Part 1 - Bad First Impression - https://jhmills.substack.com/p/apprentice
The desert had gone still.
Gramps’s utility truck cruised along a winding dirt road on the east side of the compound, its soft electric hum barely disturbing the silence. Above, the stars looked sharp enough to cut, and the air had cooled to something almost tolerable. The moon was rising now, casting skeletal shadows from the creosote brush.
Jake yawned into his gloved fist, the motion creaking with dried sweat and fatigue.
“We could’ve waited till morning,” he muttered.
Gramps didn’t look away from the trail. “Wind’s supposed to kick up soon. Could bring a dust storm with it. We set up now, or we waste a day to the weather.”
Jake sighed. “Okay then. I’m good to go.”
They crested a ridge and rolled into a shallow basin. Another prefab slab awaited them—a concrete pad with temporary lighting rigs and a Veil-compatible distribution cabinet already craned into place.
Jake stepped out, joints cracking, and looked up at the stars. “Can’t believe this is how I’m using my degree. I racked up a quarter-million in student loans just to be a desert plumber.”
Gramps opened the tailgate and handed him a heavy crate of gear. “MIT, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I figured. Only MIT grads bitch like that when asked to do real work.”
Jake raised an eyebrow. “You got something against MIT?”
“Nah. Got my degree from Caltech,” Gramps said, shouldering a coil of cable. “Have to give you East-coast boys some shit. That’s just how it is.”
They moved efficiently, side by side, sliding into the rhythm of seasoned fieldwork.
Jake tapped at his Typhon HUD, flipping through PHOENIX overlays. “You get a lot of these install requests at weird, middle-of-nowhere locations?”
“All the time. Super-remote’s PHOENIX bread and butter. You don’t test exotic tech where civilians might see it.”
“What’s the craziest install you ever did?”
“I don’t know about craziest,” said Gramps, “but the scariest was up in North Dakota…”
“Yeah?”
“It’s all Air Force missile silos and ghosts. You can drive for hours and see nothing at all—maybe a partially collapsed church on the side of the road. And at night? Super creepy. Odd moving shadows, and you always feel like you’re being watched. ”
Jake shivered. “Uhh! No thank you. What else?”
“Old facility down near El Paso. Near the border. Feels like you’re in the Wild West.”
“Jesus,” Jake muttered. “Plumbing the Veil through Texas?”
“Texas, and a lot of other remote areas you can’t easily get resources. Wait ‘til you hear about Antarctica.”
“You’re shitting me!” Jake chuckled under his breath, then focused. He finished tightening a clamp, rechecked the collar ring spacing, and nodded. “Everything’s secure. Ready to prime.”
Gramps gave a short nod. “Let’s do it. Actually, you do the activation this time.”
Jake ran through the start-up sequence by reading the technical documentation in his HUD—another great use for it, as he didn’t have to keep bulky manuals on his lap while he worked.
The anchor began to hum—a deep, harmonic tone that resonated in his chest cavity. The overlay shimmered with diagnostic text as the node aligned.
“Bring the taps online,” Gramps said, pointing toward the connections.
“I’m trying,” said Jake, “but I’m not getting power to the panel.”
“Check the breakers.”
“I did. They’re all in.”
“Can’t be,” said Gramps. “Here, let me…yup. Here’s your problem.”
“What?” said Jake. Then he looked at what Gramps was pointing to.
“Oh my god!” He slapped himself on the forehead, then turned the big green switch that said “Main Power”.
The lights on the distribution panel blinked green.
“Ha,” said Gramps. “Happens to us all, kid.”
Jake flipped the last feed switch, watching the LEDs climb green across the board:
120VAC — ACTIVE
240VAC 3-PHASE — ACTIVE
480VAC 3-PHASE — ACTIVE
Water followed—hot and cold, steady pressure. PHOENIX-NET pinged online at a clean 1.0 Gbps. Jake finished the automated test with a satisfied grin.
“That’s two down. Should we head back in? Give Elena the good news?”
Gramps shook his head. “Before we pack up, I’m gonna give you a little free training. One of those lessons they don’t put in the manuals.”
Jake straightened. “What kind of training?”
“The kind that keeps you from blowing a hole in your foot… or God forbid, killing someone.”
He reached into the truck bed and came back with a length of dull aluminum pipe about three inches wide. Wedging it between two cinder blocks, he held out a hand.
“Here. Hand me your Veil Control Unit.”
