Find Reins, fuck off, a simple enough mission. The kicker was I had a pack of limp dick, fresh-faced rooks that needed breaking in. Bunch of soft minds and weak hands, unfit to share the battlefield with real soldiers. They needed a man like me, a mission like this. Being a weapon for the Faithless Initiative wasn’t about the procedure. These tall children weren’t willing to build themselves into monsters mentally. All they wanted was my signature and a pat on the head for a job done wrong.

 I’d seen soldiers with better hearts and will in their goddamn pinky toes refused the sign-off. So, either they’d die or they’d earn my respect, earn the right to call themselves Faithless, then. Then they could get their powers. One thing I saw in every rook that climbed the mountains of boot camp, they lacked. None headstrong enough to complete missions without a goddamn power point. Backed into a corner, fancy words won’t kill the enemy. The Faith preferred dossiers and mission briefs to soldiers doing their damn jobs.

Alarms and sensors in our truck went haywire, boots hadn’t hit the ground. Rolling closer to our mark, the deafening sirens shook these boys like heavy rain on a tin roof. Nervous shaky hands, boots tapping, the cold sweats, every last one shit the bed before they’d got a chance to climb in it. “All right, Gentleman. Reins’ location isn’t far, wherever he’s been hiding all these years, The Uppies have followed,” I said. Knowing Reins, he was the sort to go swimming in a monsoon.