Chapter 21 : Fiona's Gift
The warehouse on Fortieth burned on schedule.
Viktor's shipment went up in controlled flames, the boy was extracted safely, and Dmitri—terrified, alone, exactly as predicted—gave Michael everything he needed to dismantle the trafficking operation. The case was closed by Friday afternoon.
Saturday, Fiona called.
"I need someone to assist with a demonstration," she said. "You've shown aptitude. Be at the range in an hour."
The "range" was a decommissioned industrial facility south of the city that Fiona used for... practice. The walls were scarred with blast marks. The floor was littered with shell casings. A table in the center held what looked like a bomb-making tutorial's worth of components.
"Episode six requires precision," Fiona said without preamble. "The target has a safe room. Reinforced concrete, steel door, three-inch thick. We need to breach without killing everyone inside."
"That sounds complicated."
"That's why I'm teaching you."
She moved to the table with the grace of someone who'd spent decades around explosives. Her hands were steady, confident, touching the components with an intimacy that suggested long familiarity.
"Demolitions isn't about destruction," she said. "It's about control. Any idiot can make something explode. The skill is in making it explode exactly how you want, where you want, when you want."
She began assembling a shaped charge, her movements precise and practiced. I watched, but not just for the technique.
[TALENT DETECTED: Weapons Intuition][SOURCE: Fiona Glenanne][CLASSIFICATION: Combat/Perceptual][DESCRIPTION: Instinctive understanding of weapons, explosives, and destructive potential][OBSERVATION REQUIRED: 10 minutes minimum][CURRENT PROGRESS: 0%]
I'd copied Sugar's Combat Instinct months ago. His talent had changed how I perceived threats—the world became a map of potential dangers, each person and object evaluated for attack potential.
Fiona's talent would be different. Complementary, maybe. Or dangerous in ways I couldn't predict.
"Pay attention," she said. "This is a linear shaped charge. The copper liner focuses the explosion into a directional jet. Watch the angle."
[OBSERVATION PROGRESS: 23%]
"The key is standoff distance," she continued. "Too close, the jet doesn't form properly. Too far, it disperses before reaching the target. Each material requires different calculations."
[OBSERVATION PROGRESS: 47%]
I asked questions. Technical ones, about blast dynamics and material properties. Personal ones, about how she'd learned this, where she'd practiced. She answered patiently, warming to the subject, her eyes bright with the enthusiasm of someone sharing a passion.
[OBSERVATION PROGRESS: 78%]
"You're a good student," she said, stepping back from the completed charge. "Most people are afraid of explosives. You treat them like tools."
"They are tools."
"Yes." She smiled—the sharp, dangerous smile I'd come to recognize. "Beautiful, terrifying tools that can reshape the world in fractions of a second. What's not to love?"
[OBSERVATION PROGRESS: 100%][TALENT COPY AVAILABLE: Weapons Intuition][TALENT SLOT REQUIRED: 1][CURRENT SLOTS: 1/1 — Occupied by Combat Instinct (Sugar)][WARNING: Copying new talent will replace existing talent][PROCEED? Y/N]
I hesitated.
Sugar's Combat Instinct had saved my life multiple times. The ability to read threats before they manifested, to know how people would attack before they moved—it was foundational to everything I'd built over the past months.
But Fiona's gift was something else. Not threat detection—threat creation. The instinctive understanding of how to destroy, how to breach, how to turn any object into a weapon.
I accepted the copy.
The change wasn't subtle this time.
Sugar's instinct faded like a dream on waking—there one moment, gone the next. In its place, something new flooded my perception. Something hungry.
The training room transformed. The walls weren't just walls anymore—they were structural weaknesses, load-bearing points, potential breach locations. The shells on the floor were projectile components, propellant sources, improvised weapons. The table was cover, yes, but also a barricade material, a blast shield, a source of shrapnel if destroyed correctly.
Fiona herself... Fiona was a collection of vulnerabilities. Throat, eyes, joints. The way she stood exposed her left knee. The way she held the detonator exposed her wrist. If I wanted to—if I needed to—I could end her in three movements.
I blinked hard, forcing the assessment away.
"You feel it," Fiona said quietly. "I can see it in your face."
"Feel what?"
"The way I see the world." She studied me with new intensity. "You're doing it again. That thing where you learn too fast."
"I told you. I have a knack."
"A knack." She laughed, the sound sharp and musical. "I've had decades of training, Sheldon. IRA, independent contractors, two decades of practical application. And you're standing there looking at this room the way I look at it."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Liar." But she didn't sound angry. She sounded... curious. "When Michael told me about you—about your impossible improvement rate—I thought he was exaggerating. He wasn't, was he?"
"No."
She moved closer, studying my face like a puzzle she was trying to solve. "The Network thing was one thing. That could be a trick, some kind of technology I don't understand. But this is different. This is instinct. You can't fake instinct."
"Fiona—"
"Don't." She held up a hand. "I'm not asking you to explain. I'm not even asking you to trust me. I just want you to know that I see it. Whatever you are, whatever you're doing, I see it."
"And?"
"And I think it's fascinating." Her smile returned—softer this time, with something that might have been kinship underneath. "You're not dangerous to us. If you were, Michael would have dealt with you already. But you are dangerous to someone. I look forward to finding out who."
She turned back to the table, picking up another set of components. "Now. Shaped charges. Pay attention. I want you at practical competency by the end of the day."
I watched her work, the Weapons Intuition talent providing commentary I hadn't asked for. Blast radius calculations. Optimal placement angles. The structural weaknesses in her demonstration targets.
[TALENT INTEGRATED: Weapons Intuition (Fiona)][NOTE: Talent replaces Combat Instinct (Sugar)][PASSIVE BONUS: Threat Creation Assessment +3 effective levels][ACTIVE BONUS: Weapons/Explosives skills enhanced when talent is engaged][WARNING: Talent provides persistent threat analysis. User may experience increased aggression or paranoid ideation.]
The warning was accurate. As I followed Fiona through the lesson—shaped charges, breaching techniques, improvised weapons construction—part of my mind never stopped cataloging. Seventeen ways to kill the people between me and the exit. Forty-two potential weapons in this room alone. The structural failure points in the building that would bring the whole thing down if triggered correctly.
Fiona's gift was beautiful and terrible in equal measure.
By the time I left the training facility, my Explosives skill had jumped from Level 4 to Level 6. The practical knowledge was valuable—I could build functional charges now, breach most standard doors, create distractions that would serve operational needs.
But the instinct was something else entirely.
I walked through Miami streets, and every car was a potential bomb. Every building was a target. Every person was a threat vector or a casualty estimate.
The talent didn't turn off. It didn't have an off switch.
Sugar's Combat Instinct had made me defensive—always watching, always evaluating threats. Fiona's Weapons Intuition made me offensive. The world wasn't full of dangers; it was full of targets.
I understood, suddenly, why Fiona was the way she was. Why she found joy in destruction, why her smile sharpened when explosives were involved. The talent didn't just show you how to break things—it made breaking things feel natural. Inevitable. Right.
This was dangerous. I was dangerous, in ways I hadn't been before.
But somewhere in those capabilities was the key to keeping people alive who were supposed to die. Nate. The others whose deaths I'd seen in the show, whose fates I was positioning to change.
Some gifts came with prices. Fiona's price was a permanent recalibration of how I saw the world.
I'd pay it. I didn't have a choice.
The alternative was letting people die because I was too afraid of what helping them might cost.
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