Alpha Squad and the Missing Paperwork

They reached the main doors. The glass had not broken, yet it bowed inward like rubber. Through it, Mara saw shoppers frozen beside kiosks and fountains. Their reflections moved half a second late.

A little girl pressed both hands against the glass.

Her mother pulled her back. The mother’s mouth formed a word Mara could not hear.

Then the doors opened by themselves.

A wave of heat rolled over Mara. It carried the sharp scent of hot wiring and cinnamon pretzels. The floor tilted beneath her boots.

“Stay linked,” she ordered.

Alpha Squad entered.

The mall’s music played backward. Familiar pop vocals dragged into low, mournful groans. Storefront mannequins faced the rift at the center atrium, their heads turned too far around.

The rift hung above the fountain.

It looked like a vertical tear in the air, seven stories high. Beyond it waited a red sky and a landscape of black towers. Something enormous moved between them.

Mara raised one hand.

“Dax, breach case. Lin, civilians. Rook, watch the ceiling.”

“Ceiling watching,” Rook said. “My lifelong dream.”

A tremor buckled the tiles. A perfume display toppled, glass bottles bursting across the floor. Civilians screamed and surged toward the entrances.

Mara pushed into the crowd. A man in a suit grabbed her sleeve.

“Are we trapped?”

“Not if you keep moving,” she said. “Follow the blue lights.”

“There are no blue lights!”

Mara looked behind him. Emergency strips along the floor flickered blue, then orange, then vanished.

“Follow Lin,” she called. “She has better judgment.”

Lin climbed onto a bench and waved both arms. “This way! Nobody runs! Running makes the floor angry!”

The floor immediately split beneath a row of jewelry stores.

Lin stared at the widening crack. “That was not my fault.”

A deep boom rolled through the atrium. The rift expanded, dragging loose signs and paper cups upward. A child’s balloon vanished into the red sky.

Dax dropped the breach case and caught its handle before it followed.

“Little help!”

Mara seized the case. Together, they dragged it behind a marble column.

The rift’s pull increased. People slid across the tiles. A stroller spun toward the fountain. Mara lunged, caught the frame, and slammed her shoulder into a kiosk.

Pain flashed down her arm.

The baby inside the stroller wailed. Mara shoved the stroller toward Lin.

“Take them!”

Lin grabbed it. “I’ve got the small screaming civilian!”

“Everyone’s screaming,” Rook said.

“Then I’ve got the smallest one!”

Dax opened the breach case. Inside, six metal pylons shivered in their restraints. Their indicator lights stayed dark.

Mara crouched beside him. “Why aren’t they charging?”

“Because the rift is eating the power.”

“Use the backup cells.”

“They’re already in use.”

“For what?”

Dax pointed toward the mall directory. Its screen showed a spinning symbol and one line of text.

AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

Mara stared at it. “That’s not a power draw.”

“No,” Dax said. “That’s an access lock.”

Another boom struck. The atrium lights died. In the darkness, the rift brightened.

Shapes pressed against its surface.

One had too many arms. Another wore the outline of a man in a suit. A third bent low, its head brushing the red horizon.

Rook fired a flare. White light snapped across the atrium.

The shapes disappeared.

“Those things saw us,” Rook said.

“They saw everyone,” Mara replied.

A voice crackled through her helmet. Command sounded distant, buried beneath static.

“Alpha Squad, withdraw. Repeat, withdraw. Civilian count unverified.”

Mara looked toward the exits. The glass doors had become solid walls. Behind them, Denver traffic rolled past without slowing.

“Negative,” she said. “We have thousands inside.”

“Communication window is closing.”

“How long?”

Static answered.

Dax struck the nearest pylon with his palm. “Mara, we have thirty-one minutes at most.”

“Until what?”

“Until we stop hearing command.”

The words landed harder than the tremor. Thirty-one minutes without communication meant no updates, no extraction route, and no confirmation that anyone outside remembered the squad had entered.

Mara looked at the civilians crowding behind Lin. Their faces reflected the rift’s red light. A woman clutched a shopping bag against her chest. An elderly man held a cracked phone to his ear. No signal reached him.

Priority One rules had sounded clean in training.

Inside Cherry Creek Mall, they sounded like a dare.

Mara pulled the squad’s emergency chalk from her belt and marked an arrow on the floor.