Jake hesitated but passed it over. Gramps tapped through the interface with the easy precision of long habit, bringing up the metadata pane. He scrolled until one entry lit up in warning amber:
pressure: 15,504 psi
He saved it to a memory slot, tagging it: Demo – High-Pressure. Do Not Use.
“You ever see that number in the wild, you’d better damn well know what you’re connecting to.”
“Fifteen thousand PSI? Where are you getting water pressure that high? That’s—”
“Enough to cut steel,” Gramps said flatly. “Your flesh won’t even slow it down.”
He primed the connection, aligned a small nozzle at the pipe, then stepped back.
“Ready? Watch.”
A white, howling jet erupted for exactly one second, the sound halfway between a shriek and a roar. It sheared through the aluminum like warm butter, spraying fine mist into the work lights. The pipe clanged to the ground in two clean halves.
Jake’s jaw dropped. “Holy hell…”
Gramps killed the feed and pulled up the metadata again. “Now, you see why you triple-check before you hand a site over to Elena’s crew. Pressure, voltage, current—anything outside tolerance can maim or kill. You don’t want her chewing your ass for doing something stupid. But you definitely don’t want her burying someone because you got sloppy.”
Jake nodded quickly. “Got it. Check the metadata. Always.”
“Good.” Gramps handed the unit back.
Jake glanced at the saved slot. “Challenger Deep?”
“Yup. Bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Marianas Trench.”
Jake smirked faintly, but the image of the pipe splitting clean in two burned itself into his mind.
“Alright,” Gramps said, heading for the cab. “Now we can pack up.”
***
Jake kept glancing at the Challenger Deep entry in his Typhon HUD as they bumped along the dirt road.
15,504 PSI. Enough to cut steel. Enough to cut him in half.
Hard to believe that kind of power could flow through something as unassuming as a Veil Access Point.
He flexed his fingers around the Veil Control Unit in his lap, still feeling the phantom vibration from when Gramps had tagged the setting. The image of the pipe shearing like butter haunted him. No simulation in tech school had prepared him for that.
Gramps drove in silence, one hand on the wheel, the other drumming against his thigh. The truck’s electric motor hummed softly over the crunch of gravel. Above them, the moon climbed higher, sharpening every shadow.
Jake finally spoke. “That was… intense.”
Gramps didn’t look over. “Good. You’ll remember it. Triple-check your metadata before you hand anything over to Elena’s crew, or you’ll be remembering it in your exit briefing.”
They crested a ridge, and the compound came into view again—faint spotlights casting long, angular shadows across the yard. The prefabs and storage stacks looked almost peaceful under the moonlight.
“How ya doin’?” Jake asked.
Gramps didn’t answer right away. “Thinking.”
“About?”
“People I’ve worked with.”
Jake blinked. “Field techs? Like me?”
A slow nod. “Some made it. Some didn’t.”
Jake straightened in his seat. “What happened?”
Gramps didn’t answer. He pulled the truck out of gear, letting it coast the rest of the way in.
They pulled up near the equipment container. One of the guards nodded at them from beside the coordination trailer—a professional, impassive flick of the chin. Jake returned it without thinking, mentally cataloging the man’s face. Another note for the growing roster of names and roles in this strange, isolated place.
As Gramps hopped out to give the gear a quick inspection, Jake found himself looking up at the sky. The stars here were knife-sharp, undimmed by city light.
“So,” he said, “what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen working for PHOENIX?”
Gramps latched his Veiltech toolkit—always the last thing he touched. “Nevada job. Ten years back. Groom Range.”
Jake froze halfway through stowing a coil of cable. “Like… Groom Lake? Area 51?”
Gramps gave him a side-eye. “I thought you were ‘fully briefed.’ We overlap with the military. Provide goods, services. But we don’t take orders from them. More often, they take ours.”
He pulled a flask from his chest pocket and took a sip. “Had a new guy with us—bright, eager. A lot like you. We’re mid-calibration when he stops talking mid-sentence. Just… gone.”
Jake frowned. “Gone?”
“Not a sound. Not a flash. Boots still there, laced up. Everything else? Vanished.”
Jake stared.
“One frame on the footage, he’s there. Next frame—air.”
“What the hell?”
“Report said ‘Veil field microdrift.’ Subspace shear, they called it. But we all knew it was crap. Something on the other side reached out and got him.”
Jake shivered. “You’re messing with me. This is like a ghost story you tell the new guys.”
“I wish it was.” Gramps’ voice was flat. “Veiltech’s not ours. We just use it. Whatever’s behind it… it’s older, stranger, and you don’t want to meet it.”
