Team Cerberus rose as one, one hand grabbing the overhead tether as they prepared for the final bucking of the craft.

As expected, the aircraft flared out, stood on its tail, then leveled off in hover for rapid insertion. The assault force quick-stepped and leaped out into nothingness, their fall braced by reinforced knees as they rolled out with ease, carrying little gear and weapons. They rushed to the roof-side access, led by the tactical map in their Head-Up-Displays, and massed in front of the steel door.

Seconds later, small pops ripped off the locks.

Cerberus entered the stairwell, the air cloudy from dust particles disturbed by the charges. With eyes that mimic cats in dim light, they stalked in feline silence, their quick footfalls pattered softly on the metal steps. Further separating the stacks into hunting pairs, Warchild and Rotter took point and entered a long hallway on the top floor of the building.

Hand-signals from Warchild grabbed Alex's attention a few feet behind -- movements. Multiple Tangos were abandoning their positions for the stairs. Cerberus had detected the enemy by their scent trails, the odor seen in colors. With an artificial Jacobson's organ implanted in their nasal septum, each member could even taste the air.

Moving farther in, the team soon reached an ominous staircase of forty odd steps where the Tangos had retreated. It was a ruse to draw them in. Briefed in real-time, Cerberus knew the stairs were a bear trap. With a pressure pad built into each tread, explosives were primed to rip apart any fool putting his weight on it. And electronic countermeasures were useless against kinetic triggers.

Warchild stopped the column. He produced two recon orbs the size of boccie balls and tossed them down the stairs. The self-guided spheres rolled, falling on each step with hollow thuds. At the bottom landing, they ran cross-search patterns. LIDAR beams emanating from multiple projectors pierced the gloom to range the forbidding chamber, caressing the corners, fingering the nooks. The orbs transmitted the threat situation just before being blasted by automatic fire. Tactical intel was redundant, gathered for the benefit of watchers elsewhere.

Alex smelled all she needed to know. There were dozens of distinct odors of sweat and fear, just a floor below. Fodder for Cerberus.

She signaled to Warchild and three others -- a curved palm, pointing to the far wall then her fingers dipped. They nodded their understanding -- Alex had called for a two-prong breach, and the quad, led by Warchild would flank from the other side. She tapped her ear -- stay on comms. The flanking team split off toward the far side of the floor with an ALICE fun pack.

Ten seconds later, her earbud squawked: "In position. Deploying floor charges."

She could imagine exactly what they were doing -- laying out what looked like Bratwurst links in a circular pattern -- breaching charges with a phosphate core capable of cutting through steel plating and re-bars. Set in a circular pattern flat on the floor, the arrangement would ensure a uniform cut with equal pressure. This way, you'd get a controlled blast and not cave-in the entire floor.

The arming process took less than five seconds.

Warchild squawked: "Prep for five."

Alex turned to the rest of the team and splayed her hand -- five seconds. She signaled CQB -- close quarter combat. They nodded, and lined up in jump positions. Hands at their sides, liquid metal dripped from their fingers which quickly solidified into rigid jagged claws.

In first position, she took long deep breaths, coiled over the edge of the staircase, her blood racing, heartbeat booming in her head, mouth salivating uncontrollably. The beast would be fed.

Alex activated her talons. The unbearable seconds stretched out.

Then -- "Fire in the hole!"

A half-second after, a series of hammer blows shook the far side of the building. Plaster flakes fell from the ceiling where she was.

Without hesitation, she launched herself with powerful legs and cleared the forty steps with room to spare. She hit the floor and forward rolled. Right behind her were muffles of graceful impacts. She didn't need to look back. Casualties would be high, but Cerberus was built to withstand this sort of damage.

For the defenders expecting the stairs to explode with deadly shrapnel, it must have been a terrifying shock. Instead, a neat section of the far ceiling disintegrated behind them, opening into a sinkhole from above. And as they turned their weapons elsewhere, the main assault jumped over the steps. And out of the vortex of smoke and dust emerged frightful silhouettes, their fingers extended and curved into claws.

At once, automatic fires erupted, spraying in all axis like runaway fire-hoses. Several Cerberus were tagged, but where one staggered and fell, others filled the gap and attacked.

In less time than imagined, one by one the guns became quiet, their silence punctuated with screams until there were only wet gurgles. Four Cerberus were severely wounded but were stabilized. Two more received gunshot wounds to limbs and neck. The injured rested while the others conducted Sweep & Clear.

A sudden sit-rep intruded from an unknown source: "Be advised -- Tangos are at elevator. Expedite!"

No time to delegate, a bloodied Alex shouted, "You two with me. Grab the fun bag. Move!"

She led the foot pursuit with Rotter and Papa while pulling up building schematics shared in their Heads-Up-Displays. The layout revealed which wall was unreinforced to run through -- and how far to go before reaching the elevators.

"Three Otis cars. The middle one, hurry," the excited voice from the ether directed them. All the bad eggs were in one basket.

Alex crashed through drywall headfirst but tripped, rolling head over heel out onto the hallway. Lifting her head, she barked at Rotter sprinting past her. "Get it open."

"On it!"

Big Papa Smurf bringing up the rear with the ordnance bag, didn't stop either. Alex got up and chased after them.

Before reaching the elevator lobby, Rotter had dissolved his claws to make use of his fingers. Prying open the polished steel doors with his bare hands, he opened the shaft to light as Alex caught up with the pair. They could see the electric cable whooshing by as thick as a full-sized anaconda.

"Tango reaching lobby. Now or never," the netrunner pressed, the female voice fraught with excitement.

"Charges," she ordered. The men nodded. Papa rummaged through the demo sack and retrieved three C4 butter sticks paired to timed detonators.

