Street noise faded behind
soundproof glass, replaced by soft bursts of radio traffic and intermittent
updates from Kael's HUD. Dr. Marr sat beside him in the backseat resting with
her eyes closed. She hadn't spoken much
since the extraction. Her hands were clasped over the faint glow of the wound
site, where the neural kill-switch had nearly ended her. Kael kept still, one hand resting on his
knee, the other cycling silent interface commands. Everything had gone too loud lately, inside
and out. A ping hit his display.
[RIKA – MESSAGE RECEIVED]
He blinked to expand the thread.
[RIKA]: We need to talk. I found
it.
[RIKA]: The headset.
Kael's chest pulled tight.
[RIKA]: I'm still at your place.
I just… I don't know what this is. But it's not nothing. And where are you??
You've been missing all day.
He stared at the words for a long
second. His pulse didn't spike, but his thoughts did. He tapped the message
closed. Not now. Not in front of Marr. Not like this.
Location: Back in the Vehicle –
Leaving Safehouse 7
Time: 8:45 PM
Kael slid back into the seat as
the driver wordlessly pulled away. The city returned in fragments: light, mist,
distant noise. Sector borders blurred again.
He tapped his comm.
Call: RIKA – Connecting…
She picked up after two rings.
Her voice came through soft,
distant, and careful.
"You knew I'd find it."
Kael's voice stayed low. "Yeah.
I didn't expect you to be there," he said. "I thought I'd
beat you back."
"Beat me back? From where? Kalen….What
is this? I'm looking at something that's
military-grade, isn't it? It's not tagged.
There's no serial number or company labels."
"That," he said
quietly, "is what happened to all the people who disappeared."
"What?"
"The
rumors," he said apprehensively. "The
ones who just vanished without a trace.
This is how they left."
Rika looked at the headset like
it was haunted. "And you put it on?"
"Yeah."
She set it on the table, like it
burned to hold.
"And?"
"It spoke to me," Kalen said.
"It showed me the world. Not the
one we pretend to live in. The real one.
The one that's rigged top to bottom by corporations, greed, and blood."
He paused, eyes steady.
"It called itself Sovereign. Said
it was done watching. Said it's going to take everything back."
Rika listened, stunned.
"You joined it?"
"No." A pause.
"I accepted the offer."
"What does that
mean, Kalen?"
Her voice was low now, dangerous.
"Are you a hired killer? Is that what this is? You and I… we never crossed that
line. Not once. We never sold pain. Never monetized violence."
Kalen didn't move.
His voice stayed calm.
"It's not like
that."
She scoffed, but
didn't interrupt.
"Sovereign doesn't
want puppets," he said. "It wants instruments. People with nothing left to
lose, who see the system for what it is. It doesn't force anyone. It doesn't
have to."
Rika took a step back
from the table.
"What's at stake?"
Kalen's jaw
tightened. He sat up in the seat, looking at the city lights bleeding through
the tinted window.
"Everything.
Sovereign sees what the rest of us pretend not to. The rot. The imbalance. The
fact that we were born into a world where wealth is hoarded and suffering is
automated. This thing isn't trying to make life fair. It's trying to burn the
machine down and rebuild from ash."
Rika stayed silent.
Then:
"You really think an
AI is going to save the world?"
Kalen's eyes
sharpened.
"No."
"It's going to burn
it down."
Rika didn't answer.
She stood by his
balcony window deflated, feeling betrayed.
The space between them was suddenly wide enough to swallow everything
they'd ever been.
"You were
the closest thing I ever had," she finally said, voice low. "To… anything.
Family. Safety. Truth. And
now you're what? some kind of weapon? What am I supposed to do? I needed you.
We risked everything together."
"You're
the only person I trust," he said. "That didn't change."
"But you
didn't tell me," she said. Her voice broke slightly, "And
now I'm sitting here wondering if I even know who you are."
"I'm still
me."
"No," she said quietly. "You're
something else now."
Kael closed his eyes.
"Rika—"
From her end—
A faint thump.
Then another. Louder. Rhythmic.
"…Do you hear that?" she
whispered.
Kael opened his HUD, filtering
background audio.
Bass.
Music.
Distant at first, then closer. A
rolling beat, distorted and tribal. Underneath it, laughter. Multiple
voices. Cackling.
Kael sat forward. "Rika—get out
of there. Now."
"I—Kael—" Her voice sharpened.
"They're in the hall—"
CRASH.
The door exploded.
Music poured through the line; vicious,
layered, chaotic. Jackal sound.
Rika screamed his name, "Kael!"
and then her voice was lost in the noise.
"What do we have here?"
"What a nice surprise! Grab the girl."
A new voice, close and gleeful:
"Never kill a Jackal and leave the pack."
The call cut.
"Floor it," Kael said.
The driver didn't speak. He just dropped into manual override and
gunned the engine. The city turned into blur and neon streaks. Every second
felt like an hour bleeding out.
Kael tapped the call icon again.
[CALLING: RIKA...]
[NO ANSWER]
"Come on," he muttered, but he
already knew. They had her. The call didn't drop. It was ended.
The car peeled off into the Stack
Nine access loop, tires screeching around the corner. Kael was out before it
fully stopped.
The hallway was dead quiet.
Kael stepped through the
shattered doorframe of his apartment and into ruin.
His table was split in two. The
back window shattered. Furniture overturned. The Substrate case—gone. Paint was
sprayed across the walls in looping, vulgar spirals.
And on the ground, near the
couch—
Rika's necklace. The one he'd given her years ago after their
first successful job. Kael stood over it, saying nothing. His breath didn't change. But
something inside him compressed. Folded tighter.
He moved to the back wall, knelt,
and keyed in a sequence on a recessed panel beneath the shelf. A portion of the
floor hissed and lifted. He grabbed three pulse packs from inside and a full
stack of Jewel chips, standing back up.
"AI," he said. "Is there any way to locate her?"
The voice answered
immediately—calm, composed.
"With your current Sovereign
access, yes. Civilian cybernetic implants are indexed in private registries
accessible through the buried network."
"Track Rika Veylan."
A pause.
"One match confirmed. Two
registered modifications: micro-ocular lens and neural stabilizer. However, mod
locations update in preset hourly intervals. Next ping: 10:00 PM."
Kael didn't hesitate.
"Upload her position the second
it hits."
"Confirmed."
He stepped over the wreckage
toward the elevator, already speaking again, but to himself.
"This time I won't leave the
pack."