All Chapters of Field Team 42: Paranormal Responders: Chapter 71 - Chapter 78

The raid shattered more than walls. It fractured every assumption we had about security, trust, and time. We didn't flee—we staggered, dodging gunfire, pulling teammates from rubble, chasing rumors of surviving exit paths.I led Schnell and J through a maze of collapsing corridors, ducking under sparking cables and kicking aside overturned carts. Sirens howled like banshees, their tones warping against the vast stone chambers of Tenochtitlán’s lower levels. Somewhere behind us, the screams of metal and men rang through the air.J ran hard, breath wheezing, his face pale and set. He clutched the encrypted Neurovore data chip like it was made of glass.Schnell, ever the academic under pressure, grumbled mid-sprint, “Zey really don’t build villain lairs like zey used to.”I didn’t answer. Not until we found the half-collapsed safety door that led into a low-pressure backup wing. I slammed my fist on the override and dragged the others through.Silence hit like a slap. No gunfire. No alar

Tenochtitlán didn't sleep. Not even now.We bedded down in an abandoned transit terminal that had been halfway converted into a garden before the Neurovore infiltration. Broad-leafed plants spilled over shattered benches and grew up through cracks in the stone. The glow of bioluminescent moss lent the walls a low, green sheen.It was the most peace we'd had in days.I sat against a column shaped like a coiled serpent, watching the shimmer of faint light dance across the obsidian floor. My ribs ached. My shoulder throbbed. The bandage over my side was already blooming red. Still, I kept watch.The others drifted into sleep in pairs or slumped where they'd dropped. Spitfire curled into a nest of her own tail beside J, both of them snoring softly. Rachelle snored like a buzzsaw. Jonie lay on her back with her eyes half-open, blinking at the ceiling. She hadn't spoken much since the rescue. I couldn't blame her.Schnell sat near the Neurovore corpse. He hadn't moved for almost an hour, j

We rode an unmarked cargo hauler down into the bowels of the Andes. The exterior was camouflaged in mud and moss, a holdover from its time as a smuggler vessel in the post-Y2K black markets. Now, it answered to no one, just one of many scavenged assets in the counter-coup’s patchwork fleet. The trip from Tenochtitlán to the Lima outskirts had taken us under the jungle, through abandoned mining shafts and forgotten rail systems Control hadn’t touched in decades.J had been quiet the whole trip. Not sulking just thinking. Spitfire curled on a seat beside him, her head resting on his knee. Every now and then, he’d scratch behind her ears, absentminded. I’m not sure she would have allowed anybody but J to pet, caress, and scratch her like a pet dog. I’m sure she would have felt condescended to and disrespected. But she allowed J. And from her body language, I think she enjoyed it.“You holding up?” I asked, lowering myself onto the bench opposite him.“I was thinking about whoever left us

We walked single-file under the wide, pitiless sky. The Andes rolled behind us like a stone ocean, but ahead, the desert was flat and endless. Dust hissed around our boots. Heat shimmered like mirages off the sand.The Nazca Lines stretched across the basin like chalk runes drawn by giants. You didn’t notice them all at once. First, it was a strange curve in the gravel. Then a bird too perfect to be coincidence. Then more: a monkey, a spider, a human with outstretched arms. It was eerie the way they revealed themselves. Like they’d always been there, waiting for someone to pay attention.We were two days from breach."This place is insane," Rachelle muttered, adjusting the strap on her rail rifle. "I keep expecting a voice from the sky to start narrating.""If it does, I’m quitting," Jonie said.Spitfire soared above us, a glinting silhouette against the sun. She dipped once, then twice. The all-clear. No drones. No scouts. No Neurovore constructs yet. But the land felt... infected.S