Staring at the Girl on his bed his mind wanders back, way back…
Long before he was a ghost, before the war, before the burn on his face, Wren was just a boy.
Nameless. Voiceless. Forgotten.
He didn't know how he ended up on the streets—just that no one ever came looking. He was clever, quiet, and invisible. Lived in the cracks of London, where no one asked questions and nobody cared.
He learned early that the world only noticed when you made noise.
So he learned to survive without making any.
When he was ten, he lived in the back corridors of King's Cross station—riding rails, dodging inspectors, stealing food, and sleeping under benches. But when the cold came, he moved deeper—into the tunnels.
That's where the accident happened.
He was clipped by a slow-moving train near the Russell Square connector, tumbling off the service walkway into the gravel with a fractured rib and a split scalp. He might've died there, like so many others.
But someone found him.
An old Pakistani station master named Faisal, who'd once been a doctor before his papers were lost in the Home Office system. Quiet and kind-eyed, Faisal didn't report the boy. He saved him.
Bandaged him. Fed him. Showed him a secret.
A disused changing room off an old staff platform—abandoned since the 1960s. It still had water and power, hidden from every eye.
"You live here," Faisal signed. "But quiet. Always quiet."
Wren nodded. He understood.
It became home.
They were an odd pair, a boy who didn't speak and a man who couldn't work where he should.
Faisal taught Wren to sign—using old Pakistani army field signals and a kind of street-honed Urdu. Wren picked it up quickly, translating it into British Sign Language and eventually inventing his own shorthand.
He scavenged parts from broken machines. Built his first computer from old transit consoles and heat-warped PCBs.
By twelve, he could crack a closed circuit TV network.
Then came July 7th, 2005.
Wren was in the changing room when the tunnel toward Russell Square exploded.
Everything went red.
Then black.
The collapse buried him under pipes, brick, and twisted steel. The blast ruptured both his eardrums. Shrapnel tore through his throat. He couldn't scream.
He was trapped in the dark for three days.
No one came. Abandoned for the second time in his life.
Except by Faisal. He had to wait for the investigators to leave then the engineers.
The old man dug through the wreckage by hand, bloody and sobbing, until he pulled Wren free hugging him like a long lost son. Treated him in another sealed section of tunnel—a place no one would ever find.
Wren couldn't hear anymore after that.
Couldn't speak even a grunt anymore.
But he lived.
The boy became something else after that.
Silent. Focused. Relentless.
His mind turned to firewalls and rootkits, to bypass codes and deep-net blackouts. He became one with the system that ran beneath the skin of the city. He became like a ghost through the wires of the power houses of London.
By sixteen, he was selling data.
By seventeen, he was untouchable online—Wren72, a ghost with no past and too much access.
Then, at eighteen, Faisal stopped coming.
A cleaner told him—quietly, respectfully—that the old man had died of a heart attack on the job. No family. No ceremony. Just a note on the staff notice board, and then nothing.
Wren left the tunnels that night.
He joined the British military the next day.
They didn't care about his past. They cared about his skills.
He became an asset in cyber-warfare. A phantom behind enemy lines. His sign language became silent team command. His lack of speech became a strength. His burn—earned in the tube bombing—only made him more invisible in the room.
Then came the mission in Syria.
Covert. Classified. Doomed.
The team was caught behind enemy lines. No extraction. No backup. No acknowledgment.
Betrayed. By Regiment. By Country. They said he and his team had gone rogue, were mercenaries.
They were taken alive. Some tortured. Some broken. Paraded on Television for the World to see.
Wren waited.
Watched.
He learned every inch of that prison. Counted guards. Measured lock response times. Timed the generator's overheating cycle. Watched. Waited.
Then he escaped.
And he burned it on the way out.
He never went back to the military.
Never trusted a flag again.
He returned to London.
Built his bunker apartment above the city, hidden in plain sight.
Buried himself in machines.
Until, one night, he looked out his window…
And saw a girl falling from the sky.
Pain brought her back first.
Not sharp—but deep, like fire burning behind her ribs, fading into something cold.
