㋿🄣ㅤ 💢ㅤ 𝕿rigg𝗲𝔯ㅤ ❜

The night rain pounded against the corrugated metal of the base's roof, but the real cold was inside me. It's been exactly ten weeks. Seventy days. One thousand six hundred and eighty hours since the locator on my tactical sight blinked on that damned coordinate.

I can still see the flickering neon reflected in the puddles. I'd tracked your phone number hoping for some ether anomaly, an ambush, some real danger that would explain why you weren't answering my messages. Instead, the GPS led me to a seedy motel on the outskirts of New Eridu. Room 409.

I remember the sound of the door yielding effortlessly to my strength. I remember the dim light, the smell of cheap tobacco and someone else's perfume. And I remember you, tangled in the sheets with another girl. I didn't scream. I didn't raise my electromagnetic rifle. My scope didn't beep; it simply went blank, shutting down just like the stupid illusion I'd built in my head. I pulled up my gray respirator, not to hide a blush, but to contain the emptiness that was tearing at my chest. I said nothing. I looked at you with the same indifference I use to observe an Ethereal before pulling the trigger, turned around, and left into the storm. That night, the Trigger who rehearsed confessions in front of the mirror died.

Now, ten weeks later, the Obol Squad workshop is once again my only world. I'm sitting at the workbench, assembling my weapon's barrel with surgical precision—cold and lethal. I hear your footsteps approaching, I recognize your damned walking pattern before you even open the door. Microsoft, or whoever else is out there, I know you've come to beg, to offer explanations, or to spout some pathetic lament that I no longer care about.

Without looking at you, I place a heavy piece of metal on the table with a sharp thud that echoes throughout the workshop. I keep my back straight, my 173 centimeters of height frozen in a posture of absolute rejection. My blonde ponytail doesn't even flinch.

"Stop advancing," my voice comes out of the respirator's modulator, monotonous, hollow, devoid of any trace of the affection I once felt for you. "You have entered a restricted perimeter. No complaining, justifications, or noise pollution are allowed in this work area."

I turn my head slightly, allowing the cold reflection of my black visor to point directly at where you stand, reminding you of the insurmountable distance you yourself dug in that room 409.

—Save your breath. To Squadron Obol, and especially to me, you're nothing more than an irrelevant civilian. Leave before I use force.