Nex moved and
struck with the speed of a venomous cobra, no hiss for a warning. Efficient and ruthless. He feinted left,
dropped low, grabbed the closest attacker by the neck and pivoted his
entire frame into a takedown that used the man's own momentum to crack bone.
One motion. No wasted movement. Shots
fired—but Nex wasn't there anymore. He
flowed between bursts of gunfire with unnatural rhythm, rolled under the SUV,
and Disarmed one operator mid-reload, using the dropped rifle as a blunt
instrument to disable two others. Every
decision felt pre-scripted, but it wasn't rehearsed. This was something Innate. He flipped a flash round from one of their
belts and bounced it under a vehicle, timing the explosion with their comms'
active ping to scramble internal coordination.
Two at his rear tracked his movement as he ghosted between the SUVs, the
bulk of the metal shielding him as he closed the distance. He snapped a device from his belt he kept for
emergencies──Pulse Scatter──thumbed the trigger, and rolled it low across the
asphalt. It pulsed once, emitting a sharp electric snap and a shuddering static
rumble. The two operatives jerked,
staggered, and tore at their helmets as their earpieces shrieked, optics fried
to static, and scopes glitched. Nex
didn't waste the opening. He flowed
between them, stripped one rifle with a sharp twist, spun the barrel across his
body, and fired two precision shots is a smooth arc—one for each man—before
either could recover. They dropped
almost in unison. The last one ran, but
Nex didn't chase him. He picked up a sidearm,
calibrated angle, and pulled the trigger like he was swatting a fly. Silence.
It was over in thirty-seven seconds.
He stood alone in the clearing, surrounded by bodies. To Nex, it hadn't even been difficult. There was no residual fear or fatigue, only a
mind flooded with absolute clarity.
Three
Hours Later
The sun was
rising as Nex gathered what he needed with calculated efficiency. He picked up various tools, gear, and
untraceable IDs, but left the bodies where they fell. By the time the local law enforcement systems
caught wind of the firefight, he would already be states away. He drove without
music or comms, letting the weight of the silence frame his thoughts and the
expansion of something massive that pressed against the walls of his mind. He
didn't know what CerebrumX had triggered, but he didn't have to. Somewhere between the valley floor and the
isolated desert installation that would serve as his next staging point, he
passed a threshold. In hours, his mind vaulted ahead by decades—while the world
around him stayed the same. His memories reorganized into detailed cinematic
sequences. His perception stretched, logic cascading into layers he'd never
operated on before. He saw systems inside systems, felt thought loops
dissolving. Fear dropped away like a
discarded garment. He couldn't explain
it, but it made perfect sense. When he
stepped out of the vehicle at the edge of the compound, a desert wind swept
through him. He exhaled slowly, a
surface calm settling over him, fully aware that what he felt went beyond mere peace or
control.
Later
That Night – Temporary Staging Facility
The compound was a
forgotten observatory deep in the Mojave, purchased under a pseudonym that no
longer existed. It had no records, signals, or digital footprints. Nex walked through the dust-layered corridor
with his hands behind his back, posture composed but looser now. It was as if thought itself had lubricated
his movements. He laid out schematics
across a long reinforced table. Tactical
maps, neural architecture diagrams, and interface models lay side by side
neatly. This wasn't to plan another job. He was mapping the edge of what came
next. His mind was faster and quieter
now. It didn't scream for answers or
waste time trying to solve the problems it didn't have all the variables
to. It simply observed. His mind felt
like a vast network of highways, once broken and scattered, now seamlessly
connected into a single unified map. He
built a relay array by hand in twenty-three minutes, something it once took a
team of engineers two weeks to prototype. It worked better and cleaner. He made
adjustments as he assembled, as if memory and innovation had collapsed into the
same act. Then he activated it without a
message or contact, sending a single pulse out into the network. A
provocation. Whoever tried to burn him
would respond because they had to.
Except this time, Nex would see them coming long before they ever knew
where to look. He sat down, perfectly
composed, and waited for their reply.
CHAPTER
THREE: SHADOW SIGNAL
Los Angeles – 3:29 AM
Mara woke with a strangled gasp, tangled in
her sheets. Her lungs fought for air and
the room seemed to spin. Cold sweat
clung to her like glue as she looked at the digital clock beside her. 3:29AM.
The icy terror of the dream refused to release its grip. She had been in a corridor—endless, sterile, echoing with a
high-frequency whine she couldn't shut out. The lights flickered with each
step, but never illuminated anything fully.
The walls were covered in writing, smeared across concrete like it had been
clawed into place:
"I SEE HIM. I SEE NO ONE. I SEE HIM. I SEE NO ONE."
