>This is a test page copy/pasted from obsidian. I'm going to have to spend time formatting the writing. For now I just want to understand the website<

  >This is a hobby project. Once the project is completed. I will be looking to find a professional editor.<

  >Story is subject to change<

  >ART will be using AI as templates until I save up for an ART Budget<

  >There are themes that may seem political, they are coincidental.<

  >TIME LINE Completion 2026<

  Hey there, I'm writing a serialized novel. The idea is 8 episodes for a season 35k-50k per episode. This story is a working project alpha project. I will give it a few rounds of revision, but it won't be professionally edited. I am not looking for editorial help at this moment. I have been working on this during my down time using the Obsidian app to world build and centralize my projects.

  ### Scene 01: Cold OPEN

  The buzzing of aerial units filled Agent Summers’ ears as she pressed her back to the left side of the final door. The warehouse floor was just beyond it — and likely the remaining targets. Her breath slowed. Methodical raid. Clean so far. But you never get used to the sound of a breach charge going off. One wrong angle, one half-second delay, and someone dies.

  She felt a tug at the back of her vest — the signal. She gave a sharp nod to the Suppressor Unit at the center. Its weight shifted forward.

  The door didn’t just open. It launched — torn from its frame, metal shrieking as it blasted inward and crashed into a figure crouched too close to cover. Blood fanned across the floor as the body disappeared under the steel slab.

  In the same instant, two aerial units zipped past on either side of Summers, trailing blinding strobe pulses and launching concussive grenades towards the targets. They swept low into the chamber and burst with synchronized flash bursts — concussive light and thunderous pressure rippling across the warehouse. Screams followed.

  Summers moved fast, tight behind the Suppressor Unit’s armored frame. Her HUD pulsed green — the unit’s front-facing feed locked in the corner of her vision.

  Three targets left, behind crates. Two more on the right. One already down.

  Her team poured in with smooth, practiced arcs. No shouting. No wasted motion. Every step timed. Every angle covered. Just as they trained. Just as they feared would one day go wrong.

  Summers stepped out from the unit’s shadow, moving past her team as they threw the targets to the ground. The sharp sounds of grunting and zip ties echoed across the floor. She pushed forward with the Suppressor Unit, scanning for more threats. Overhead, glass fell as additional aerial units breached through upper windows, fanning across the rafters in a final sweep. Within moments, the entire space would be marked and cleared.

  Once the resistance was subdued, the team moved deeper into the warehouse’s center. Behind them, **Recovery units rolled in to assess injuries and stabilize the suspects — while keeping them restrained.

  “Are we too late?” Sosh asked, not looking up from her tablet.

  Summers turned, scanning the space. The floor was clear. Just a few shipping containers still suspended from the overhead crane system. Aerial scans had passed over them once — thermal signatures reported as negative. But...

  “They followed the truck here,” she said. “If it didn’t offload somewhere else, the cargo should still be on-site.”

  She gestured upward. “Bring those containers down.”

  “Open it,” he said, already raising his weapon in case things turned.

  “Right away, boss,” Sosh replied, not missing a beat.

  She tapped the control panel on her wrist-mounted tablet. The display blinked to life with diagnostic data as she selected the proper unit.

  From the rear of the formation, a bipedal construct broke from standby — its heavy frame moving with surprising precision. Matte-black plating, reinforced arms, glowing optic clusters for low-light targeting. This was BigBoy, one of Sosh’s twin Tactical Units — built for breaching, crowd suppression, and blunt-force entry when finesse wasn’t an option.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  He moved past the agents, his steps sending subtle vibrations through the warehouse floor. Sparks erupted as his welding arms extended, slicing clean lines along the sealed edges of the container’s locking brackets.

  The metal groaned and split.

  A moment later, the doors peeled open, and BigBoy’s high-intensity shoulder lamps flared into the dark.

  Twenty people. Emaciated. Dehydrated. Blinking into the harsh white light.

  One of them looked up at Kellan and rasped:

  "Help..."

  "These people need water," Kellan said aloud, knowing the Recovery Units would hear. One was already moving, containers in its arms, calm and mechanical.

  An Aerial Unit zipped inside and began an immediate bioscan of the shackled prisoners. A red pulse blinked in Summers' HUD: **All Subjects - Variant Positive**.

