---
**The Revenant Protocol (Part 1)**
**Two Days Later**
**Location: DUSK-3 Exclusion Zone, Sector 7 Ruins**
The cold hung heavy in the air, thick with the scent of scorched circuitry and ash. Noah stood atop the cracked foundation of what had once been the Deepwest's most classified facility. Beneath his boots, silence pulsed. It had been quiet ever since the prototype Ash had been subdued and sealed in stasis.
Now, something else was rising.
Something colder.
"Telemetry's unstable," Clara said beside him, tablet flickering in her hand. "There's interference across the entire band. Some kind of signal distortion—it's not coming from Ash."
Noah squinted at the skyline. From here, the ruins of the Arc Core Complex framed the east horizon like jagged teeth.
"What is it, then?" he asked.
Clara hesitated.
"I think… it's a recall beacon. A silent one."
He turned to her. "Who would be recalling what?"
She locked eyes with him.
"DUSK wasn't done after you and Ash. They had a fallback."
---
*Underground Transit Rail – Abandoned Line 47-B*
Rye walked alone through the ghostline—a tunnel system long decommissioned, where only the desperate or suicidal dared tread. Light hummed behind her visor as her boots splashed through stagnant water.
The message had been scrambled. A fragment of an old uplink pulse embedded in DUSK's buried archive. Clara hadn't authorized the trace. Rye had taken the risk herself.
She needed to see.
Needed to *know.*
She reached a sealed maintenance hatch at the tunnel's dead end. The panel was rusted shut, its interface dead.
She pulled her knife.
And cut.
Sparks hissed. The metal door slid open an inch with a shriek.
The chamber beyond pulsed red.
And inside it, a figure floated—limbs slack, visor sealed, a black bodysuit covered in sigils that flickered with crimson data.
A new prototype.
But older.
More… feral.
> **PROJECT REVENANT\_00-C: SILAS**
The pod hissed.
Rye took a step back.
Then everything went dark.
---
*Back at DUSK-3*
Noah couldn't shake the feeling. Something about the signal—its cadence, its precision—reminded him of the first time he had *heard himself think.* Not in words, but code. Instinct. Command.
"Why does it feel like it's calling me too?" he asked.
Clara looked up from the console she was patching.
"Because it is. Revenant was built from your strain. A failsafe version. Deadlier. Untraceable. Emotionally sterile."
Noah's gut twisted.
"And now it's awake?"
"Not just awake. It's been listening."
---
*Rye woke to silence.*
The chamber was empty.
The stasis pod was shattered.
And the floor was painted with blood.
She reached for her comms.
Nothing.
Then she turned.
And there he was.
A man—barely human—standing naked under the flickering red lights. Tall. Hollow-eyed. His skin laced with scars that pulsed with flickers of alien code.
Silas.
He tilted his head.
"You found me."
Rye froze.
"What… what are you?"
"I was the end they planned," he said softly. "And now I'm the beginning."
She lifted her gun.
Silas didn't flinch.
"You'll die trying."
---
*At the DUSK-3 perimeter*
Nova returned from a recon sweep, her visor cracked, jacket torn.
She threw a bloodied drone on the table.
"It's him," she said grimly. "Rye's signal is gone. The last ping came from the underlines."
Noah picked up the drone, watching its last frame: a blur of black limbs. Red eyes.
No humanity.
"What the hell is he?" Nova asked.
Clara answered.
"Silas was created in the deepest node of DUSK. No restraints. No limits. He was never meant to leave the lab."
"Why was he made?"
Clara hesitated.
"Because they believed you and Ash would fail."
---
*Hours later…*
The tunnel Rye had found was burning.
Noah and Nova descended fast, guns primed. Clara worked overwatch from the dropship.
The air stank of ozone and heat.
They found her—
Alive.
Barely.
She was bleeding from a wound across her ribs, dragging herself down the corridor.
"Silas…," she gasped. "He's not like us."
Noah knelt beside her. "What do you mean?"
Rye grabbed his wrist.
"He doesn't *think.* He doesn't *pause.* He just *executes.*"
Her hand trembled.
"I emptied two mags. He didn't blink."
They carried her out.
Behind them, the shadows shifted.
---
*DUSK-3 – Emergency Briefing*
Clara displayed the recovered data.
"Silas isn't just a prototype. He's an autonomous weapon system, integrated with something they called the *Final Protocol.* He can override tech, corrupt firewalls, shut down artificial intel."
Nova frowned. "You mean like—me?"
Clara nodded. "Exactly."
Nova stared at the wall, silent.
Noah stood.
"Where is he now?"
