building from a low hum to a high-pitched whine that was quieter than any helicopter Kevin had ever flown in. The craft lifted smoothly, kicking up a cloud of dust and debris that momentarily obscured the view of the bunker and battlefield below.

  As they gained altitude, Duncan turned in her seat, studying Kevin with an intensity that reminded him of senior officers evaluating a new asset. There was something else in her gaze, too. It was a calculation being run, numbers being adjusted.

  "You took down a Cylopear," she said, raising her voice just enough to be heard over the engines. "Those things have killed entire squads. Nobody goes one-on-one with them and walks away."

  Kevin shrugged. "Beginner's luck."

  "Bullshit." The word was flat, but not hostile. "Your AI did something to you in that pod. Something more than just fixing your cancer."

  Through the window behind Duncan, Kevin watched the landscape fall away. He saw the twisted blue-gray trees, the concrete skeleton of the bunker, and the scorched path where the Cylopear had retreated. This broken world was now his home, whether he wanted it or not.

  "We'll talk about it when we get to Fort DC," he said finally.

  Duncan studied him for another moment, then nodded once and turned back to the front. The transport banked sharply, heading east toward what had once been the nation's capital. The engines hummed steadily, a sound Kevin could feel in his chest alongside the strange new energy that AIDA had awakened.

  She has questions, AIDA observed in his mind. And they're only going to multiply when she sees what else you can do.

  "Then we'd better have some answers," Kevin murmured, watching the wasteland unfold beneath them. The scarred earth, the strange forests, the occasional glint of ruined cities in the distance. All of it was alien, and all of it was now his responsibility to understand.

  One hundred and fifty years. Everyone gone, everything changed. But war remained, and where there was war, there was purpose. He glanced at the wounded soldier, her chest rising and falling steadily under the crash webbing.

  For now, that would have to be enough.

  He stepped out from behind the barrier, raising the weapon. The Cylopear was twenty meters away, its back half-turned to him as it focused on Duncan and two other soldiers who were desperately scrambling between cover points. Its single eye swept the battlefield, the pupil constricting as it gathered energy for another blast.