The Loadout and the Lie

 
Gaius leaned back slightly in his chair, eyes still on the map.

> “So. What kind of toys are we getting?”

Without a word, Lin Sorell stepped forward from the wall. He dropped a hardened case onto the table with a dull thud. The latches hissed, popped, and folded open with a mechanical shrug.

Inside was a mess of weaponry:

* A stack of modular under-armor rigs with reactive plating.

* Compact sidearms with Codex-mod lineage.

* Short blades with glyph-etched edges.

* Two fragmentation charges, clearly hand-packed.

* And at the bottom: a prototype machine gun, still wrapped in foil-tagged cloth.

It looked hungry.

> “That one,” Lin said quietly, “eats ammo. A lot of it. And there’s no resupply.”

Draven stepped in.

> “No drones past the fold. No signal. No retrieval paths. Once you’re in, you’re in. Every shot matters.”

Vell picked up one of the sidearms and flipped it in his hand. “Can’t remember the last time a briefing included grenades. Starting to feel romantic.”

> “Don’t romanticize it,” Draven replied. “This isn’t about firepower. It’s about not being forgotten.”

Gaius grabbed one of the under-armor rigs, tested the weight.

> “We get to keep these if we survive?”

Draven didn’t answer.

> “You’ll leave Chethollow at first light,” he said instead. “A small field unit will escort you to the edge of the Hollow. From there—no support. Serra Claine is already positioned near the entry path. She’ll make contact when you’re close.”

> “What’s the fallback plan?” Vell asked.

> “Don’t die,” Draven said.

A long pause followed.

> “You’ve got rooms here,” he added. “Rest. You move out in the morning.”

Gaius stood, shoulder stiff from the weight of it all.

> “And who’s funding all this generosity, anyway?”

Draven looked up from the datapad.

> “Anonymous patron.”

He didn’t blink when he said it.

Which somehow made it worse.