Chapter 150. Welcome to P-EAR

Portal Evaluation and Assessment Regiment, or P-EAR for short. This was the agency responsible for conducting detailed reconnaissance of a Portal's interior before a standard assault team sent a couple of nervous contractors through that otherworldly maw. According to the rumors circulating among the recruits, Leon's scouts were considered the Corps' true untouchable elite. It was time to see for myself whether those stories held up under the scrutiny of a former auditor.

The outer perimeter of the P-EAR base looked remarkably similar to the rundown P-SWAT pigsty. The same massive gray concrete defensive walls, the same standard fortified checkpoint at the entrance. But that was where the resemblance ended. Instead of a pimply, half-asleep high schooler standing there with a smartphone in his hand, the checkpoint was staffed by a fit, attractive woman in black P-EAR-issue clothing with the unit's insignia. A spotless Glock rested in a plastic holster on her hip.

"Good morning, Second Lieutenant Ross," she said in an even, well-trained voice as soon as I killed the engine and approached. "Please hold the QR code from your official electronic assignment up to the terminal for verification and identity confirmation."

Leon's outfit had just earned ten out of ten respect points from me without even trying. The woman at the checkpoint knew me on sight, had my current identification details, and had been waiting for me to arrive. Now that was what I called genuine professionalism. Nothing like Private Nelson when I arrived at P-SWAT, who had first completely failed to notice me approaching the checkpoint, then somehow managed to mistake a Corps officer for one of Ted's distant relatives. What a disgrace of a regular army.

The terminal's optical scanner gave a quiet, approving beep, confirming my credentials and automatically logging me in for the day's duty assignment in the sector. The clock on the checkpoint display blinked in sync, showing exactly 11:00. I was not late by a single damn minute. The corners of my mouth lifted in the faintest hint of a smile. That insane purchase of the Buell Hammerhead and my three-hundred-mile-per-hour joyride had been worth every cent.

"Welcome to P-EAR, Second Lieutenant Ross." The woman gave me a slight smile, purely in the spirit of professional solidarity between people whose jobs involved getting shot at, and made a note on her electronic tablet. "Colonel Stewart is already waiting for you at headquarters. It is the large gray three-story building straight ahead. You cannot miss it. But if you have any trouble finding your way, ask anyone along the main walkway and they will point you in the right direction. And one more thing... about your vehicle."

Her attentive gaze shifted to the aggressive lines of my brand-new sport bike, and a familiar dull tension briefly settled in the back of my mind. Was I really going to have to deal with local clerks here too, filling out mountains of paperwork just to get a parking permit like they did at some offices?

"Just leave it in the personnel parking lot over there, under the metal canopy," she finished calmly, then pressed a large button on the control panel.

The heavy iron gates opened automatically, gliding apart without a single squeak, scrape, or sagging hinge. No rust on the mechanisms, no tedious wait while some snot-nosed private finally dragged himself over to the bolt and opened the passage by hand. Leon clearly spared no expense on advanced equipment or its regular maintenance, which earned another thick, indisputable bonus for his commander's karma.

I eased out the clutch, rode through the perimeter, and immediately found myself on a spacious asphalt lot beneath a broad corrugated-metal canopy. Excellent engineering. There was no need to worry about my expensive ride getting drenched by a sudden Washington downpour or battered by hailstones. There were plenty of personal vehicles in the lot, and they looked seriously impressive. Nothing but full-size SUVs, custom pickups, and massive luxury trucks, every last one of them deep black with heavy window tint. It was immediately obvious that this sector employed well-funded, serious men and women, not yesterday's high schoolers working a part-time job.

With my obnoxiously bright, poisonous-red sport bike, I looked like some club-rat teenager who had wandered by mistake into a private evening gathering for grown-up business owners. Fortunately, my finely tuned brain chemistry immediately and completely erased any hint of false embarrassment or insecurity. Who cared about the color of the bucket? On my motorcycle, I was moving faster than a pistol bullet right now and could thread through traffic with surgical precision, unlike all these pretentious, heavy SUVs that were guaranteed to sit helplessly for hours in Washington's crimson traffic jams. Besides, the bike's compact dimensions made it effortless to find a perfect parking spot in the far corner without wasting a single extra second maneuvering.

I spotted the large gray headquarters building immediately. I tossed my keys into my pocket and headed toward the main entrance at an unhurried, measured pace, taking in the local layout as I went. The base had a similar setup to our original Corps training camp: a compact obstacle course, several enclosed storage hangars with strict labeling, and spacious lecture halls. Through the clean first-floor windows, I could clearly see large chalkboards covered from edge to edge with formulas, graphs, and anomaly diagrams. Yeah, unlike the miserable P-SWAT barracks, Leon's scouts were deliberately taught to use their heads and analyze data instead of just mindlessly shooting targets and practicing hand-to-hand combat until their palms were raw and bleeding.

The usual living barracks and central mess hall, however, were completely absent from the P-EAR grounds. My former-accountant brain immediately cross-referenced that fact with the payroll records: Leon did not require his elite operatives to remain locked inside barracks on base around the clock. Apparently, he let them live in normal apartments around the city, eat at decent civilian restaurants, or order food delivery straight to the checkpoint gates. It was an entirely different, civilized level of employment. I liked it.

