MC had made three passes of both the compound’s interior and its exterior by the time the sun peeked over the horizon, his kill count reaching one-hundred and seventy. He’d managed to not trip any alarms the entire night, and had never really met any kind of armed resistance apart from a couple of encounters, mainly thanks to his visit to the security room.

It didn’t take long before there were too few of them to mount any kind of opposition even if they’d tried. It was likely that not one of them even realized that Liberación HQ had been systematically gutted in the course of a single night.

That left just eleven – he’d recounted all of the bodies, though the victims of the orbital strike were much harder to account for, and his OCD had him burning some time to check what was left of their bits in order to piece together a number. He might've been off by one or two, though he was pretty sure he got them all. At the very least, his micro-turrets’ thermal imaging confirmed that he was the only living human within the compound, save for the ones in the pods. He exited the building and sighted the villa a few hundred yards out. Now that he’d taken out the goons, it seemed downright rude to leave the head honcho waiting any longer.

Surely he’d like to join his underlings as quickly as possible.

The reclusive leader of Liberación seemed to be in residence this night; the house was lit up like a Christmas tree. Frankly, MC couldn’t quite believe that the guy hadn’t already fled. His helicopter was reduced to a pile of scrap metal thanks to the mass driver, but surely they had a truck or two he could’ve used.

While cutting off the head of the snake was strategically important, his primary objective had always been to save his sister, and secondarily the other victims. Killing off the org and their leader came last, so even if the leader had escaped, the mission would still have been a success.

But well, if he was offering himself on a silver platter, how could MC possibly decline? Too bad he wasn’t carrying any C-4, or he would’ve just detonated the entire building and called it a night.

He slung the rifle over his back and went in the old fashioned way, climbing the stone wall up to a dark second-story window. Breaking and entering was something you learned early on in this industry, so it was muscle memory for him at this point.

MC dropped onto the vacant bed and snuck into the adjacent hallway. He couldn’t help but wonder again why the head honcho hadn’t escaped, or at least hidden in a more defensible location. He couldn’t blame the man for treating his home as a fortress, though compared to MC’s subterranean ex-military bunker that actually was a fortress, this place was like a gingerbread house.

Sure enough, his helmet’s thermal imaging picked up a dozen signatures in the master bedroom. Eight guards plus Gutierrez, his wife, and what looked like his daughter from the smaller signature.

It’d be simple enough to throw his last auto-turret in there and have it splatter their innards across the walls, though there was one in there who didn’t deserve to die tonight, and MC couldn’t quite bring himself to chalk it up to collateral damage. He’d be well within his right to, and while the world may have gone to shit, he’d be damned if he couldn’t at least help when he had the power to.

Unfortunately, the thing about ideals was that they tended to get you killed. There were no two ways about it, this was going to be tough. But he was MC, The Machine, and he was anything but normal. He took a deep breath, kicked open the door, threw a grenade and ducked back out faster than the guards could say ‘WTF’.

His helmet cut out the deafening roar and dimmed the obscenely bright light. It wouldn’t do anything against the helmeted guards, but based on what he’d seen from the guards thus far, they were all likely wearing previous-gen gear. The flashbang he just used happened to be equipped with a jammer built to bypass the very systems that dampened the grenade’s effects.

Thermal imaging showed that the grenade was a success; about half of the guards were on their knees or on the ground. He ducked into the room and ID’d the head honcho in all his glory, flat on the ground and screaming like a baby. The others only appeared dazed. He took in all of this in the half-second it took to bring his rifle to bear, starting with the ones he deemed most capable of fighting back. Each trigger squeeze added another guard’s brain matter to the ever-growing mosaic of reddish-pink that accented the decor. Ten seconds later and only Gutierrez and his family still lived, surrounded by a scene of the obscene.

Gutierrez reached for the pistol at his hip, but the funny thing about guns was that you needed hands to use them. The man was surprised when he looked down to find both of his missing.

He promptly collapsed to his knees because the funny thing about standing was that you needed legs, and his shins had just disintegrated in an explosion of blood and bone.

“For your crimes against humanity, I sentence you to death. But don’t worry, you’ll get to see your family go before you do.”

“AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH”

It seemed like the man was too delirious to talk. A pity, MC just hoped he had enough wits about him to register the death of his family before he croaked.

MC trained his rifle on the woman.

“No! Please not me! He, he ran everything. I try to tell him, I say no you must stop. But he did not stop! Please!”

“You studied at Oxford you piece of shit. You’re a lot more fluent at your passionate recruitment speeches, so please drop the act, Mrs. Liberación Numero Dos.”

This woman had contributed more to the success of their org than perhaps anyone else, indoctrinating their recruits with her own flavor of extremism. Inciting them into a cult of terror.

“Fuck you pendejo. Just kill him and let us go. We’ll give you whatever you want, and we won’t say a--”

“Sorry, were you about to say that you won’t say a word? Because I’d say we’re in agreement,” MC said as he put a round through the Liberación woman's head. Her body collapsed onto the floor, dying the rug red.

Hermano was still screaming his lungs out only he was now vomiting blood as well, a combination that didn’t work out so well for him. Their daughter was still recovering from the effects of the earlier flashbang – like her mother, she’d had no armor to protect her and children never did well against those. Still, it was the least lethal option he had. He took the girl's face in his hands, forcing her to look at him and not at the gruesome scene. Poor kid had enough trauma already, she sure as hell didn’t need anymore.

