# Chapter 4
I'd been sitting in the lotus position for a good twenty minutes without opening my eyes. Not because I was meditating — I was just stalling. My fingers rested on my knees, the cave's stone floor chilling my thighs through the coarse fabric of the pants I'd stripped off the last patrol. Outside, the evening forest hummed — wind rustling through the canopy, an owl calling somewhere far off. Same as always. Everything calm.
Except it wasn't calm inside. The accumulated Singularity energy was pressing against my ribs from within, like an overheated boiler about to crack. It had spent a month building up, a month waiting, and now it was demanding release with an insistence that was hard to ignore.
I finally let out a breath and opened my eyes.
In the darkness of the cave, the familiar violet interface flared to life.
---
**[ SINGULARITY ENERGY: 100% ]**
**[ MONTHLY SUMMON AVAILABLE ]**
*Select mode:*
*Standard Summon (10 attempts)*
*Concentrated Summon (1 guaranteed skill of rank B or higher)*
*Warning: "Concentrated" increases recovery time to 3+ months.*
---
I held my gaze on the second option for exactly one second. Then I chose the first.
The logic was simple. The concentrated summon was an all-in gamble. One shot, and then three or more months of sitting around like a hungry wolf without claws. And I didn't have three months to spare. Hydra had stopped sending infantry into the forest, which was itself a troubling signal. Silence in their operations was clearly some kind of tactic I needed to be wary of. I was strong, but I still had a clear-eyed sense of my own odds.
Ten attempts, on the other hand, were ten chances. Most of them might be trash — but at least something would come through. Hopefully.
*Standard Summon,* I confirmed in my mind.
A vortex of ten sparks whirled before my eyes, each trailing a wake of unfamiliar images. For a fraction of a second, the world went blurry and weightless. Then everything stopped, and the interface unfurled its list.
---
**[ SUMMON RESULTS: ]**
**[F] — Deflated "Wilson" Soccer Ball**
*Type: Item*
*Lore: An artifact from a world that survived a zombie apocalypse. Visible traces of dried blood on the surface, and someone's name written on it in marker.*
*Effect: Useless. Can be used as a pillow if stuffed with rags.*
---
**[F] — Melted Circuit Board from a Robotic Vacuum Cleaner**
*Type: Item*
*Lore: This silicon chip once dreamed of clean floors, but fell victim to the machine uprising. Now it is simply a piece of plastic and silicon.*
*Effect: Trash. Not even worth salvaging for parts.*
---
**[F] — Old CD with a Soundtrack**
*Type: Item*
*Lore: The disc is badly scratched. On the front, only one inscription is legible: "Hans Zimmer."*
*Effect: Will not play. Can be used as a mirror for signaling if polished.*
---
**[D] — Military MRE Ration (Complete Set)**
*Type: Item (Consumable)*
*Lore: Standard U.S. Army combat ration from a stable reality. Menu #14: pasta with meat sauce, crackers, peanut butter, chocolate bar, instant coffee.*
*Effect: High-calorie, reasonably palatable. Shelf life of 25 years.*
---
**[F] — Broken "Polystation" Console Controller**
*Type: Item*
*Lore: A plastic product from a world where copyright law is nothing but empty words. The buttons are sticky, and the cord has been hopelessly chewed through by something small.*
*Effect: Trash. Can be used as a heavy throwing projectile in a genuine pinch.*
---
**[D] — "Coagulant-7" Injector**
*Type: Item (Consumable)*
*Lore: Standard medical tool for field medics. Allows rapid cessation of bleeding even from serious wounds.*
*Effect: Instantly stops any external bleeding upon use and disinfects the wound.*
---
**[D] — Fenix PD32 Flashlight (Dead Batteries)**
*Type: Item*
*Lore: A solid tactical flashlight from a world where people valued quality gear. Knocked off a desk during an invasion and spent three years under a couch.*
*Effect: Powerful when supplied with two CR123 batteries. Batteries not included.*
---
**[C] — Skill: "Altaïr's Parkour"**
*Type: Skill*
*Lore: The muscle memory of a great master assassin. Your body instinctively finds footholds where an ordinary eye sees none.*
*Effect: Allows scaling sheer walls, leaping from tremendous heights into haystacks or any soft surface, and moving across rooftops with virtuosic ease.*
---
**[B] — Skill: "Air Ace"**
*Type: Skill (Passive/Active)*
*Lore: A direct neural upload of flight experience from the combined database of three realities: military flight schools, test ranges, and elite pilot training programs. Theory, muscle memory, tactical instinct — all in one package.*
*Effect: The bearer can confidently pilot any aircraft with conventional controls — helicopters, light and transport planes, jet fighters up to generation 4++, and combat UAVs. Provides intuitive reading of unfamiliar cockpits: adaptation time to a new aircraft type is 5 to 20 minutes instead of months of training.*
---
**[B] — "Dark Knight" Tactical Suit (Prototype XE)**
*Type: Item*
*Lore: Armor forged in the depths of a megacity from one of the parallel worlds, built for a man who chose to become the living embodiment of fear. Tri-titanium memory-fiber weave.*
*Effect: Provides massive protection against bullets and edged weapons. The helmet features a multi-mode visor (thermal/night vision), and the cape enables gliding from great heights via controlled changes in material rigidity.*
---
**[ SUMMON COMPLETE ]**
I let out a slow breath. The violet flame of the system faded. I opened my eyes to the same dark cave, but with an entirely different feeling — a feeling of quiet certainty that now, at last, I could leave Sokovia. My gaze moved across every skill and item that had come through.