As I walked along the asphalt path toward the main gray building, I found myself wondering why the place was so suspiciously empty. There was not a single person in sight on the walkways or training grounds. Where had everyone gone? Had they all disappeared into a Portal on another emergency assignment? Or had Colonel Leon Stewart gathered his entire elite staff in his office for a formal introduction to the new second lieutenant?

At that exact moment, a system notification flashed before my eyes: 

[Warning! You have entered an area that blocks S-Power.] 

[To restore access to S-Power's internal resources, leave the blocking zone immediately.]

A strange, dry, yet damnably familiar click sounded at the back of my skull. It was as if an invisible neon bulb had popped somewhere inside my head, or a heavy airtight vault door had slammed shut with a metallic grind. The sensation of the surging inner power I had grown accustomed to since awakening vanished without a trace. All that remained was an unpleasant, ringing emptiness in my body and a faint weakness in my joints.

I recognized the signature instantly. Sam's superpower worked exactly the same way. Except neither Sam nor any other awakened person like him was anywhere in sight. And what was even stranger, downright anomalous, was how precisely the jammers' range had been calculated. At our original Corps training camp, total suppression kicked in automatically while you were still approaching the outer checkpoint. Here, the S-Power blockade activated with inch-perfect precision, exactly thirty steps after I left the covered parking lot. It was almost as if whoever was directing this little performance wanted me to get deeper into the base before I started panicking.

[Tactical Mode Activated.]

Ah, there it was. The classic surprise ambush. If Colonel Leon thought he could catch me off guard with this cheap little headquarters stunt, his predictive analysis left a lot to be desired. Ever since the day I received the official electronic notice that I had been assigned to his reconnaissance department, I had been mentally preparing for the worst-case scenario.

My brain instantly accelerated to speeds I had never experienced before. The world around me froze, transforming into a static three-dimensional hologram. My consciousness separated from my physical body as naturally as ever. Like an invisible ghost, I began scanning the area at hyperspeed for the source of the primary threat.

For the first fraction of a second, I detected nothing suspicious. Then, once I focused on the details, I noticed barely perceptible, unnatural distortions in the air exactly five steps behind me. The space there rippled and trembled like the shimmering air over the Nevada desert at noon. Focusing completely on the optical anomaly, I managed to make out a massive human figure inside it, dressed in assault gear. The operative had already raised a heavy composite tactical baton, preparing to deliver a precise knockout blow to the top of my head.

One interesting detail: this perfect invisibility was not caused by an awakened person's superpower at all. Every standard application of S-Power had been completely shut down in this area by Sam's ability. Which meant I was looking at an advanced stealth system built into the suit, using light-wave refraction to conceal the wearer. Now I had seen firsthand that Leon, the army's attack dog, had not exaggerated when he bragged that his agency had the Corps' best high-tech toys at its disposal.

Speaking of the colonel himself, he was obviously not the one attacking me. I spotted Stewart a second later when I raised my mental gaze toward the roof of the three-story headquarters building. He stood at the very edge of the concrete parapet, expensive tactical binoculars in hand, clearly enjoying the sight of his elite assault troops preparing to beat the hell out of an arrogant newcomer. Fine. I would just have to demonstrate to the colonel, in very practical terms, that his analysis was not worth a damn.

I sent a precise mental command to my frozen body. The movement vector had been calculated down to the millimeter. My supporting leg had already begun to shift, setting up a wide rotation so I could whip around and drive my heel straight into the invisible operative along the classic arc of a spinning kick. I deliberately aimed for the junction of the shoulder and collarbone, intending to knock the joint out with a powerful physical impact without accidentally cracking the attacker's skull. We still had to serve together, after all.

Time resumed its normal flow with a dry click. My right leg shot forward toward its designated target...

[Tactical Mode Activated.]

What? Another phase? What the hell?

Only one real second had passed since my first counterattack, which I had not even physically completed yet, but the entire picture of the battle on the parade ground had changed completely. Cutting lazily through the frozen air, I saw streams of heavy rubber rounds rapidly approaching me, fired by snipers from the upper levels. From the roofs of the neighboring hangars, CS tear-gas grenades and flash-bang charges came arcing through the air with a soft hiss. Operatives in full S-Armor assault gear began advancing in coordinated pairs through the massive doors of the warehouse buildings. And God only knew how many more surprises, tripwires, and traps this base was prepared to throw at me during the third or fourth second of the fight.

This was no longer some playful smackdown meant to put an arrogant newcomer in his place and test his reflexes. This was a full-scale, coordinated military operation aimed at suppressing a single target.

I focused my gaze on Leon's figure atop the roof again. The left corner of his thin lips lifted almost imperceptibly into a smug grin. I had no idea what kind of insane chess game that bastard was playing inside his head. But if the colonel genuinely believed that taking away my access to S-Power, then overwhelming me with numbers, trained infantry, and advanced technology, would let him call an easy checkmate, then he was a hell of a lousy strategist who had absolutely no idea how to assess an opponent's internal resources. My strength was in my cybernetic brain, not my muscles.

[Special Command: Completely neutralize, disable, and immobilize every living member of personnel currently on the grounds of P-EAR. Use strictly nonlethal force. Leave Colonel Leon Stewart for dessert, last.]

Let's see how the processing power of my brain, operating in total hyperfocus, handled this large-scale logistical task of taking the personnel out of the equation. The clock was running.