That morning, the briefing room on the ninth floor was silent.
The air was thick with tension as Director D. Sandwell stepped in. His footsteps echoed against the polished floor, each one deliberate. He wore a sharp black suit, and in his left hand, a digital file projected itself across the large screen behind him—displaying the words:
"UNIT HELIX – CLASSIFIED OPERATIONS"
The five agents were already seated.
Caleb Vaughn sat at the end of the long table, posture rigid, eyes sharp, sizing up each face like pieces on a chessboard.
To his right sat Mina Ashford, calm and composed, her tablet in hand.
Ayla Rivera, slightly slouched, toyed with a compact neural device she was assembling on her lap.
Jesse Lorne stared blankly at a data stream projected from his personal device, already dissecting encrypted lines of code like poetry.
And then, there was Tyler Reeve.
Wearing a red thick T-shirt, worn-out black jeans, scuffed sneakers, and a backward black cap, he looked like someone who'd wandered in from a skate park, not a top-secret intelligence unit. He lazily chewed on a blue bubble gum, smirking like the world was his personal game.
Director Sandwell's voice cut through the room.
"Good morning. You five are now officially assigned to Unit Helix. This is a Level-9 classified operation—off the books, above Congress, and off the record. If you fail, the CIA will disavow your existence."
He let that sink in.
"You are not here because you get along. You're here because each of you can do what others can't. Now, introductions."
He gestured toward Mina.
She stood slightly, professional and direct.
"Mina Ashford. Psychological operations. Interrogation and memory reconstruction. I can tell real memories from manufactured ones—unless they were created by someone smarter than me."
Ayla looked up from her device, gave a small shrug.
"Ayla Rivera. Neurotech and nano devices. I don't talk much... so I build things that let me hear what people don't say."
Jesse didn't even glance up.
"Jesse Lorne. Pattern analysis. I trust data more than people."
Then came Tyler.
He grinned, kicked his feet up on the table, and raised a lazy hand.
"Tyler Reeve. Age twenty-five. Undercover, infiltration, and pissing off my superiors every other week. It's a gift."
Caleb Vaughn narrowed his eyes.
"You're in a covert ops unit. And you show up wearing... that? No jacket, no badge, no protocol? You think this is a game?"
The room paused.
Tyler's grin widened. He popped the bubblegum, leaned back, and said with a smirk:
"This is my style, sir. If the world wants me to blend in… I start by being myself."
Ayla rolled her eyes.
Jesse didn't flinch.
Mina scribbled something silently on her tablet.
Sandwell, somehow, kept a straight face, though the corner of his mouth twitched.
Then he turned to the last man.
Caleb stood. His voice was firm and low.
"Caleb Vaughn. Thirty-eight. Former black ops. I've eliminated targets who didn't know they were targets. But today, my job is simple—keep you all alive, and stop you from killing each other."
Sandwell gave a sharp nod.
"You're a unit now. Your first mission begins tonight. We're not hunting a killer... we're hunting a memory. A memory that's been erased, altered, or planted."
The screen behind him changed.
A photo appeared—Agent Blake, face pale, eyes frozen in terror.
"Target: Agent Blake. Deceased. Shot the head of Asia-Pacific Division yesterday morning, then killed himself."
"Last recorded words before pulling the trigger... were a name."
Sandwell turned and looked straight at Caleb Vaughn.
"That name... was yours."
During the lunch break, Tyler Reeve stepped into the bathroom.
It was quiet. Just the distant drip of water and the low hum of old fluorescent lights above. He stood at the sink, splashed cold water on his face, then stared into the mirror.
His red shirt was damp at the collar. His hat was still on backward, sneakers untied, giving him his usual "couldn't-care-less" look. But the eyes staring back at him in the mirror looked… distracted. Uneasy.
He muttered under his breath, almost like confessing to the mirror.
"So… Mina's on my team now, huh..."
He let out a soft, nervous laugh.
"Wonder if she remembers we went to the same school. She was top of the class, always up front… And me? I was the guy in the back row who once left her a love letter… then climbed out the boys' bathroom window like a coward."
He shook his head.
"Lame."
He sighed, then splashed more water on his face, voice softer now.
"I acted all cool back there… Truth is, I was sweating bullets. But hey—at least the swagger covered it up."
Just then, his phone buzzed in his pocket. Local number. He answered, still dripping.
"Yeah?"
A frantic voice on the other end.
"Tyler! It's Rico—your neighbor! Man, you need to get home right now. Someone tore up your apartment! Like… totally trashed it! I saw two guys in hoodies come up the back stairwell. They weren't robbers. They were looking for something!"
Tyler straightened up immediately. The smirk vanished.
"Are they still there?"
"I don't know! They were in and out quick. But it wasn't random—they knew what they were after. I think it was your laptop or that weird file in your freezer or somethin'!"
Click.
Tyler hung up. He grabbed his cap, stared into the mirror one last time—and this time, the look he gave himself was sharp. Focused.
"Okay… so it starts now. They're already playing dirty."
Without another word, he stormed out of the bathroom.
A fake memory designed to make Tyler emotionally connected to Mina—so the team dynamics could be manipulated more easily.
Maybe someone behind the scenes doesn't trust the team to work together naturally. So they injected "safe emotional bonds" into Tyler's mind to force trust.
Meanwhile, in the operations room, Caleb Vaughn stood next to Jesse.
Jesse replayed encrypted message logs from Agent Blake's final two weeks. Caleb's eyes narrowed as one transmission blinked and vanished on the timeline.
"Why's this message missing, when everything else is intact?" Caleb asked.
Jesse's voice was flat. "Because it was erased manually. Not from outside—but from inside CIA systems. Someone on the inside wanted this one gone."
Elsewhere, Mina and Ayla stood over neural response data captured from one of Ayla's brainwave sensors.
"This spike right here… doesn't belong to Blake," Ayla said.
Mina studied it carefully.
"Then who does it belong to?"
Ayla tapped the data.
"Someone who was close. Someone in disguise. Someone who triggered him."