“Dax, build a gate at the north entrance.”

“It’s sealed.”

“Then make it less sealed.”

“Here’s the move,” Rook said. “We cut through the parking structure.”

“That puts us closer to the rift.”

“It also puts us near concrete.”

“Good. I enjoy concrete.”

The squad moved.

Lin led civilians through the mall’s dark corridors while Mara and Rook cleared fallen displays. Dax carried the pylons one by one, each weighing nearly as much as a person.

A security shutter slammed down between them.

Lin and half the civilians stood on one side. Mara, Dax, and Rook stood on the other.

“Mara!” Lin shouted.

“I see it.”

The shutter’s metal slats flexed. Something crawled along the ceiling above them, clicking against the beams.

Rook raised his rifle. “That thing has a badge.”

Mara looked up.

A security guard’s uniform hung from the creature’s narrow body. Its face remained hidden beneath a cracked plastic visor. It moved upside down, dragging six jointed legs across the ceiling.

“Don’t shoot,” Dax whispered.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s standing on the sprinkler line.”

The creature tilted its head. A red emergency lamp reflected in its visor.

Mara lowered her rifle. “Dax, can you open the shutter?”

“Not without power.”

“Then find power.”

“I’m carrying the power.”

“Find more.”

Rook stepped backward. “I have a suggestion.”

“Make it fast.”

“We let the badge monster handle security.”

The creature dropped.

Mara fired.

The shot struck its shoulder and spun it across the tiles. It landed beside the shutter, limbs scraping. Rook fired twice more, driving it away from the civilians.

Dax ran for the nearest service panel.

Mara grabbed the shutter’s bottom edge and lifted. The metal rose six inches, then stopped. Lin shoved the stroller through first. The baby screamed louder.

“Excellent,” Lin said. “The exit is now baby-sized.”

Mara strained. Her injured shoulder burned. Rook joined her, boots sliding on broken glass.

Together, they raised the shutter high enough for people to crawl beneath.

The creature recovered.

It came at them on all six limbs, wearing the ruined security uniform like a joke.

Mara shoved the last civilian through. “Move!”

Lin reached back. “You first!”

“Not happening.”

“Mara!”

The creature struck the shutter. Metal shrieked. Mara’s hands slipped.

Dax slammed a battery pack into the service panel.

The mall lights flashed.

The shutter shot upward.

The creature vanished beneath a burst of white electricity. Its uniform collapsed in a smoking heap.

For one second, nobody moved.

Then Rook looked at the heap. “That was probably somebody’s first day.”

“Keep moving,” Mara said.

They reached the parking structure. Concrete pillars stood in rows beneath buzzing fluorescent lights. Outside, Denver remained bright and ordinary. Cars passed the ramp. A delivery driver checked his phone.

Mara ran to the emergency exit and pushed.

The door opened onto another section of the mall.

Not the street.

Not even the parking structure.

A carpeted office corridor stretched beyond it, lined with framed photographs. Every photograph showed Alpha Squad standing in front of the rift.

The first image showed them entering.

The second showed them kneeling beside the pylons.

The third showed Mara alone, holding a folder.

She stepped closer.

The folder’s cover bore a black stamp.

MISSION CLOSED.

Dax came up behind her. “That wasn’t there before.”

Mara touched the glass. The photograph changed.

Now it showed an empty office. A desk. A lamp. A stack of forms.

On top sat Alpha Squad’s entry authorization.

The page was stamped, signed, and dated.

Then the ink began disappearing.

Mara pulled the door shut.

“Back to the atrium,” she said.

Rook stared at her. “That is the opposite direction from safety.”

“Safety isn’t the objective.”

“What is?”

Mara looked toward the red glow bleeding beneath the corridor door.

“Finding out who erased our mission.”

The helmet radio crackled again.

Command’s voice returned, thin and frightened.

“Alpha Squad, respond. We have no record of your deployment.”

Mara pressed the transmit switch.

“You sent us.”

“We did not.”

Behind her, the rift thundered. The civilians cried out. Dax’s pylons began charging at last.

Mara faced the atrium.

“Then somebody else did.”

The radio hissed.

A new voice answered through the static, calm and close.

“Correct.”

The mall doors slammed shut behind them.

End of chapter one. 5 more chapters in the full book.