The explosion almost tears my head off.

They've come for the vaccine. And the mere fact that they have come for it proves it works.

In a way, they're doing us a favor. That's what I keep telling myself while I engage in close combat.

They. That's what I call them. It's easier this way. Or more pathetic because, in fact, I do have a name for them. I could use it if I wasn't such an emo, and I could accept the fact that he turned on us.

They are his army.

He's not here personally, but I see him in every move of every man I defeat. These are not simple mercenaries. They are way more disciplined. Classically trained.

Trained by him.

Mint.

I applaud his hard work, but he really should have stayed dead. As dead as I testified him to be before the Agency's fucking committee, formed to investigate his disappearance.

I have no idea what I'm going to say when everyone else puts two and two together, just the way I did, not so long ago. That I simply let him walk away? Definitely not an option. That he was on the verge of doing something stupid? Not an option, either. I doubt my superiors would deem anything more stupid than an ex-agent organizing a fucking army and presenting himself as a proper third world mercenary king. And I can't even say they're wrong.

I need to stop zoning out. A punch to my jaw reminds me of that.

Mint's men are good. They still wouldn't pose much danger if our tactical controller was any good, too. But he's not. Or she. You never know because their identities are strictly protected, with the voice distortion turning speech into an impersonal machine sound. I usually go with he. He's a bit too violent for this job, as strange as it sounds. And his timing is off.

He's nothing like Gabriel. She was the best. Or he. In her case, I go with she. I know I shouldn't, but I always imagined her as a woman. A gentle, caring woman. The psychiatrist said it was just a projection of my own feelings, mixed with some good old oedipal complex. Not exclusively mine; she was a collective fantasy shared by the entire team, a mother figure for us all, standing between us and death. Our guardian angel, watching over us through her ever-seeing camera-eyes. The hand that led us to safety.

When she was gone, safety was gone too. And it never returned.

We all needed therapy after she died. Some of us never got over it.

Like Mint.

Or, to be totally honest, me.