Do not screw up today, Alex.

Alex checked her intra-vascular readouts by dialing up the wrist-placard. Synth-hormonal scales all showed elevated readings, but otherwise, her bio-stasis read nominal -- endorphins and dopamine levels rising by five percent but well within acceptable parameters. Cortisol and adrenaline stable too. She remained at ease, in a euphoric high but razor-sharp.

Cutting low across the jungle canopy of South America, the matte black aircraft with no markings, call-sign Anvil 41, carried her assault team in its drop bay. The transport had originated from the Pacific side of Nueva Colombia, and had gone feet-dry an hour ago. It banked a sharp left at its way-point in the interior and resumed on a new easterly heading. Once it entered Federales Venezuela air space, the escort fighters peeled off and Anvil 41 continued solo.

Warrant Officer Alexis Marlboro sat in the last seat near the rear ramp. She was a big girl, built solid in a muscular V, and sported a stark blond crew-cut that contrasted against her dark skin. She had boxer's cheekbones, a wide squat nose, and intense eyes -- seven percent larger than normal, and they shined, the iris entirely swallowed by bright pupils. She didn't need night-vision gear. In the dark, a membrane modeled after the Tapetum Lucidum of carnivores concentrated ambient light back to the retina. They all had the eerie eyes -- all her boys around her. And beneath their left ears, tattooed ID bar-codes containing blood types, in case nothing else was identifiable.

Alex could see their pheromones in color, wrapping around each man -- Warchild, Rotter, Papa, T-Bone and fourteen others. They were her pride and pain, her surrogate brothers, all wearing hi-tech lightweight nano-armor. Hunters in repose before battle; they held no extraneous thoughts. Just a year ago, they had been strangers, a mishmash of elite soldiers and high-end operators from different services brought together for one purpose. Time and trials had gelled the unit, and given it a name: Team Cerberus, and she the reins behind the pack. Being chosen as team leader was one of the proudest moments of her life.

Her right leg trembled in rhythmic beats. She knew what nerves were -- this was hypertonic spasms amping up, a feedback reflex from newly grown muscles. She clamped down on her knee to arrest the rebellion. Not just yet.

She gauged the condition of her boys. Some stared ahead with expressionless faces or had their eyes closed in meditation. Others were twitching as she was and hiding it. She suspected they'd all received a higher dose than normal. Because playtime's over, kids. The jacked-in headshrinkers watching the team's electro-feedback for anomalies had been quiet. No alarm from the monitors implied all systems were Go. Trust your new body, Alex, men in lab coats had drilled into her, it will feel strange at first, but you'll learn to love it. Shit, that'd been six months ago with the neuro-conditioning, and still, she felt the alien, a beast she'd glimpsed underneath trying to claw its way out.

Easy, she stroked it mentally, soothing it.

Alex recalled the words spoken a year ago in a secret island base on the Chesapeake among a troupe of quiet professionals chosen to undergo a radical procedure. Patriotic and confident, each candidate was a warrior, recruited from a variety of spec-ops units. Ranks, service, and specialties had no meaning there. Only the selection process mattered. The brutal six-month tryout sought to weed out the weak links on both physical and mental levels. Alex had barely survived the trials and was about to ring out until she'd found an untapped will to remain standing. Out of a thousand entrants, she was the only woman left . . . In the depths of hurt and insanity, she'd often asked herself why she endured this inhuman hardship. Because the rewards they promised were trans-humanizing.

"The human beast in all its noble magnificence . . . is a frail disappointment." Director Ian Moreau was a technocrat bigwig for TexPax and was immensely influential. The gravity well around him was unmistakable, drawing everything into him. "A zebra foal on the Serengeti just minutes old has to run, or it is torn to pieces. A human infant can't walk until two years, much less defend itself in five minutes. Man, himself when compared to the robustness of animals, has so much room to improve."

"Yeah, starting with his tongue," the young brown girl with a blond flattop had said. Her comment drew boisterous laughter.

"Settle down," an officer standing by barked at Alex, "You -- keep quiet."

Moreau gestured it was okay, smirking at her brazenness. He took a liking to her, she could tell. And she him. More so, because he cared. Later, Moreau would ensure the medical staff was always on call. And when rejections emerged, he'd tried his best to halt the damage. Some just couldn't be helped, and he'd suffered with them.

"Improved -- how so?" she had asked after the laughter died down, ignoring the officer's glare.