The wind shifted. Up in the watchtower, a lone silhouette moved—scanning the perimeter with a pair of heavy binoculars.
Below, a guard passed near the truck, then paused. “You hear that?”
Jake listened. The cicadas had stopped. So had the wind. The night was holding its breath.
Then—thrum.
A low, resonant pulse rolled over them. Not sound so much as pressure. It made Jake’s teeth ache.
Gramps turned sharply. “Pack it up.”
Jake hesitated. “What is that?”
The watchtower guard froze, head turning toward the western sky.
A shape passed overhead—black on black, angular and silent. A hole in the sky.
It banked slightly, then stopped. Four shadows dropped from its belly before it vanished toward the far side of the compound.
Gramps reached into the truck and pulled out a hardcase. Inside—two disruptor batons.
He tossed one to Jake without looking. “We’re not alone.”
In the distance—click.
Then the sound of metal feet striking concrete. Smooth. Precise. Not human.
And then—gunfire.
***
The first scream tore through the compound like a steam whistle.
Jake froze, eyes wide. A second later came a short burst of gunfire—sharp, deliberate. Then a crunch. Something wet. Then silence.
Gramps was already moving.
“Grab your Veil Control Unit,” he hissed, crouching behind the truck. “We can’t let them fall into enemy hands. Grab it and keep it safe.”
Jake scrambled for the case and his terminal. He stuffed both into his day pack, slung it over his shoulder, and dropped beside Gramps. “What the hell was that?!”
“That,” Gramps said grimly, “is what happens when Directors underfund surface security.”
From the far side of the coordination trailer, another burst of gunfire flared—muzzle flashes strobing against the prefab walls. More screams followed.
This time, they didn’t stop.
Jake peeked around the container, heart pounding.
Two PHOENIX guards had taken cover behind a sandbagged generator. One was firing a compact flechette rifle—tight bursts stitching through the dark. The other launched a pair of recon drones—blue nav-lights flaring on as they climbed.
Then—movement.
A sleek, inhuman shape darted between prefab shadows. Impossibly fast. Low to the ground. Lower limbs a blur of motion.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!
The flechettes struck something metal. Sparks showered behind a shipping crate. A hiss followed—steam-like—and a strange whirring sound, not quite mechanical, not quite animal.
The drones dropped, smashed from the air by something unseen. They hit the ground and coughed out thin clouds of smoke.
Jake ducked just in time. A long, bladed appendage sliced through the air above him—missing by inches. It caught the drone operator mid-chest, carving through armor, flesh, and bone as if they offered no resistance.
A spray of blood.
Then the silhouette shot past—and the man’s head was gone. His body dropped to its knees, then flopped sideways into stillness.
The remaining guard screamed. He emptied his clip, reached for his sidearm—
The creature stepped into the light.
Seven feet of matte-black alloy and predatory grace, its frame was lean and raptor-like. A long, angular head jutted forward, crowned in overlapping mechanical feathers that flexed and twitched with a mind of their own. A matching tail swept behind it, armored plumage rippling subtly as it moved—every motion precise, economical, and utterly alien.
Its eyes glowed red—flickering, twitching, scanning in rapid bursts.
The guard fired.
The Crow twisted under the barrage with uncanny precision, then surged forward.
A metallic screech tore through the air—animalistic and wrong.
The guard vanished beneath a blur of limbs. Sparks. Screaming. Gunfire.
Jake couldn’t watch. He turned away, gagging.
“They’re not just killing,” he whispered. “They’re scanning. Gathering data.”
Gramps checked his HUD, jaw tight. “I’ve seen these before. Blackstar drones. Infiltration units—built to steal intel. We’re being catalogued… but they’re not transmitting. Not yet. Looks like they’re hunting for a way to punch the data out.”
“Blackstar?” Jake’s voice shook. “Never heard of it.”
“PMC,” said Gramps. “Been harassing PHOENIX since the mid-’90s. Mercs with deep pockets—and a rumor says some of ’em used to wear our badge.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jake caught movement—something clinging to the side of the watchtower, where no human had any right to be. Its silhouette shifted in the moonlight, sleek and angular, the sheen of matte-black alloy rippling as it moved.
The guard at the top—a dark-skinned woman with tight braids pulled back beneath a comms headset—stood her ground. She raised her sidearm and fired straight down the ladder at the thing climbing toward her.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK. Sparks flew as rounds glanced off the climbing shape.