  She didn’t react. The informant had been right — they were smuggling inactive Variants into the country. She and the team began pulling the survivors from the container one by one, forming a circle on the floor to give Recovery Units space to stabilize them.

  One woman suddenly lunged at Kellan. He tensed — ready to drop her — but stopped as soon as he felt her weight. She was too frail to hurt anyone.

  "My daughter!" she sobbed. "You need to find my daughter!"

  “We will, ma’am,” Kellan said, grabbing a bottle from the Recovery unit’s pack. “Here — drink. Sit down. You’re safe now.”

  As the last victim was seated, the second container hit the ground with a heavy metallic boom.

  Kellan approached it the same way as the first. He placed a palm against the door.

  Nothing. No sound. No heat.

  He signaled to Sosh for a repeat.

  The instant the door peeled back, a deep hiss exploded outward. Alarms shrieked across the team’s HUDs. Kellan recoiled instinctively, raising his arm against the blast of superheated air. His gloves smoked at the seams. The decals on the Breaching Unit’s chest shriveled and peeled from the thermal shock.

  A new smell spread through the warehouse.

  Burnt flesh.

  Summers watched the scene unfold through her HUD. Aerial units fed real-time footage as they hovered into the container. The public would never see what was inside. But her team would never forget.

  Charred remains lined the interior — some curled against the floor, others fused to the container walls. Claw marks burned into the steel. One had melted into the exit hatch.

  At the center of it all — surrounded by ash and scorched bone — was a small child. A girl. Curled into herself. Alive. Untouched.

  Kellan stepped forward again but pulled back. “Too hot.”

  “BigBoy, get her,” he called.

  The Tactical Chassis moved past him — Sosh's unit, always quiet, always ready. It stepped into the container, its heat shielding glowing faint orange. It scooped the girl gently into its arms.

  Her chest was rising. Fast. Panicked. She was alive.

  "That’s my baby!" the woman screamed from behind them, her broken voice cracking under strain. She stumbled forward, collapsing toward the light. Sosh stepped in between, steady and calm. It didn’t take much strength to hold the mother back — grief had already taken most of it.

  BigBoy stepped into the open with the girl still in its arms.

  That’s when it happened.

  Her vitals spiked.

  Her bio-signature flashed red in every agent’s visor. Heart rate climbing. Brain activity spiking. Her eyes fluttered open. She heard her mother’s voice — and she began to cry.

  New orders downloaded instantly. The team didn’t even need to read them.

  **SECURE THE THREAT.**

  Summers stepped toward BigBoy, weapon raised. The girl stirred in his arms, eyes wide, glowing blue under the HUD overlay.

  She looked terrified.

  And then Summers felt it — the heat. It rose off the child like waves off asphalt. The closer she came, the more it clawed at her skin.

  She got within arm’s reach — and had to stop. Her face twisted instinctively as the heat surged. Even BigBoy’s armor was starting to glow red at the joints.

  “Hey…” she said, voice calm but edged. “We’re here to help you. You need to relax.”

  The words didn’t land. The girl couldn’t hear over the noise inside her own head. BigBoy’s temperature warnings flared.

  “Everyone back,” Summers said. “We need to—”

  A sharp crack rang out.

  The girl dropped limp in BigBoy’s arms — unconscious, twitching. Kellan lowered his rifle, steam curling from the muzzle.

  “Stunner only,” he said, stepping past her. “Variant threat secured. Request containment.”

  BigBoy knelt and lowered the girl carefully to the floor. His arms fuming with residual heat — plating warped, scorched, blackened at the joints.

  Summers removed her jacket and laid it gently over the girl's body. Her clothes had been entirely burned away — skin flushed red, coated in ash. Her breaths were shallow. Fragile. Human.

  Behind her, the mother’s wail rose — sharp, ragged, unbearable.

  Summers turned to Sosh and gave a single nod.

  Let her through.

  Letting the mother touch her daughter wasn’t protocol — and she'd probably be reprimanded for it later — but she didn’t care. The girl had been stripped of everything. At least she shouldn’t be denied this.

  She wouldn’t see the light of day ever again.

  Behind her, the mother cried. Somewhere between fury and collapse.

  They were both Variants.

  And Variants must accept their place in society.

  Summers stood in the quiet. The buzzing of aerial units faded above her.

  She didn’t look back. She took a second to collect herself and just repeated the line the system gave her.

  “Threat secured.”