Chapter 249: Lost Innocence I hefted the AK-47. The system’s weapon mastery file unspooled in my mind instantly, filling me with intimate certainty. The rifle weighed 8.5 pounds. Chambered for 7.62x39mm. Thirty-round magazine. Selector currently flicked to full auto. Effective range four hundred meters. Every screw, every angle, every flaw felt like I’d known them all my life. But there was weight here no download could carry. The weapon felt heavier than numbers suggested. Steel and wood, yes—but also mortality. It wasn’t an accessory, it wasn’t a prop. It was a tool designed to erase human lives, and I had just proven it worked. "Two hostiles incoming," ARIA repeated. "First target emerging from behind the generator building in five seconds." My body moved on its own. Left hand slid to the forward grip. Right found the pistol grip, finger hovering just outside the trigger guard. The stock pressed against my shoulder, settling in like it belonged there. Like I’d been born holding it. The next gunmaner appeared around the generator building exactly as ARIA predicted—older guy, maybe forty, wearing tactical vest and carrying a shotgun. The moment he spotted me; his weapon swung in my direction. I brought the AK-47 to my shoulder, the sights aligning instinctively with his center mass. Time seemed to slow as my enhanced reflexes processed the engagement. His shotgun was still rising. I had a one-second advantage. I squeezed the trigger. The rifle bucked against my shoulder like an angry animal. The muzzle flash lit up the darkness in a brilliant orange bloom, and I felt the recoil travel up my arms into my chest. The sound was devastating—not the clean crack of movies, but a brutal BANG that left my ears ringing despite the Quantum earbuds’ protection. The first round caught him in the chest, punching through his tactical vest like it was made of paper. The impact spun him sideways, his shotgun firing wild into the air as his finger reflexively pulled the trigger. Blood exploded from the exit wound, painting the concrete wall behind him in a dark arterial spray. But he didn’t go down. The vest had absorbed enough energy to keep him standing, and now he was trying to bring the shotgun back on target, his face twisted in pain and rage. I fired again. And again. Three-round burst, exactly like the downloads had taught me. The second round took him in the shoulder, spinning him further. The third caught him in the throat—a wet, devastating impact that opened his neck in a fountain of crimson. He dropped the shotgun and clapped both hands to his throat, trying desperately to stop the arterial spray painting the ground around his feet. He staggered backward, eyes wide with shock and the terrible understanding that he was dying. Blood bubbled from his mouth as he tried to speak, then he collapsed backward onto the concrete. I watched him die, his legs kicking weakly as his blood pressure dropped to nothing. It took almost fifteen seconds—much longer than in movies. Long enough for the horror of what I’d done to settle into my bones like ice water. "Master, third hostile approaching from your right. Automatic rifle, body armor." ARIA’s warning snapped through my skull as I spun, body moving faster than thought. Combat programming carried me, but the part of me that was still human—the part reeling from the two corpses bleeding out behind me—lagged like it was drowning in molasses. The guard was already firing. His muzzle flashes strobed the night, each one a staccato lightning strike. Bullets ricocheted off the concrete, shards of stone biting into my cheek, sparks flashing where rounds kissed metal. I dove left, hitting the ground hard and sliding behind a parked car. The rifle in his hands thundered. Holes punched clean through the car’s frame, shards of glass raining down in a crystalline scream. Two rounds caught me square in the chest—bone-breaking hits that should have ended me—but the jacket drank the energy and spread it wide. My ribs screamed, but they held. "He’s advancing on your position," ARIA reported, clinical as ever. "Forty feet and closing. Behind cover in three seconds." Her countdown was a metronome of survival. I rolled out from behind the car just as his boots pounded into view on the last second. Came up in a crouch, AK-47 braced against my shoulder. Twenty feet. Close enough to see his eyes through the tactical mask—wide, frantic, human. I didn’t aim for center mass this time. I aimed higher. The shot cracked the night like a thunderclap. The round drilled into his skull just above the left eye. The front was neat, almost surgical. The back—wasn’t. His head erupted in a grotesque spray, fragments of skull and pink mist painting the air as his brain matter splattered across the ground in a wet arc. His body went instantly limp, dropping bonelessly, strings cut mid-puppet show. The rifle clattered away, still twitching like it hadn’t realized its owner was gone. I froze. The gore spread across the concrete, black-red under the spotlights. His face—what was left of it—stared blankly at the sky, empty, unknowing. I couldn’t stop staring. Couldn’t stop registering the irreversible truth: I had deleted yet another man from existence. Where thoughts and memories had lived seconds ago, there was only ruin. My stomach revolted. I doubled over, bile burning my throat as I vomited across the concrete. The AK-47 trembled in my hands, slick with sweat, too heavy now—as though it had absorbed the weight of the three lives I’d stolen tonight. "Master," ARIA cut through the sound of retching, her tone perfectly even, "nine hostiles remaining. You need to keep moving." Nine. Her math was simple. But her words dropped like lead in my gut. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, tasting bile, copper, and fear. The Eros physical superiority—the reflexes, the skills, the targeting overlays—they kept me alive, made me efficient. But underneath that scaffolding of precision was still just me. A barely seventeen-year-old kid who’d never aimed higher than a bloody nose in a schoolyard fight against bullies. Now three bodies cooled on the concrete behind me. And more would follow. Gunfire erupted again, flashes stuttering in the distance as shadows moved in to close the noose. I forced my body upright, forcing the barrel of the rifle to rise with me. Because stopping now meant dying. But the truth was inescapable: the system could teach me how to kill. It couldn’t teach me how to live with it. The innocence I’d lost tonight could never be downloaded back.