"I tell you this -- the Program isn't some cosmetic whitewash with empty placebo promises," Moreau had said. "We're talking replicating nanites cultured to your specific DNA profiles that can repair tissue ten times faster than normal. But it's also a custom suit hard to wear which makes finding the proper host rare and valuable. One in ten thousand might have the genetic makeup and mental endurance to go through these crucibles." Moreau paced during his speech, looking at the floor. "By the time it's all done, you'll have synthetic blood coursing through your veins with supersaturated hemoglobin allowing you to run a three-minute mile for fifty miles without wheezing. More oxygen means you can hold your breath underwater for half an hour, even more. You'll have burst reflexes of felines from shortened musculature and reinforced bones to tolerate these new abilities. You'd endure the highest pain scales and not suffer runaway emotions. And, lastly, an elegant weapon -- in-line blades of liquid metal hardened by voltage . . . But these results won't be overnight. And it won't be easy." He paused and looked at the gathering. "Many more won't make it."

"Haven't we made the last cut already?" a man raised his hands.

"Your name's Mars, isn't it?"

"Warchild." A haughty grin spread across his face.

"The only cut, Warchild, that matters now won't be made by committee -- but by your own bodies. To get past the final stage, you'll experience pain only your mothers knew giving birth. You'll undergo stern psychological conditioning. But until the mind accepts and tolerates these mental loads," he tapped his temple, "you may go mad. In extreme cases, you could be lobotomized, crippled, or undergo systemic collapse where your bodies devour themselves."

The men looked at each other. Alex delighted seeing their doubts. Pussies.

"I won't bullshit you." Moreau looked at each face with the honesty of a mortician. "We haven't explored the Program's threshold through its entirety. I can't tell you how long you'd live if successful -- hundreds of years. Or die in days after injection, eaten by virulent cancers. If this is more than you bargained for, you can ring out now. There's no shame in it. Hell, I would."

Director Moreau waited. No one got up to leave. Many should have, Alex thought in retrospect.

"What will you give to be unbreakable? Maybe even extend life? Since antiquity, the holy grail has been regeneration. That's why you've all volunteered to face unfathomable pain and death, isn't that so?"

The word unbreakable had set off a murmur of excitement.

A sudden lurch broke her reveries, bringing her back to immediate reality -- and the mission.

The aircraft banked hard, shaking the interior. The drop bay creaked and moaned with metal stress.

Alex glanced at her team. It was on. No more training. No more drills. Powerful eyes were watching, and Cerberus had better deliver.

A burst transmission came through each man's earpiece: "Cerberus -- weapons-free, repeat, weapons-free. Good hunting."

"Wilco," Alex replied as team leader. They looked at her and saw her dark grin -- it's a go, boys. "Alpha check." Expectant nods all around.

Ocular Heads-Up-Displays and vid-feeds checked. Comms green. They gave thumbs up. No chitchat.

"C2, this is 41, beginning orbit to target area," the pilot announced on comm.

Confidence high. Cerberus secured their Kevlar face masks with tactical feeds.

"Transferring schematics. Target two o'clock," the copilot squawked. "Thirty seconds."

The time left felt like eons for Alex, each tick bringing the beast closer to being freed. She salivated and swallowed hard.

"Be advised -- ten seconds to hard drop."

The bay quaked and banged in the turbulence, shaking the interior.

"Initiate," the pilot called, dipping the nose of the craft at a slighter than comfortable angle.

The rapid descent tugged at her stomach. She held her breath and forced air down her diaphragm. The lurch was temporary. They didn't have far to fall. She waited for the level out and for the ramp to track open.

"Standby deployment," Anvil 41's pilot primed . . . then howled through the mic. "Ramp-ramp-ramp!"

Gears engaged, the aft section of the craft cracked open and midday light flooded in along with a hot swirling wind. The vista exploded in blinding brightness, racing away behind them as their visors compensated for lumen differentials. The lush green landscape of Amazonia had given place to a sea of shanty roofs as Caracas' vast favelas cut into hillsides as far as the eye could see.

* * *

Not far away, a sun-weathered off-road vehicle ran through the narrow avenues of a huge shantytown under canopies of crisscrossing clotheslines and strung lights. The avenues were so narrow at times, the SUV brushed against shacks on either side -- walls so close they alone marked the edges of the road.

The boxy vehicle held eight, two of whom were riding backward with the hatch open. The cocoa-skinned occupants, native to the region, wore cargo pants and loose tunics or sport-logo t-shirts typical of the local population.

