A whip-like crack sounded through the mountains and the valley. The cold air churned with the sound, then returned to a constant eroding wind. The sounds of flowing air resonated like a flute among the forest. The trees rocked backwards and forwards with the tune of the time. The sky was monotonous grey. Plump clouds lazily drifted across the sky. Trees stood out bare and sharp. On and around a few of the largest trees, red x’s were spray painted. Some of the x’s were on the highest branches that were scarred and torn, or behind burnt rock. The trees shivered and shifted again as a snow storm arrived. A sheet of snow on the ground smothered any grass or wildflowers under the ice.  The cold of winter sank its teeth deeper into the boughs of the forest.
    The birds and other animals that lurked in were still scrambling from the sudden sound. Deer craned their necks and snorted, pawing at the snow. White rabbits sprang up from their burrows and leaped in a hundred different directions. Ravens and crows emitted sharp screeches as they flapped drunkenly into the air. Ice fell from the trees and landed with thumps and mumbles of protest as the smell of life reeled in the frozen landscape.
    The last deer trotted away, and the forest was quiet again. For a minute, nothing moved. Then two men appeared out of a clearing. A road appeared at the very edge of the woods, the same direction the men walked. It was still covered in several feet of snow. The lowest branches of the trees almost scrapped the top of the sheet of snow on the road. Behind the road was a white-covered valley that stretched to the horizon. Black rocks jutted out of the snow going down the steep slope, and a small collection of buildings could be seen at the center of the valley near a frozen lake several kilometers away.
    “I’m not seeing anything,” the first man said to the second man. The first man wore a Russian fur snow hat and a brown leather coat. He also had on a thick scarf wrapped around the bottom of his face, with the edges of his beard poking out the top of the scarf. Sharp green eyes gazed out into the forest. The eyes narrowed and shifted, latching on to movement and sounds.  “The target is lost again, Joe.”
    “Unfortunate,” Joe, the second man, stopped at the edge of the road and peered out into the valley. The second man was the same height and build, with an identical brown hat and tan leather coat. Another black scarf wrapped around  his head, with another unkempt short beard poking out of the top of the scarf. Another set of piercing green eyes combed the forest, stopping on animal tracks or fallen pieces of snow. “He’s not at basecamp yet, Joe.”
    The first man stood motionless by the second.   
They both nodded in unison, their heads moving like a saw through a branch. The first man responded. “I have alerted the commander.”
    The two shapes abruptly turned in the same direction simultaneously and strutted to a shack. The shack was beaten and weathered like the rocks that surrounded it. It dropped and slumped with the weight of the snow on top on the roof.
    The two men grabbed a snow mobile crammed inside of the shack and sped off on the road.
    A third man appeared.
    He gasped and huffed, sprinting and stumbling through the thick snow. His movements threw up clumps of wet snow, disturbing the forest from its respite. His head jerked to the left and to the right. His eyes rolled in their sockets. The man’s hands grasped a small messenger bag. The hands were torn and bloody. Dirt and sap from the pine trees caked the palms and wrists. A black earpiece clung to his ear, and a small blue light winked weakly out into the chilled air. The birds cautiously watched him as he passed.
    He ran to a rock and knelt next to it. For a minute he stopped and thought. He needed to calm himself, but these guards would be waiting for him. They were stronger and faster than him. There might be another way, and maybe if he tried he could succeed on a different path. Should he really keep going? Should he try and break the cycle? Should he-
    His earpiece shrieked, then transmitted its message. “Status report.”
    “This is agent 805, Tom reporting,” The man said, interrupting the transmission.  He held the bag while glancing toward the guards driving down the hill. “I’ve got the key to the hangar.”
    Tom breathed heavily as he waited for a response. He was so tired, but the objective was close, so close. Completing this mission was all that mattered now.
    “Confirmed,” Tom’s earpiece replied. “Move to objective using the Snowmobiles in the shack. The keys should be in the ignition.”
    “Command? I don’t think that will work-”
    “Move to objective using the Snowmobiles in the shack. The keys should be in the ignition.”
    Tom shook his head and made his way to the vehicles. The small shack beckoned, with another snowmobile behind another red x painted on the shattered door. Tom hesitated then he saw the red x, but threw off his fear and went to the snowmobile.  The keys were in the ignition. A few minutes later and Tom was racing down a snow trail to the foot of the mountain, the throttle opened to full. The sun was getting very low in the sky, and the first stars were poking out of holes in the clouds like spears of light. Tom ignored the stars. He had memorized them. He arrived at the outskirts of a base camp near a river. The few ugly concrete buildings were connected with evenly spaced roads in a repeating geometric pattern. The main building was a huge white hangar with wide metal doors. There was no one in sight.
    Tom’s snowmobile puttered to a stop near a cluster of boulders. Breathing in, Tom focused on the hangar. Inside would be his objective, his freedom.
