Kate

  Walking out of the throne room and clenching her fist, Kate’s frustration boiled at the changing circumstances. First it was the crazy mission to infiltrate the Combat Games to capture Dan Orion and kill off as many young agents to reduce potential candidates for the Arctic serum. And now, instead of moving along with using Dan as a test subject to study, Judith was taking his leash off to use as an attack dog for Kodak-Cresh.

  The dimly lit and flickering hallways made walking through this building just as annoying as trying to understand the logic running through Judith’s mind. The only reason why she didn’t raise any objections to Judith were twofold. Judith was the only reason she wasn’t turn to to paste by Colleen for her failure to prevent Michael’s team from stealing back the container. And opposing Judith meant death.

  Only one other thought lingered in her mind. The whole reason she was entertaining this bullshit in the first place. Why betraying the Alpha Corp was worth all of this trouble.

  Growing up, Kate never knew her birth parents. The only family she had was her younger brother Mark. Her memories of him were of an upbeat kid who was passionate about art. He didn’t get sucked into the intrusive marketing from the Alpha Corp’s recruitment efforts like so many other kids in their era.

  Mark’s talents blossomed even at his young age. By the time Kate had became an Alpha agent, her brother had given her custom-made earrings as a gift for the occasion. Her mind bitterly recalled the messy situation in Amethyst were she ordered Dan to stand down and surrender himself. But the kid didn’t listen and he ripped off one of her earrings, the same ones her brother gifted her.

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  Kate’s mind drifted during a dark time in her life. While she was busting her ass trying to take on more missions to earn more credits and rank up, Mark fell ill. Kate had a meeting with an Alpha executive and asked about the family health care benefits that came with the job. Her heart sank when the executive bluntly told her that family health benefits and coverage wasn’t available to tier zeros. Only agents who had proven themselves and made it to tier one and above were allowed the privilege of such benefits.

  It was a fuck up. She was so caught up in being an agent and the lifestyle it would provide for her and her brother that she didn’t read the fine print of the terms of her recruitment.

  And so she grinded more and more. Taking more missions and scraping whatever credits she could manage to pay for her brother’s health care out of her own pocket. All of her efforts were in vain as her brother died before she turned twenty-two.

  This was how the Alpha Corp operated. Higher-ranked agents were simply treated better than any young rookie. Young, inexperienced agents were still unproven so the shard doesn’t pay attention to them other than selling them the addictive loop of completing missions, getting stronger and earning more credits, buying new and exciting gear, and repeat.

  Kate slammed her fist against the wall, causing a small dent in the surface. The Alpha Corp had the best medical care this world had seen. The shard provided healing factors that could heal an agent from cuts, bullet wounds and burns in real time. And yet, basic care for her brother was denied because she wasn’t deemed important enough. She didn’t have the prestige that came with a higher rank at the time.

  Kodak-Cresh was rumored to be in possession of resurrection chambers that could bring the dead back to life. Adam had died back in Amethyst but was brought back to her because of the otherworldly technology.

  She had to hold out hope that Kodak would satisfy their end of their deal and bring her brother back.

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