All except one. Under a light material hooded cloak, translucent pink betrayed her as Caucasian despite dying agents she'd taken to darken her skin. She wore dark contacts to dim her piercing emerald eyes. Porsche was her legend, one of many cryptonyms she assumed. She sat in the second-row between two male escorts. A short-barrel Heckler Koch submachine gun nestled between the folds of her cloak, its muzzle digging into the floor mat for easy access in a cramped space. Next to it rested a bag of tech gear she would need to perform her job.

Porsche had taped her breasts to flatten them, to reduce her silhouette and the sexuality that may betray her. She now regretted the decision. More layers meant more heat she didn't need, sapping her energy while her ears rang with a constant twang.

Think cool -- snow-covered mountains, crisp air. Colorado. Her skin itched beyond measure as she fought to sit still and concentrate, her eyes darting from side to side, remembering the details taught by instructors long ago. Focus midrange, thirty yards at a time, look for eager faces. Never linger. If you sense a deja vu, you most likely picked up a shadow. Then you're SOL.

The car crossed an imperceptible line and entered Barrio El 50 district in southwestern Caracas. The slum neighborhoods thereafter seemed the same, but something different discolored both the cement and air -- a specter resembling fear.

They passed a crane, its hook holding a taut rope from which a denuded male corpse dangled. Although beheading remained the gangs' preferred method for executing opponents, Mexican Pinatas -- the hanging and beating of a victim -- had risen in popularity as a warning for the authorities.

"Mano dura," said the man named Carlos, sitting in the front passenger seat. He didn't give the hanging a second glance. Or hide his distaste for his guest. "That is how we deal with dogs. We don't need you Yanquis in our country."

At a glance, Carlos had a long scar over his left nostril, except it was a micro-seam crudely assembled. Carlos had a facial cybernetic implant, most likely an olfactory booster to allow scent tracking.

Porsche said nothing, playing the subservient female.

Once they crossed the eastern side of the Francisco Fajardo Highway, every youth visible through the dusty side-windows became a potential shooter. Armed men with multiple red oculars checked out the passengers. She tried to slink further inside her hood.

The vehicle inched through the overpopulated township, marred by crumbling cement and rusty infrastructures. The Barrio El 50 township also abutted a cemetery convenient for all warring parties. Long ago, the tradition of opening one's home to a traveler if he'd asked for shelter had been a comforting trait of Caraqueños. That hospitality had long vanished; doors now barred, windows shuttered. The sooty district was a 'no-go' area not only for tourists but locals. The slums here were a known stronghold for extremist militants and cutthroats, whose hegemonic traditions were in violent collision with class distinctions. The indigenous population was starving, living in squalor before their lavish fief-lords in golden mansions.

The insurgency's true aim was never over ideology, though they would have the world believe otherwise. It was pure economics. This was a proxy fight for the Northern Territory between two major corporate fiefdoms, TexPax -- a Big Five North American powerhouse -- the other, a Shanghai-SaoPaulo alliance. Neither entities wanted to be seen using its own security forces but instead exploited local assets -- the numerous combatants of insurgents, privateers, and military. On one side, TexPax propped up the teetering Caracas government while the dominant opponent, Bolivar Liberation Army received arms, tech, and tactical intelligence from their Sino-Amazonian patrons to break the grip of the Yanquis.

What followed was an age-old imperialistic tug-o-war with one goal in mind -- he who could control the Orinoco Belt, a vast oil reserve, blessing and bane of the Bolivarians, would throw the other from the Northern Territory.

And manifest destinies often attracted a whole lot of vehemence and firepower.

"You're talking to the wrong person," Porsche said, using English. There was no need to hide, she thought. Yet. "I just do my job."

"Claro, you spy for corporate or government?" Carlos said with curious resentment, an Intelligence Directorate officer himself.

Porsche replied, tapping her chest. "Soy amiga."

"What do you do in our country then, friend?" Carlos said, contempt on his face getting edgy.

"To paint . . . We have permission from your government."

"Paint?"

Porsche tapped the bag at her feet.

The man understood and scoffed. "Then your jackals will come, no?"

"Not my call, Major." Porsche could sense unfriendly eyes staring at her from behind. And from the sides.

"I love my country."

"As you should."

"You Yanquis here -- not good for us." The Venezuelan shook his head, scowled, and looked away. "The BLA is an internal matter, one we take care of."

The driver leaned on the horn to get pedestrians to move. The walkers answered with curses and flippant gestures.

"Cuidado, idiota," Carlos hissed at the driver to be more careful.