“LET HER GO YOU SICK FUCK!”

Looked like the Bossman had enough wits about him to speak, not that he could do anything about it being the paraplegic he now was.

MC ignored him and spoke to the girl, “You may curse me for what I’ve done to your family. I’ve taken everything away from you and for that I am sorry. But your father and mother were very bad people. They have done what I just did to you, many many times, to many many people. Know that this is the inevitable end for people like your parents.”

The girl was far too frightened to speak, though he had her undivided attention nonetheless, “If you don’t like that, then do one good thing for every bad one they’ve done. Once you’ve done that, if you still want to kill me, come and find me, ok?”

He barely concealed his surprise when she actually managed a nod in response.

“BASTARD. I KILL YOU. I FUCKING KILL YOU!”

Holding her face in one hand, MC looked at Gutierrez and drew his rail pistol. He placed the sidearm against her chest, dialed the velocity to its minimum setting, and pulled the trigger.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! No! No! No! Oh God!”

“God's away from his desk at the moment, and it’s been about two minutes since your arteries ruptured. You’re going to die now. You should know that with your death, all one-hundred-eighty-seven of your Liberación goons at this site will have been disposed of. I’m sure there are others, but they’ll be hunted down in due time.

“Ah shit, you’re already dead… ”

He slung the unconscious girl over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes; the pistol he’d used was loaded with shock tranquilizers. Her heartbeat was steady and she’d come to in about a day, albeit with the worst headache she’d ever had. She’d hopefully be in good hands by then.

MC looked around the room. It was truly an apocalyptic scene with the luxurious furniture and artwork all covered in some manner of gore.

It wasn’t like he tried to make things this bad, just that his favorite railgun had a ludicrous amount of kinetic energy that transferred exceedingly well into its targets upon impact. Effective against both armored and unarmored targets, its only downside being the catastrophic damage it caused to the unarmored ones.

He walked back to the VR pods and set her down inside Nina’s old one, leaving it deactivated. That was about all he could do for her. He truly hoped she wouldn’t turn out like her parents, though that was probably asking for too much. Somehow the prospect of living long enough to watch her turn into a monster saddened him beyond belief.

MC quickly departed the compound and retreated to the edge of the jungle. Like a grim reaper leaving a newly christened grave, his black silhouette reflected the embers of the still-smoldering chemical fire.

He took a seat on a rock, removed his helmet and looked back at the scene. It’d be bad if the fire had reached the VR complex, though Gutierrez’s men had mostly put it out by the time he ended them. Rescue should be inbound shortly, so he wasn’t all that worried.

It was going to be a long trudge back without the power suit, but he’d barely notice. Nina was on her way to safety, a few less kids would have to suffer, and Liberación was gone. If that wasn’t a good night, he didn’t know what was.

He should feel good about that last one, but killing never gave him any kind of happiness. Those victims’ lives were still ruined. His precious sister, still exposed to the worst side of humanity, possibly scarred for life. All he did – all he ever could do – was damage control, helpless to stop the tragedies before they happened. Never able to truly make a difference.

What's worse, he'd all but lost the ability to grieve for them, to truly empathize with their plight. It came with the job; emotions were a liability he could not afford, and so he'd crushed his long ago. MC had no delusions that he was a broken being whose mind didn't quite fit right anymore. The Machine was an all-too-apt moniker in ways he did not care to be known.

And while Liberación might be done for, these orgs were a dime a dozen. Their sudden absence would spawn a bloodfest among the local gangs and eventually one would rise to the top. What they did would be done by others for as long as humanity existed, an endless cycle of brutality and hate.

To grasp true power, the power to protect everything, whatever that looked like…

“I would give anything for that,” he whispered as the waning fire’s reflection danced in his eyes.

He stood up once more, a little more tired, and perhaps a little older than before. He threw his helmet back on and set out into the jungle. It was going to be a long slog, best to start while he still had the energy for it.

Yet just a few minutes later, his HUD lit up with an incoming call.

“Machine-One, this… Palad...-One, over.”

“Go ahead Paladin-One, but your connection is poor.” It was about time he got a sitrep from the rescue squad.

“W… hol… Nina… s---”

“Say again Paladin-One.”

“------------------”

Fuck. He immediately dialed back but the line was dead.

His stomach sank as he dialed Nina’s suit.

“Come on… come on…” A few seconds later a giant red X displayed on his HUD, indicating that the call couldn’t be completed.

“Shit shit shit!”

His comms system was the best money could buy, the latest-gen encrypted satellite-based VOIP. Garbled comms could only mean one thing - active jamming.

Worst-case scenarios popped into his head one after another. His team had a heavily-armed gunship standing by to get Nina out of Dodge, and Liberación should have nothing that could counter that kind of firepower, not after the destruction he’d wrought, but reality always found a way to fuck you.

He stared a hole in the ground trying to wrack his brain for ideas. That’s when he realized something was off. Dawn had only just broken, yet the ground was far brighter than it should be, and this was no alpenglow. He blinked to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, but everything in a perfect circle around him was glowing white-hot with energy and getting brighter by the moment. The rocks near him began to vibrate, a little bit at first, then increased in intensity until it felt like an honest-to-god earthquake.

He knew of only a handful of weapons that could do this and all of them were bad, bad news. He hurled himself into the brush in a desperate bid to get out of the circle of light, but it was too little too late. The world went white, then immediately black as his consciousness dimmed.

Nina…