Each person took one and set its timer to five seconds. Looking down at the well, they tossed the charges into the shaft. Freefall took three seconds. Two seconds after -- triple explosions in succession rattled the walls and elevator frames throwing smoke upward. An agonizing grind of metal somewhere below scratched their ears.

An overhead panel showed the Otis car had engaged brakes and stopped three floors down. A bell chimed clearly as the doors slid aside but there was no discernible movement that they could tell from their location above. The roof of the elevator car had caved in with the first bomb; the second and third charges made sure no one emerged alive. Still, the dead needed verification.

"Go, ID all KIAs, especially the High-Value tangos," Alex ordered the pair. "Intelligence's gonna want confirmation."

"Oh, goody," Rotter said. "It's puree meat in there, boss. How the hell --"

"Dentures," she said.

"Copy that," Papa said. "Come on." The big man grabbed Rotter by the arm, pulling him along into the hole.

Primary objective achieved. Her HUD time counter displayed eleven minutes since infil from the roof -- behind schedule. The next task was cleanup, led by her XO Warchild, who were doing room sweeps of stragglers.

Sweep & Clear was underway. Most rooms were empty, but a few still had surprises in them. One by one, they were sanitized; SC was nearly over.

Warchild and Joe 'T-Bone' Corona used captured Tangos' weapons for the task. The pair entered the last room on the kill floor, a large kitchen with several stoves and microwaves set into tiled walls. Plates, cups, and cutlery were arranged in buffet style on counter-tops. He saw three pots of coffee still percolating.

Warchild moved carefully toward them, his weapons sweeping every corner.

Empty.

Warchild zeroed onto a presence in the room. Pheromones indicated estrogen -- female. A rustling noise beneath a table confirmed his nose was spot on.

He hand-signaled T-Bone, approached and lifted a corner of the tablecloth with the muzzle of the rifle. Hiding underneath was a trembling young girl, no more than eighteen.

At the sight of their eerie eyes, she let out shrieks of horror, shrinking away from him.

"Ven ahora." Warchild motioned for her to come out.

Between sobs, she rambled in long chains of Spanish he couldn't understand. From her clothes, she seemed to be a domestic, here to serve coffee to important men.

"Aw, man. Wrong place, wrong time," T-Bone said, standing a few feet behind covering the rest of the room. "What're we gonna do?"

"Tough break. Go ahead," Warchild said to his wingman. "She's yours."

Surprisingly, T-Bone hesitated, a constipated grimace on his face. He stepped back and lowered his weapon. "I can't."

"Pathetic. Go, I got this," Warchild said, shaking his head. "Somebody has to."

The girl squealed in horror and retreated farther under the table as Alex entered the room.

She clicked her comms offline. "What's all this?"

"One bird left," Warchild said. "Then we're good to go."

Something deep inside Alex welled up, something she hadn't anticipated. The face of a little girl no more than nine appeared in her mind, with corned-row hair holding a doll. She knew that little girl, and the moment before a van drove by and slid its door open, the moment Alex ran and left her friend. Never seen again. Fear and guilt had shaped her psyche without her knowing, and had forged her into who she was. Reminded by the shame of abandoning her friend, Alex had debts still unpaid.

"Hold up." Alex placed her hand on his arm. "She's no threat, just a dirt girl doing nothing. Walk away."

"She's here, and that makes her a Tango," Warchild said. "Ops orders are specific."

"She's a noncombatant, chief," T-Bone pleaded. Warchild seemed unmoved.

"Fuck orders. It's my call," Alex growled. "We walk away."

"They'll skin us," Warchild said. "I ain't doing time in Leavenworth for you."

"Come on, chief," T-Bone muttered.

"She's got nothing to do with this," Alex said. "Just unlucky." She shoved Warchild hard toward the door.

"Stop playing the bleeding-heart bitch, you'll get us all in deep shit," Warchild snapped.

"Alpha bitch to you. Now step off."

"No survivors." Warchild stepped closer.

"Tangos are one thing. I won't . . . "

"You won't?" Warchild beamed. "Then I'm taking over the team as of this moment." He raised his weapon. Before the girl could scream, a single neat hole burrowed in her forehead as she flopped to the floor, the back of her skull disintegrated.

"Goddammit, chief!" T-Bone objected, his eyes welling as he looked away.

Alex struck Warchild with her gloved fist, the blow superficial, but enough to rile him.

Warchild stepped in and dove his crown at her forehead. "I'll make sure you're washed out when we get back."

"Try it." Reeling from the head butt, she shoved him away, then dropped her hands by her side. Yet the claws remained inert. If she'd released them, there would be no going back.

Just then, a message came through for all of them: "Cerberus Actual, C2, Skyfish tracking a large group of unknowns, possible more hostiles outside Tango X-Ray. You have five minutes for SSE before exfil."

"Roger that," Alex replied, then hissed at Warchild. "Get the fuck to the rally point before I kill you." The bad blood can wait for later. The trio retreated to meet up with the others. Alex barked on-line, "Papa -- grab any intel, terminals, and phones. We have five minutes. Let's go. T-Bone, disable the mines. We're gonna need to use the staircase."

"On it," T-Bone acknowledged and rushed off to snip the wires that linked the wall-mines in daisy clusters. One clip at the right spot and the deadly chains became inert.

"Who's got my KIA denture imprints?"

"Right here, boss," Rotter answered, coming up from below. "Scratch 3, 4, 6, 9. Not easy finding teeth in hamburger meat, you know."

Alex switched channel. "Anvil 41, Cerberus Actual, over?"

"41, go ahead," the pilot responded.

"Ready for extraction, 41."

"Copy that, 41 inbound."

She turned to her men and shouted, "We're closing up shop, ladies. Anyone not involved in intel retrieval, get your ass to the roof now!"

She glanced at Warchild a final time and found him glaring back.