My brother thought it was funny to give my daughter a dog bowl with scraps while the whole family laughed. She broke down, and in that moment, something inside me snapped. Forty-eight hours later, they all discovered exactly what a mother does when you humiliate her child.

The storm was raging with absolute fury by the time I reached the limestone quarry, the heavy rain turning the dirt roads into a treacherous sea of mud.

The data facility looked like nothing more than a rusted industrial warehouse from the outside, surrounded by high chain-link fences and concrete barricades.

Four heavily armed Blackwood mercenaries were patrolling the main entrance, their flashlights cutting through the driving rain.

I didn't bother with stealth this time. Time was running out.

I slammed my foot down on the accelerator of the armored transport, the massive vehicle surging forward like a mechanical juggernaut.

The truck smashed through the iron gates at eighty miles an hour, plowing right through the concrete barricades and striking the main garage door with a thunderous, metal-shredding explosion.

The mercenaries opened fire, their high-caliber rounds sparking harmlessly against the ballistic glass of the transport as I tore through the facility's outer ring.

I slammed the brakes, bringing the truck to a sliding halt inside the main subterranean loading bay, throwing the door open before the dust could even settle.

I was out of the vehicle in a flash, my tactical rifle raised, firing precise, devastating bursts that dropped the remaining guards before they could find cover.

The alarms inside the bunker were screaming, a piercing red strobe light painting the concrete walls in a bloody, rhythmic pulse.

I sprinted down the main corridor, heading straight for the primary cooling valves indicated on the map.

I found the massive, insulated pipes humming with liquid nitrogen, ice coating the metal surface despite the heat of the facility.

I pulled a pair of high-explosive charges from my tactical vest, slapping them directly onto the main pressure valves, setting the timer for thirty seconds.

"Ten seconds to lockdown," the automated facility voice droned over the speakers as I dove behind a reinforced steel pillar.

The charges detonated with a deafening roar, a massive cloud of freezing, pressurized white vapor erupting into the corridor, instantly freezing the air and triggering the automated emergency lockdown sequence.