Ryan Reese sat on his old Honda CB500 and gently tugged the collar of his well-worn leather jacket upwards. The weather was getting colder, cold enough that eventually he'd have a heck of a time riding and not picking up frostbite or wiping out on a patch of ice along the way. Still, he was thankful for the chance to still be using his preferred method of transportation this late into the season. It was especially useful for beating traffic...at least it usually was. Unfortunately for this particular trip, he didn’t have a choice but to sit and wait like everyone else.

  Got started a bit too late, didn't beat everyone getting off of work, he thought. But all this frustration might just be worth it if the info I gathered on that warehouse pays off.

  He'd spent the better half of the afternoon doing an impromptu stakeout of an abandoned warehouse where the workers were most definitely not official. They’d not been loading and unloading goods intended for normal sale, instead working at odd hours under the cover of night as vehicles without identifying marks came and went. He suspected that the men were running a smuggling operation, likely weapons and advanced technologies picked up in the aftermath of the Carson Ridge Incident.

  That meant highly advanced tech. Dangerous, exotic, and worth a fortune to the right buyer, the technology was considered so experimental that it had not even been handed out to traditional military forces. In the hands of gang members and street criminals, it could be disastrous. If they managed to get it outside the country and to any number of terrorist organizations, the security of the entire world would be at stake.

  Ryan knew firsthand the danger this mysterious technology posed. His team the Patriot Force Wardens died because of it, and he was all too aware that he may soon join them too.

  Despite his desire to see the warehouse put out of business, he didn't have enough information yet to risk making a move yet. He had to play it smart and safely if he was going to be able to put a stop to it without dying or ending up captured. Besides, as much as he wanted to focus on the warehouse and other operations like it, the existence of the criminals didn't negate his day job. Not that what he was doing now was legitimately part of his paid work.

  Sure, he made runs often unofficially for various folks who couldn't afford a traditional courier, and he had his mechanic side business, but the errand he was on currently was simply him trying to help a neighbor in need.

  Rosa, the nice elderly lady who lived upstairs from him, needed a little extra help now and then. She didn't get out much, didn't understand modern technology well at all, and with the weather being colder and no desire to be out in it lest she "catch a chill" she was running low on the basics. Ryan volunteered to do a grocery run for her, after all it was the least he could do. She had taken pity on him in the aftermath of the disaster that killed his team and had let him live in the small garage converted to an apartment in her house.

  A guy in a sedan behind him shouted, "Oh c'mon! The light is green!"

  Ryan glanced back and nodded, motioning with his hands to indicate that the holdup was some delivery truck a few vehicles ahead. Not an unusual sight in Carson Rock by any means, but something about it drew his attention. Craning his neck to get a better look, he saw that it was moving oddly. The rear of the vehicle shook violently, metal swaying and bulging in places, the motion threatening to overturn the whole thing.

  The driver and the passenger got out and approached the rear of the truck and Ryan squinted through his helmet's visor as he watched them.

  Is there an exterminator convention in town? He wondered, watching the pair in their odd white suits with protective masks that looked like a cross between a beekeeper and a hazmat suit.

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  “Call it in. Chimera Unit-01 is attempting containment breach!” one of the men shouted.

  Before Ryan could fully take in what was happening, the trailer exploded outward, metal splintering. The guys in white stood brandishing what looked like nightsticks; each was sparking with blue-white electrical energy. Their weapons or prods or whatever they were doing them no good.

  A creature, tall, torso and arms disproportionately large and crackling with violet energy, whipped a massive tentacle at them, sending the men flying and flipping vehicles with people still inside. Cracking sounds like the ice of a frozen lake thawing echoed for a moment as a single red eye-like structure that set dead center in its face flashed angrily before a thin beam of light lanced out, slicing a nearby car's front end completely off.

  Bystanders screamed as those stuck in traffic abandoned their vehicles and ran. Somewhere in the distance an infant cried while teenagers from a nearby cafe stepped out, phones in hand to film. Some instinctively looked around as if expecting the authorities to come zipping around a corner to come to their rescue.

  Ryan almost didn’t blame them. Considering the obviously unnatural power the creature wielded he half hoped some government containment team would show up to save the day, maybe some of the same lapdogs that had made his life miserable in recent months.

  "Come on, do your grand entrance Colonel Hauke or maybe just send in a couple of those fancy drones you like so much. Hell, I'd take a random SWAT team at this point..."

  That was when the creature shrieked loud enough to shatter a windshield. It started to charge up the weird eye laser thing once more, this time looking to where a young mother huddled behind a newspaper dispenser, her screaming child in her arms.

  "Dammit all..." he muttered.

  Getting off his bike and hanging his helmet on the throttle, he started to run.

  Rushing forward he tackled the woman, moving her away at the last second as the beam turned the metal box in molten slag, a burning copy of a newspaper drifting down as Ryan regained his feet.

  "Run! Pick a direction that's not anywhere near this thing and get out of here!" he ordered the woman.

  Turning away to face the creature, he took a deep breath. A twist of his wrist shoved the sleeve of his jacket upwards revealing a silver and black device. He reached down, pressed the red star-like formation in the center of it, and braced himself.

  Man do I ever hate this part, he thought.

  "PATRIOT FORCE DRIVER!" he shouted as loudly as he could.

  Bringing his arm up across his chest he continued "ENGAGE!"

  As he raised his arm to the sky, red lightning crackled around him. Veins on his neck pulsed with the same energy. The air shimmered from the sudden temperature shift as metallic plates snapped in place around his body, now wrapped in a red-white glow.

  "RED-ONLINE!"

  As soon as the command phrase finished a still glowing helmet snapped in place around him, the visor cracked, a tattered black cape unfurling over his right shoulder. Energy vented outwards in an explosion of colors that shattered glass and blew a streetlight all the while an upbeat rock theme blasted from the wrist device's deceptively powerful speakers. Ryan would have cringed over the cheesy lyrics about standing together if he hadn’t felt like every atom of his being was on fire.

  One more useless focus group tested feature that does nothing but make me look like an idiot, he thought.

  The entire process took only a fraction of a second, but for Ryan it seemed as if time stretched.

  Maybe it was only the embarrassment that came with it every time he transformed or maybe there really was some temporal nonsense that occurred.

  He had no clue, but the spectacle sure didn't distract from the pain, especially from the surge of energy he felt threaten the integrity of bones and organs alike.

  Blinking through stars, the wrist device flared red and the indicator across his visor flashed REDLINE in scarlet font so bright it hurt his eyes.

  Great, even the freaking warning sign is trying to blind me, he thought.

  The drivers of the truck, the guys in white, looked on from where they attempted to stand, one shaking their head within the hazmat style helmet. "Unbelievable. What is this crap, some kind of Guardian Drone Prototype? Doesn’t matter, stay on target. We have to reacquire the Chimera Unit!”

  Ryan however ignored them and stared down the creature, pointing an index finger at it.

  "Don't know who or what the hell you are, but all I wanted was to deliver some groceries, instead you got me out here having to deliver a beatdown in the middle of evening traffic!"

  Hand creaking as he readied himself, he sighed.

  Guess now we find out if this Driver still has some kick left in it or if this is going to end up one of the gaudiest deaths ever recorded.