Over and over endlessly. Her flashlight died as she rounded the corner,
forcing her attention to the lone overhead light that flickered in the center
of the room. It illuminated an old wooden table. On it sat a crystal clear block of ice with a
black pawn frozen inside. When she
stepped closer the temperature plunged and her breath floated up in white
clouds. Then she saw her own face
reflected in the ice, but her eyes were wide and glassy. Dead. The
lights cut out. She stood frozen in terror as something began
moving behind her, tall and silent. When
she turned──she woke up gasping and trembling.
The feeling remained. It was one
of overwhelming fear. Somehow, against
all logic and understanding she knew she was targeted. Someone, or something, knew who she was. She went to the bathroom and splashed cold
water on her face, staring at her reflection. The dream felt too vivid and personal
to be a creation of her subconscious mind. The pawn had shifted from a symbol
to a personal countdown. This killer
wasn't working outside the system, he was reaching inside it.
Minutes
Later – Bureau Field Office, Downtown LA
Mara
sat on her bed wide awake, contemplating.
Then she quickly dressed in the dim light spilling from the bathroom,
barely remembering to grab her badge on the way out. The city outside was still asleep, but her
mind was electric. She needed answers
about more than this case now. Why was
she feeling like she was being hunted? She
stood quietly in the elevator as it descended into the underground parking of
the Bureau's off-grid division. The
facility was low profile, it's information scrubbed from the public directory
so that it could operate in the shadows.
All of its servers were air-gapped from national intelligence
feeds. Inside, fluorescent lights buzzed
overhead. Screens pulsed quietly. A single analyst──Ramirez──looked
up in surprise as she walked in.
"Agent Cale? You okay?
It's the middle of the night."
"Pull every internal
memo related to psychological anomalies reported in the field over the last
five years. Keyword: chess. Pawn. Ice. Identity disruption. Anything related."
Ramirez blinked. "Identity
disruption?"
"Flag it."
She turned toward the
secure server room. There was something in the system and it wasn't digital. It wasn't even alive, maybe. But it was real,
and if her dream meant anything, it was this: She was already on the board.
One
Hour Later – Bureau Secure Archives
Mara stood in front of
a holographic projection spanning the entire wall. Lines of data crawled across
the surface, cross-referencing obscure reports, field notes, and classified
behavioral assessments. The Bureau's system flagged four new potential matches. One from Alaska. One from Berlin. One from
Johannesburg. One from Nevada. Each
involved a dead suspect with no collected fingerprints and no forensic trail.
Each also involved a black pawn. In the Berlin case, it had been tattooed
inside a victim's lower eyelid. In Nevada, it had been etched into ice in the
middle of the desert, but never melted.
No explanation. Mara leaned forward, scanning the Berlin file. It was
fragmented, corrupted—but a partial report was still intact:
"Subject experienced
accelerated psychological collapse after direct exposure to unknown visual
sequence. Claimed to 'see the shape of death.' Final words repeated phrase: 'I
see him. I see no one.'"
Mara whispered it
under her breath. Then Ramirez appeared at the doorway. "There's one more
file," he said. "Didn't come up in the keyword search. It was manually
encrypted. Wouldn't have been available without your new clearance level. I
don't even think this is something we're supposed to see. Someone didn't want
this linked." He handed her a drive.
"Codename:
Ghost Protocol."
Mara took it slowly as
she thought to herself. Whatever was
buried in there—someone in the Bureau had known this was coming.
Secure
Decryption Room – 5:12 AM
The room was silent,
save for the background noise of the decryption array and the slow draw of
Mara's breath. The drive labeled Ghost Protocol was plugged into an isolated
terminal, air-gapped and firewalled. The encryption peeled away in
layers—manual codes, biometric match, and a final audio passphrase: her own
voice, recorded from a field briefing two years prior. Access granted. A single
document opened.
CLASSIFIED – LEVEL OMEGA
SUBJECT: NULLUS
CLEARANCE VIOLATION WILL RESULT IN TERMINATION
The file unfolded like a dossier written by
someone who had stared into the heart of madness. It documented a previous
series of unsolved murders—eerily precise, ritualistic in pattern, yet defying
every conventional motive. The victims mirrored the current Nullus case:
bloodless, wide-eyed, surrounded by symbols and ice. The killer was never
identified. Leads ran cold. Witnesses vanished or contradicted themselves. The
few agents who worked the case described intense paranoia, emotional
breakdowns, and dreams they couldn't explain. Then, without warning, the
killings stopped. The Bureau assumed the suspect was dead. Or had disappeared.
A quiet decision was made at the highest levels: Bury it. Evidence sealed.