    Tom reached out towards the ignition, then hesitated. He took out his pack and fumbled around with it, and pulled out a piece of rope. He took the elastic rope and made a knot around the throttle of the snowmobile. Tom checked once over his shoulder, picking out a nice flat part of the land and tugged on the knot. The snowmobile roared to life, splattering Tom with icy debris as it sped off into the plains. The metal treads chipped off chunks of ice and dirt, making cracking bangs.
All at once the basecamp jumped to life. Large circular spotlights flared to life with clangs and electric buzzes. They combed the plain, eventually settling on the snowmobile desperately speeding across the ice. At the same time every door and window opened, revealing identical men in identical snow caps and leather coats. They peered out into the wilderness and the rest of the base. Scores of them gazed evenly out from opened windows and metal doors. Vehicles, hidden behind barracks and the hanger, growled menacingly and took off after the stricken snowmobile.
Tom smiled briefly. All of his training was not for nothing. His spymaster would be proud. This time he would not fail. He paused only to glance downwards. Beneath Tom’s feet, a red x could faintly be seen on the concrete right before a metal fence that wound its way around the base camp. Tom’s smile disappeared. A deep thrumming sound resonated from the base. The ground shook, and pebbles and chunks of ice bounced up and down. The air smelled of ozone. A tower in the basecamp rose up from a hidden sheath within the concrete, and lightning crackled around it. The blueish hue of the electricity and the continuous thunderclaps of the weapon made Tom go  agape. The guards were calm and orderly, and they stiffly organized into groups that spread out.
Tom glanced around as the sound reached higher and higher levels. He reached into his pack and pulled out a cutting laser. Kneeling, Tom ran his arms up and down and sliced a man-sized hole in the fence. By ten seconds after the weapon’s appearance, Tom had already wiggled through the fence and was halfway to the hangar door. A guard spotted Tom, and shouted. He reached down into his pocket for the radio, and screamed as loud as he could.
The guard screeched metallicity, turning Tom’s blood cold. “Subject 805 has reached objective.”
Several other guards tapped at their earpieces and nodded in unison. Then they turned their head in Tom’s direction. Their eyebrows lowered, and their eyes’ narrowed as they found Tom almost to the hangar doors. Their bodies turned to be in line with Tom’s trajectory.
    “Oh no.” Tom muttered.
    The men all reached up and clutched their wool face protectors. With a small tug, the piece of fabric fell off, revealing a metal jaw and teeth. Their eyes flashed once with targeting LEDs, and then they ran. The concrete chipped with their footfalls, thuds resounding like an approaching thunderstorm. Their heads bobbed with their running but did not leave Tom’s form. All traces of their false humanity were gone. The steel riptide was almost upon our hero when the electric weapon fired on the snowmobile.
    The air shattered. The rock Tom hid behind disintegrated into a thousand burning particles of dusty rock and sand. The air shuddered and lurched, a shockwave and boom lifting up hero and mechanized villain alike. The snowmobile simply vanished, destroyed by a bolt of energy and fizzling ions. Tom was shoved to the metal entrance of the hanger by the rough wind. Regaining his senses, he reached into his bag one more time. In his hand lay a small flash drive. Plugging the drive into the door, the hangar opened. Tom could not hear the screeching metal grind against tarmac, and barely feel the vibrations of the monolithic slab open because his ears rang like an alarm. The guards were already giving chase.
    The hero slipped through the opening crack of the door as it slid to the left and right like a blooming metal flower. Inside the almost completely empty hangar law was a single pedestal holding a button. Around the pedestal were hundreds of red x’s. Some were in clumps, a few x’s were lining the walls and ceiling, but Tom ignored the red markings. Close behind him the guards pounded their feet in sync.
    Tom concentrated wholly on the pedestal in the center of the hangar. Failure meant a fate worse than death. Victory was only an escape now. He needed to prove everyone wrong: these mock guards, the spymaster, and himself.
The pedestal was only a few feet away. Tom could make out the plain white design of the plastic pedestal, and the button was large and red, so easy to press. Tom shouted and jumped toward the end of his long, long mission. Just as our hero leapt into the air, a guard did the same. Tom reached out his hand as far as it would go as he started to fall down to the button. The pedestal was inches away. Tom could now read the letters on the button: End Operation. Then the guard reached Tom first.
    The robot’s fist hit Tom in the back of the head, and Tom fell in a heap on the ground without making a sound. The dirty smell of copper filled the hangar as blood spilled out of the lone hero’s head, oozing over the clean concrete. The man-shapes stood in a circle around Tom.. They were motionless and frowning. All but one of the machines helped carry the body out of the hangar.
    “Attempt fail.” Tom’s earpiece said with a squawk as the hero disappeared. “801 deceased.”
    The last guard nodded. He pulled out a can of spray paint, and carefully painted a red x where Tom’s form had last lain. Then a whip-like crack sounded throughout the valley.