They could have taken any up-armored wheels from the motor pool, with ballistic protection impervious to anything shy of a .50 round, engines blast resistant, tires self-sealing, black rumbling rhinos that screamed 'make way.' Instead, the job demanded something that should blend in, flayed by sun and grunge, like everything else around here. The thinking had been practical and mission-oriented. In the dense foot traffic part of this dangerous enclave, the car should crawl by looking like any other jalopies.

The intel had led them into the heart of Barrio El 50, past a four-story brick edifice marked 7711. Telltale signs told them this was the right place. No other buildings in the district had armed sentries manning its doors and gunmen along the roof-line.

They drove by once to get a sense of security. Guards outside perused everyone who passed, car and pedestrians alike. The heightened alertness alone confirmed something important was due to take place.

A block away, the vehicle stopped.

Shades pulled over their eyes, the passengers disembarked and vanished into the alleyways of a noisy marketplace while the driver pulled away.

Six men and one woman reconvened at a store where rolls of woven carpets lay in racks along the shop entrance. The store occupied a section of an unremarkable two-level building. It had one desirable attribute -- an uninterrupted view of 7711 Avenida 1 seven hundred yards away.

The owner seemed nervous, looking at passersby as he rushed the visitors inside. He shooed his wife and daughters to the back room and called his son to watch the storefront.

"I need a line of sight in this direction," Porsche said to Carlos, pointing toward the target building.

The latter spoke to the owner, who nodded several times that he understood. He gestured for them to move upstairs.

"This is a secure hide, yes?" Porsche asked Carlos.

"The owner is loyal, we pay him. He will close his shop."

"No, keep it open," she said. "We want no attention. And Major, you will take your men and work outer perimeter."

"Puta Presumita," he hissed. "I know what to do." His men snickering behind his back, Carlos lost face. He barked his orders at them: two will hold the bottom floor. The remaining three will walk the streets, and loiter at street corners, ready to radio in if they spotted trouble.

"Gracias," Porsche said to the owner and motioned for permission to go upstairs.

The store owner nodded. Carlos was getting impatient.

Porsche climbed the narrow wrap-around staircase, lugging her gear-bag. Carlos stewed in silence behind her. They reached the second floor and walked into trapped air. Natives didn't mind the heat. She did. Profuse sweat is a dead giveaway you were a foreigner in the tropics, another lesson came to her mind.

"The intel better be good," Carlos warned, sulking.

"British Petroleum and Vauxhall control the intel. It's actionable. Did you know BP Security caught Herrera?" she said, unpacking and not saying more.

She could sense his shock.

"Herrera is Colonel of National Guard, not . . . cool pigeon," Carlos stammered with misplaced pride.

"Stool pigeon," she corrected.

"Un caballero es simplemente un lobo paciente," he muttered under his breath.

She understood him. "Everyone breaks, even a wolf. Herrera gave us the location."

"How you know?"

"It's buzzing with high cell traffic."

Carlos said, "If your agency give us the intel, we do better."

"You have baggage," Porsche said under her breath. "Just last week, two teams went in -- ninety percent casualties, no?"

"You mean what, eh?" Carlos stiffened to a perceived dig.

It was known the Venezuelan Army was corrupt, its ranks infiltrated, and its security compromised. There were several incidents involving defectors turning their guns on their unsuspecting comrades.

"Easy," she said. "I mean nothing by it, Major. Now I gotta disrobe. Please leave."

Carlos huffed, giving Porsche a dirty look. He backed off, heading downstairs to check on his men.

Idiot and ego is a dangerous combination.

She unzipped the hot outer cloak, letting it fall to the dusty floor. She felt immediate relief. Uncovered, the hi-tech fabric under-gear did much to disperse heat and keep her dry. Now she could work in comfort.

Her mind ran back to her instructions.

"Try to remember their country's being torn apart," her handler had told her before the mission. "Empathize."

"I set them up, somebody else spikes the ball. It's simple."

"Nothing's simple. For one, the BLA isn't entirely local -- you need to be aware."

She had responded with the usual smugness, "Yeah-yeah, they're using mercenaries. So does everyone else, us included."

"It's over crude reserves so be -- "

Porsche shrugged at the unwanted geopolitical lesson. "I don't care if it's over Simon Bolivar's golden turds. I'm in and out."

"All right then, stick tight to your playbook," her handler had said, exasperated. "Again -- the leadership cell is due to arrive at 1400 hours. Until then, you just make yourself comfortable wherever you are. Be polite and humble. And drink lots of water."

The sooner we're done, the faster I'm stateside, she reminded herself and adjusted the soaked wrappings around her chest. She returned to assembling the instruments on the floor.