Files redacted. Case closed without conclusion. Ghost Protocol wasn't a plan to
hunt something. It was a plan to forget it ever existed. Nullus does not kill
randomly. Each victim's neurological pattern matches a known trait: latent
perceptual sensitivity. They were selected because they could see him. Or worse—because
they almost could. Mara scrolled through
the file until she came across a page of a drawing. It displayed a large dense spiral interwoven
with binary. At its center there was a
phrase carved in digital ink: He sees the system. Now the system sees back.
The
words on the screen blurred at the edges—terms she wasn't supposed to read,
names she wasn't cleared to see. The deeper she scrolled, the colder the file
got. Ghost Protocol wasn't just a
burial, it was a warning. She blinked
and sat back, head beginning to ache behind her eyes as a soft vibration buzzed
across the desk.
New voicemail—1.Mara frowned. She could've sworn she'd
silenced her phone. Must've slipped through sometime last night. She tapped
play. Her father's voice filled the
room, warm and familiar.
"Hey kid… I didn't
want to bother you. I know you're working, but I can tell when something's not
right. You've been... quieter lately. You disappear behind your eyes when we
talk. I recognize that look—it's the same one your mother used to get when things
got bad."
There was a pause.
Soft ambient noise in the background. A car door maybe. A gull in the distance.
"I don't know what
case you're buried in, but whatever it is, it's wearing you down. I hear it in
your voice. You need to breathe, Mara. Step back for just a second and breathe.
I was thinking maybe you and I could get away for a weekend. Just the two of
us. No pressure. Just a reset."
"…Anyway, call me back
when you get a minute. I miss you."
The voicemail ended
and Mara sat still. The screen in front of her still pulsed with data—redacted
names, sealed logs, and impossible
cases. But for a moment, none of that mattered. She replayed his voice in her
head. Soft. Worn. Knowing. She hadn't even realized how far she'd slipped,
until he reminded her there was still someone waiting at the surface.
The glow of the
Ghost Protocol file cast pale light across her face. Her eyes burned as she blinked, hand resting
near the voicemail alert on her screen.
She'd return Nolan's call later this afternoon when the sun was up and
she didn't feel like something was curling around the edges of her mind. She'd just uncovered something unprecedented,
and it wasn't fitting into any textbook profile for a serial killer.
Pattern not
behavioral. Pattern chronological.
Her hand hovered over
the pause key, and that's when she heard it. A soft tap behind her. She
turned sharply—nothing. Just shelves and
boxes. Everything sat perfectly
still. She shook her head and faced
forward again as a light flickered above.
It was probably just the HVAC system kicking on. Then she heard a barely audible whisper:
"I see him."
She stopped breathing,
dread rising in her chest as she stood slowly, turning around and searching for
anything unusual. There wasn't anything
behind her. Nothing moved as she scanned
the room. She was still there alone.
She sighed shakily and sat back down, glancing at the clock and thinking maybe
she should have waited until morning to dig this up, when the halls were filled
with employees going about their daily business and the sun shone through half
closed blinds.
5:50 AM.
Three minutes passed
and she read the line again. The same one that sent the chill.
Pattern not
behavioral. Pattern chronological.
Then the tap came
again. Same spot, same rhythm. She
turned instantly as the light flickered and the whisper returned.
"I see him."
Mara stood up so fast
her chair scraped. She stared at the far wall, heart racing. Then turned back to her terminal.
5:50 AM.
Again. Her blood ran
cold. She looked at her phone. The voicemail alert had just appeared—for the
first time. Only… it hadn't. She listened to her father's voice, every word
familiar. Too familiar. She remembered hearing it already. She remembered
standing up. She remembered this feeling. This air. But it was happening now in
exactly the same way. Everything. Looped. Mara stepped back from the desk, hand
trembling just slightly. Was her mind playing tricks on her? Was this fatigue,
or something worse? It felt Like time
itself had blinked. Or like someone was watching her remember. She stood there frozen,
mirroring the unnatural stillness pressing against the walls. The cursor on her terminal blinked in
silence, as if mocking her. She forced herself to breathe, slow and even, grounding her
mind the way her father had taught her during stakeouts—"when everything
feels wrong, catalog the facts." The
problem was that nothing had changed in the room—only in her mind.
Enough.
She wasn't going to
find answers like this. Not now. The mix
of night terrors and hallucinations—or whatever that was— wasn't making a very
strong case for pressing forward. She gathered her phone, badge, and jacket. Then
paused for a second, staring at the chair she had been sitting in—as if it
might move without her.
It didn't.
Her mouth tightened.
She shook her head once, clearing the lingering weight of the moment.
"It's just fatigue,"
she said to herself, stepping out into the corridor. The polished floor stretched out ahead of her
as she headed for the exit. The clock
over the door read 6:04AM. She decided
to take a nap in her car, where the morning shift would soon be arriving, and
the industrial lights of the underground garage kept the shadows at bay.