The MRE — real food after a month of dried venison — wasn't just a "common" item. It was a small holiday for my stomach.
The Coagulant-7 injector would help if I took a bad wound. The Fenix PD32 would come in handy too, though I'd need to track down batteries somewhere.
Altaïr's Parkour was a genuinely exciting skill for someone in my position. Moving across skyscrapers and jumping from high-rises would be enormously useful in this world. But the cherry on top was the last two pulls: the Air Ace skill and the tactical suit of the goddamn Batman himself.
Reading the Air Ace description, I was quietly elated at the sheer number of aircraft I could now pilot. And a memory lit up in my mind like a beacon — the Quinjet sitting in Hydra's hangar. I'd walked right past it because I'd had no idea how to get the thing off the ground. Now that was a completely different story. I could adapt to the controls of a new aircraft type in minutes. It changed everything.
*Activate the suit,* I commanded mentally, staring at the description of the legendary hero's legendary costume.
The item flashed in the inventory and materialized in my hands. Dense, slightly stiff fabric carrying that distinct smell of new gear. I ran my fingers across the titanium inserts on the chest and shoulders, checked the clasps, tested the fastenings. Everything held firm, and the fit was like it had been made for me. The Genesis serum had turned my body into a sculpture of functional muscle.
I changed in the darkness in a few minutes. The shoulders sat perfectly, nothing pulled or pinched.
Then I tore open the MRE.
Pasta with meat sauce from a pouch, heated using the chemical warmer packed in with it, turned out to be surprisingly decent. I ate slowly, watching the embers of the dying fire, and thought.
So. The situation now looked different. The Dark Knight tactical suit — check. Piloting skill — check. Physical capabilities that let me clear a checkpoint single-handedly — check. Knowledge that a S.H.I.E.L.D.-marked Quinjet was sitting in one of Hydra's facilities — check.
The remaining question was how to reach that hangar without becoming a corpse on the way.
Hydra had stopped running patrols through the forest. That could mean one of two things. Either they'd written me off and moved on to other priorities — unlikely, given how many of their people I'd put down — or they'd changed tactics. Reinforced the perimeter, posted snipers on the approaches to their facilities, brought in something heavier than standard infantry.
I leaned toward the second option. Which meant going in headfirst wasn't going to work. I needed another route.
I smothered the embers by packing earth over them. The cave dropped into complete darkness, but through the night-vision visor built into the suit's helmet, I picked out the silhouettes of rocks and roots without effort. I lay down on my back, laced my hands behind my head, and stared at the ceiling.
Right now, Sokovia was a small, fractured country with a porous border, corrupt checkpoint guards, and several mountain passes that local smugglers knew better than any officer. If I found the right people in the city, I could slip out even without the Quinjet. Quietly, invisibly, without firing a single shot.
But a quiet, invisible exit wasn't what I wanted anymore. Anger was churning in me — at the things Hydra had done, and at one person in particular, a woman named Nada. I wanted revenge. I wanted to destroy one of Sokovia's nests of evil so that others wouldn't go through what I had. Though if a clean escape presented itself, I figured I should take it. Revenge could wait until I had considerably more power behind me.
I closed my eyes.
At dawn I needed to move toward the city's outskirts. See what had changed in the patrol routes. Find the weak link. Hydra was enormous, but every large organization eventually makes small mistakes — sets a post in the wrong place, rotates a shift at the wrong time, leaves a corner unguarded.
All I needed was one such corner.
My body was fed for the first time in days. A good suit rested on my shoulders. Sokovia was not going to be my prison any longer.
Outside, the wind moved through the treetops again, and the forest answered with a long, indifferent whisper.
I was asleep before I could finish my next thought.