Anarchy | Book Two, The Genesis Series

One

It was certainly going to be a long night.

Kai kneeled behind one of the cracked walls, his deep, intense brown eyes surveying the dimly lit, bereft gravel road leading up to the building he crouched on top of. He huffed to himself, pursing his lips. His squad should've captured it's target hours ago, and they hadn't even caught sight of him yet.

He'd read up on the target's file countless times during the flight to his last known location. Of all the adversaries they'd repeatedly faced during The Surge-the global rise in the population of Elites-Legion was definitely one of the most annoying.

Genesis had initially encountered the man after they'd heard reports of a gang of terrorists running amuck throughout the streets of Los Angeles.

They seemingly specialized in the abduction and exploitation of Elites, and they'd been on Genesis' radar long before Kai and the others had arrived. At first glance, nothing about them appeared to be any different than the average, run-of-the-mill terrorist.

But of course, things were never that simple.

Every time the police force had seemingly disposed of them, about five more mercenaries would appear out of nowhere to drive them away from the scene. But after Kai's squad had successfully detained two of the criminals, they'd figured out that both of their molecular structures were completely identical.

That's when all of them realized that they were dealing with an Elite.

After the DNA analysis, they'd discovered that Lawson Bridges-or Legion as they'd dubbed him in the Genesis database, was quite literally a one man army. After being struck by the wave of Genodium two years ago, Lawson had found himself possessing the ability to replicate his entire molecular structure, allowing him to create multiple clones of himself.

This ability didn't stop at himself, though. He also possessed the power to clone anything he came into contact with-including those irritating photon rings of his, which produced a focused, potent blast of concussive light particles. Even with his nigh-indestructible skin and Chromanium-plated mission suit, Kai still knew that those energy projectiles weren't anything to play around with.

Thanks to his incredibly useful ability, Lawson had slipped through their fingers multiple times. But tonight would be the night that they finally captured him and confined him to a cell in The Crypt. Over the course of the past few days, they'd managed to locate the man's headquarters-a discarded, abandoned warehouse in the epicenter of Lancaster that used to be a natural history museum.

"Frost, do you have a visual?" Kai sternly asked his teammate, his voice plagued with vigilance as he brushed a few concrete pebbles out of his low, even hair.

At the first sign of conflict, his gloved hand wouldn't hesitate to clasp itself around the hilt of his prized tactical sword.

Frost-otherwise known as Amber Grayson, the team's designated archer and ranged combat specialist-was perched on the opposite end of the battered history museum. The girl's assigned combat post was often at the highest point of the battlefield, allowing her to identify patterns and strays in the midst of conflict.

"Affirmative." Amber reported through the static clogging their communication devices. "You've got a convoy heading your way at 3 o' clock. One van and one jeep with four armed hostiles on each vehicle."

His eyes narrowed into slits, Kai cut them to the right.

They tracked the two vehicles. The first was a black and silver containment unit connected to a van, which drove up the winding road with little difficulty. Four vigilant, semi-armored men-presumably clones-were mounted on each corner of the armored vehicle, keeping their eyes peeled for any oncoming threat.