Clara highlighted a red zone.
"He's heading for the Zehrion Relay Tower. If he gets there, he'll broadcast. Every buried system, every sleeper, every forgotten experiment will *wake up.*"
Noah looked at them all.
"Then we stop him before he reaches it."
Rye, pale but conscious, grinned weakly.
"Told you this would get fun."
---
*That night*
Noah sat alone outside the bunker, staring at the stars.
He could feel it again—that tremor under the surface. Like code whispering beneath his skin. Like memory that wasn't his.
Ash had been the mirror.
Silas… was the shadow.
And he wasn't sure anymore where *he* ended.
He thought of the old dream—the one that haunted him.
Running in the rain.
A girl's voice calling his name.
Not Rye.
Not Nova.
Not Clara.
Someone else.
Someone he couldn't remember.
"Who are you really?" he whispered.
Behind him, Clara stepped into the light.
"You okay?"
Noah didn't turn. "I think Silas is something I could have become."
Clara sat beside him.
"And you didn't. That means everything."
He looked at her.
"I hope so."
---
*In the dead center of the Zehrion Sector…*
Silas stood on a rooftop, the wind clawing at his back. Below, the city lights trembled.
He raised his arm.
A ripple moved through the grid.
One by one, systems flickered.
Cameras died.
Drones halted mid-flight.
Streetlights blacked out.
And beneath it all, an ancient frequency pulsed from the tower—just beneath the range of human hearing.
Calling.
Summoning.
Waking.
In forgotten basements. In sealed vaults. In underground labs.
Something old opened its eyes.
Silas turned to the skyline.
His lips didn't move.
But the code spoke.
> "Initiating Revenant Protocol.
> Project Echoes: Phase Two Commenced."
---
---
***The Revenant Protocol (Part 2)**
**Location: Skies above Zehrion Sector**
The dropship carved through the clouds like a blade, engines throttling hard against the gusts tearing across the cityscape. Inside, silence reigned.
Noah stood near the ramp, staring down at the glowing grid of the Zehrion Tower. Clara monitored system disruptions from the side panel, each alert like a heartbeat growing faster. Nova checked her weapon—a railcaster modified with an overclocked arc-core.
Even Rye, still injured and pale, strapped in beside them. Her left arm was wrapped, ribs bound under a reinforced suit. She winced with every breath but refused to be left behind.
"We're not ready," Clara said.
"We're never ready," Rye muttered.
Nova turned. "He's already locked onto the relay. If he gets full control of the grid, that signal he's broadcasting—it'll act like a neural map. A chain reaction."
"Every buried prototype," Clara added, "every suppressed AI or forgotten system—awakened, synced, and bound to him."
"An army," Noah finished.
Nova nodded. "A ghost army."
The ship began its descent.
Time was out.
---
**Location: Zehrion Relay Tower – Outer Perimeter**
Silas stood at the base of the tower now, calm amidst chaos.
Drones from DUSK scrambled to attack—four, then ten—each overridden with a single flick of his wrist. They fell like crows, crashing to the concrete as he walked forward, eyes glowing with red static.
He didn't need to run.
Nothing could stop him.
Every step forward was a command. Every breath he exhaled, a ripple in the digital sea.
The tower's mainframe unlocked at his presence.
Recognition.
Even the security AI yielded.
Silas placed his palm against the interface.
> "Revenant Protocol – Level 3 Access Granted."
> "Command Core: Engaged."
Above, the lights dimmed.
Across the city, entire sectors began to black out.
---
**Location: Dropship, En Route**
"We're too late," Clara whispered. "He's breached the core."
Noah pulled on his mask. "Then we hit him fast. No slow insertion. We go in loud."
"I'll handle the main uplink node," Clara said, eyes flicking over the tower's schematics. "If I can sever the quantum relay before he transmits the full codebase, we might cut him off mid-broadcast."
Nova smirked. "I'll take rooftop defense. Just give me a good angle."
"I'll go with Noah," Rye said, wincing again. "He'll need backup."
Noah glanced at her. "You sure?"
"I'm already here."
The hatch began to open.
Below them, the city was flickering like a dying flame.
---
**Inside the Tower – Core Access Level**
Silas stood before the central node—a humming column of light lined with ancient servers, a heart of forgotten data long buried by DUSK's failures. His fingers moved with eerie grace, bypassing each safeguard with thought alone.
He wasn't just hacking the system.
He *was* the system now.
But something flickered.
A pulse.
A glitch.
He turned sharply.
They were here.
Noah and Rye dropped through the access vent, landing with precision behind him.
"Silas!" Noah shouted, gun trained. "Step away from the interface."
