Rain fell in thick sheets as the transport touched down in the heart of Zone 7, a ruined urban sprawl swallowed by blackouts and broadcast silence. Skyscrapers stood like rusting skeletons, and vines climbed over the bones of forgotten billboards. Once a tech capital, now a decaying playground for ghosts.
Aiden stepped out with his unit. Four Hunters surrounded him, silent behind their chrome visors. Each one was armed with advanced tracking modules, neural pulse weapons, and AI-dampened armor. But none of them looked alive.
He was the only one whose eyes still asked questions.
Their target: Cipher, a rogue strategist-type survivor who'd escaped Control Division reconditioning a year ago. His dossier called him a manipulator, a virus in the system.
> "Target is embedded deep within the ruins," said Velra's voice through their comms. "Approach with extreme caution. He is capable of redirecting drones, manipulating perception, and hijacking protocol directives."
As they moved through the collapsed metro line, Aiden spotted something—a symbol painted on a cracked wall. A single circle with three slashes.
He froze. That was the old Resistor emblem. The underground group that had once tried to bring down the Reckoning from inside. The group Aiden almost joined… before the Hunters hunted them down.
> "This guy's not just hiding," Aiden muttered. "He's planning something."
Suddenly, the ground beneath them erupted.
> BANG!
Explosives launched debris into the air. One of the Hunters, Unit H-221, was impaled by falling rebar. Sparks flew from her helmet as her vitals flatlined.
> "Ambush," barked the squad leader. "Form defense diamond."
But Aiden didn't move. He stared ahead—through the smoke—where a single figure stood.
> "Been watching you, H-047," the voice echoed from a speaker above. "They made you into a hunter. But I remember when you were just a player. A scared kid who survived the impossible."
> Cipher.
He stepped into the light, face covered in a sleek, reprogrammed visor. His body shimmered with modified exo-armor that pulsed with stolen Reckoning tech. He wasn't hiding anymore—he was baiting them.
> "You don't have to follow their code, Aiden," Cipher said calmly. "You can break the system from within. Or die wearing their leash."
The other Hunters opened fire. Cipher vanished in a flash of digital static.
> He had hacked reality again.
The squad spread out. Aiden stood frozen, mind racing.
Cipher's voice returned in his comms—only to him.
> "There's a safehouse in Sublevel 3. If you want the truth, come alone. But come fast. They've tagged you for behavioral deviation."
The signal cut.
> System message:
"Behavioral irregularities detected. Initiating neuro-compliance calibration."
Aiden's vision pulsed red.
The system wanted control again.
But this time, he wasn't going to let it win.
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