Then—BOOM.
The ladder erupted as a shaped charge went off, the blast shearing one of the Crow’s arms clean off. Metal shrieked against metal as the thing fell away into the shadows below.
The guard leaned hard against the railing, breathing fast. She flipped open a small panel on the wall, revealing a red button under cracked plastic. No hesitation—
SLAM.
A low chime echoed from the tower, followed by a faint, distant relay tone somewhere deeper in the compound.
She keyed her mic. “Redline signal sent. Hope that damn button’s connected.”
No response. Just static.
She scanned the dark below. Her voice carried down to Jake and Gramps: “Y’all stay hidden if you can. Don’t try to be heroes.”
Jake looked up, meeting her eyes. For a heartbeat, they shared an understanding—then a shadow dropped onto the platform behind her.
Another Crow. Intact. Undamaged. It closed the gap with insect speed, silent but for the faint rasp of talons on metal.
Jake’s mouth opened to shout, but Gramps yanked him back and clamped a hand over his mouth.
Two gunshots rang out. A scream—cut short.
Silence.
Gramps let out a slow, measured breath. Without a word, he crouched and carefully laid his baton on the ground, setting it down so quietly it barely touched with a tap.
Jake swallowed hard and did the same.
Gramps met his eyes. “From here on out… we move like ghosts.”
***
The compound had gone deathly still.
Behind a shipping container, Jake heard only wind, idle machinery… and the thrum of blood in his ears.
Gramps crouched low and gestured—follow me.
They moved fast, hugging shadows between prefab walls and scorched machinery. Debris crunched beneath their boots. Smoke twisted through broken light fixtures and ragged bullet holes in the siding.
One Crow lay collapsed near the wrecked SUV—its twisted limbs twitching inside a scorched and smoking impact crater.
Jake stared. “That one…?”
“Dead,” Gramps muttered, nudging it with his boot. “Those two guards made sure of it.”
He gave a quiet nod. “Rest in peace, gents.”
Ahead: scrape. Drag. A faint metallic screech.
They froze.
Around the corner, a second Crow crawled slowly across cracked concrete. It was missing a leg, and one arm dangled by threads of carbon wire. But it was still moving—pulling itself forward with claws that gouged deep furrows in the ground. Its feathered head scanned, twitching, pausing every few feet.
Jake swallowed. “My god… those things are relentless.”
Gramps followed its gaze—toward the coordination trailer’s rear, where a flat, white satellite dish angled skyward. He checked his HUD and confirmed the Crow was trying to brute-force its way into the comm system network.
“It’s trying to beam their intel out,” he growled, then pointed. “Good news is that’s the only active dish on-site.”
Jake tapped into his HUD. “If it gets a signal through—”
“It won’t.”
Gramps darted across the open lane, low and fast. He reached the uplink housing and yanked the access panel open.
“Don’t try this at home!” he said through the implant to Jake.
Sparks flew as he twisted a large cannon plug loose, severing the dish’s main power feed. Several blinking lights on the panel went dark.
“Hardline severed. No power for you.”
He quickly cycled through the communication system menus using his Typhon implant, and set a strong encrypted password on the power feed controls.
“That’ll stop the bastards…or at least, slow them down.”
Gramps looked over at Jake. “Speaking of the others… where’d the other two go?”
Jake brought up his overlay. Two silhouettes moved through the lower half of the compound—silent, methodical.
“They found the blast doors to The Connector,” Jake muttered. “They just went inside.”
Gramps sighed. “Of course they did.”
They turned back to the damaged Crow. It was still dragging itself—one glinting talon raised toward the sky like a broken signal tower. Still scanning. Still trying.
Gramps glanced at several other nearby junction boxes, muttering to himself.
“If we open a Veil Access Point over it and send a high-current arc across its carapace, we might be able to overload its—”
CRUNCH.
Gramps looked up.
Jake stood over the twitching Crow, breathing hard, gripping a large cinder block. The drone’s skull was cratered. Its twitching slowed. Then stopped.
Gramps blinked. “...Or that.”
Jake dropped the block. “Thought I’d try the low-tech solution.”
Gramps gave a low whistle. “Gotta go with what works. I’ll make sure they add ‘throw brick at robot’ to the field guide.”
Jake checked his HUD again. “The other two are below… looks like Sub-level One. The Connector.”
Gramps walked back over to Jake, eyes narrowing.
Jake looked up. “So… what now?”
Gramps didn’t miss a beat.
“We go down after them.”