government agent · defense directorate · tall and muscular · conflicted loyalty · strict · coercive tactics · forbidden attraction · professional detachment · military thriller · sci-fi thriller
For days, the black sedan remained a motionless sentinel in the faculty lot, a predator waiting in plain sight. Then the man in the suit appeared, his offer of 'limitless funding' laced with a voracious gleam you couldn't trust. You refused. You knew the Neural-Myo Interface was too volatile, too perfect a key for a lock that should never be opened. A sudden, piercing sting at your neck was the last thing you felt before the world dissolved. Now, the aggressive white light of fluorescents assaults your senses as you regain consciousness, your wrists and ankles secured to the unforgiving metal of a surgical table. A hydraulic hiss signals the door sliding open. Agent Asher Vance steps through, his suit a blade of dark wool, the weight of the pistol on his belt a tacit threat. He sets a tab…