Silas didn't move.
He didn't need to.
With a flick of his eyes, the lights flared—and the floor split apart. Defensive drones launched from hidden compartments, wings screeching as they tore into motion.
Noah opened fire, his arm cannon releasing a burst of kinetic rounds that tore into the air. Rye moved beside him, flanking, taking out a drone with a shot clean through the engine core.
"Rye!" Noah called. "Get to the relay!"
She nodded and sprinted for the side stairs as Noah moved in to engage Silas.
The Revenant turned to face him—expression unreadable, eyes glowing with static and rage.
"You were the beta," Silas said, voice like gravel and broken wires. "I was the correction."
Noah fired.
Silas caught the bullet in his hand.
"I don't want to fight you," Noah said.
"Then die quickly."
They collided.
---
**Above – Relay Node Rooftop**
Nova landed hard, rolling into a crouch as a squad of defense mechs powered up across the rooftop.
"Figures."
She dropped low and fired, twin bolts of arc energy punching through two mechs instantly. Sparks showered her as she rolled behind a pillar, reloading.
From above, a beacon light burst into life—Silas's broadcast was nearly complete. If he hit 100%, the signal would fracture the city's firewalls.
Nova grit her teeth and launched a gravity mine across the rooftop. It detonated mid-air, yanking three enemy mechs into a cluster—and into her waiting railcaster shot.
One blast.
Gone.
Clara's voice cut through her comm.
"Ten percent from full sync. Hold the tower!"
Nova reloaded.
"Trying."
---
**Central Node – Below**
Noah slammed into a wall, pain flaring through his ribs. Silas moved like a ghost—faster than Ash, more brutal. Every hit was precision. Every move designed to *kill.*
Noah barely ducked a strike that would've shattered his skull.
"You're fighting the inevitable," Silas hissed. "I am evolution."
"You're a lab rat with delusions."
Silas charged.
Noah met him halfway—and triggered his internal overdrive.
Power surged.
His body moved faster than he could think. Fist met flesh. Sparks exploded from their clash. The floor cratered. The lights died.
Noah kicked Silas back, buying seconds.
"Clara, now!"
---
**Server Hub – Belowground Level**
Clara was running blind.
The servers around her were crumbling under Silas's broadcast. Static choked the circuits. She moved like a ghost through the dying heart of the tower, bypassing manual locks and forced interfaces open with raw code.
"Thirty seconds to broadcast completion," she muttered.
She reached the command relay and slammed her drive into the port.
A scream echoed through her earpiece.
The system fought back.
Not Silas.
The tower itself—rewritten by him.
She screamed as electric feedback lit her hands.
But she didn't stop typing.
She didn't let go.
---
**Back at the Node**
Noah ducked, swung wide, and caught Silas with a shoulder slam that sent him reeling.
"I remember something," Noah said, panting. "From before the labs. A dream."
Silas rose.
"Dreams are irrelevant."
"Yours, maybe."
Then Rye appeared—wounded, limping—but her gun raised.
She fired directly into the relay interface.
Sparks exploded.
The transmission faltered.
Silas shrieked—not in pain, but *static*—a burst of data that echoed like a dying machine.
"Now, Clara!" Noah shouted.
---
**Clara's Interface – Final Sequence**
"Override complete," she whispered.
The screen flashed.
> UPLINK INTERRUPTED
> PROTOCOL REVENANT: INCOMPLETE
Clara collapsed, the system collapsing with her.
Above, the light from the tower stuttered.
And then went dark.
---
**Rooftop**
Nova took down the final mech, smoke curling from her jacket. She turned to the skyline—and saw the signal vanish.
She exhaled.
"Team. Tower's clear."
---
**Below, in the wreckage**
Silas dropped to one knee, bleeding data, sparks hissing from his arms.
Noah stood over him.
"You were never evolution," he said quietly. "You were a mistake built from fear."
Silas looked up—eyes fading.
And for the first time—
There was something like sadness there.
"I… didn't ask… to exist."
Then he slumped, silent.
Dead.
---
**Epilogue – Days Later**
The city lights returned, sector by sector. The blackout lifted.
Noah sat on the edge of the Zehrion Tower's rooftop, watching the sunrise.
Behind him, Clara and Nova patched in new protocols to prevent another awakening.
Rye leaned beside him, arm in a sling.
"We stopped it," she said.
"For now."
"More coming?"
He nodded.
"But we're ready."
She smiled.
And somewhere, deep underground—
Something else woke up.
A new protocol.
A different signal.
And a name:
> "PROJECT GHOST\_ZERO"
---