Then came sensation.
Soft fabric. Warmth. A bed.
Not hers.
Her body refused to move, but her instincts screamed danger. She'd been shot—she remembered that—leaping across the rooftops, the sound echoing in the rain.
Then nothing.
And now—
She blinked.
Light. Not bright but dim like the glow of a TV in a dark room.
A ceiling—grey, cracked concrete with exposed steel runners. A steady hum of electronics somewhere nearby.
She tried to sit up. Her muscles argued. Her chest ached. But the wound… the wound—
She looked down.
The bandages were clean, snug. She'd been stripped, dressed in someone else's oversized shirt—smelled like old soap and cold air.
The necklace… still there.
Glowing faintly.
System still active, she thought.
She pressed her palm to her chest and breathed.
Alive. Somehow.
Movement across the room caught her attention.
Her eyes snapped toward it—and landed on him.
A figure in shadow, seated beside a humming wall of monitors. Slender but strong. Hoodie sleeves rolled up to expose scarred forearms. Long fingers dancing across a silent keyboard.
The side of his face was visible—clean lines, dark stubble, focused eyes under heavy brows.
But the other side… hidden beneath long dark hair, half-curtaining a burn that curled down from temple to jaw.
He didn't look up.
He didn't need to.
She sat up fully, hissing through her teeth as her ribs protested.
"Where…?"
Her voice cracked.
His hand froze over the keyboard.
Slowly, he turned his chair to face her.
Tall. Lean. A scar like a flame. And eyes that held a quiet kind of grief—one she recognized. The kind that never stopped aching.
"Did you—" she began.
He raised a hand—two fingers extended, then a gesture across his throat.
Mute.
He signed something.
Slowly. Clearly.
You're safe. You fell. I brought you here. You were shot.
She blinked. Her brain translated without effort—thanks to training and time. The motions were clean. Precise. Taught.
She narrowed her eyes. "Why?"
He hesitated as it was the question he was asking himself.
Then signed:
Didn't want you to die.
A pause.
Then again, slower:
You shouldn't have died.
She studied him.
The silence wasn't awkward. It was deliberate. Measured. It made her listen in ways she wasn't used to.
"What's your name?" she asked.
He reached for a small touchpad beside him, tapped out four letters:
WREN
Cara leaned back against the headboard, suddenly too tired to sit up straight.
"Cara," she said softly. "Or Nonya, if I don't like you."
His expression didn't change. But something in his eyes flickered, amusement?
She glanced down at her bandages again.
"You bathed me?"
He nodded once.
"Dressed me?"
Another nod.
"You see anything worth dying for?"
This time, his lips twitched. "I kept my eyes shut"
A smile. Tiny. Crooked. Honest.
She looked away, hiding her own.
Then—
System Alert: Time Sync Complete. Physical Recovery 78%. Emotional Trigger Detected. Bloodline Sync +1%.
She flinched as the glowing text blinked behind her eyes.
She closed them, breathing out slow.
When she opened them again, Wren was watching her.
And without speaking, she signed:
Thank you.
His reply was immediate:
Don't thank me yet. Someone wanted you dead. You weren't alone on that roof.
She nodded slowly.
"Then I find out who," she said aloud.
"And I make them regret it."
Triggers and Threads
The next morning, Cara stood in front of the mirror in Wren's small bathroom, the hem of the oversized shirt brushing her thighs. She turns the collar to her nose and gives it a sniff, a small smile playing across her lips.
She lifted it, slowly, eyeing the bandage. No pain. Barely even sore.
She peeled it away.
What met her eyes shouldn't have been possible. A pale scar marked the place the bullet had entered, but it was already healed. Smooth. Pink. New.
The system had restored more than her life.
It had rewritten her.
[SYSTEM SYNC: 12%]
Status: Vital Signs Stable. Neurological Sync Confirmed.
Available: 1 Stat Point. Inventory: Hereditary Sword (Stored).
Passive Buff: Enhanced Healing (Tier 1) – Active.
Legacy Notification: Urban Zone now mapped. Missions available.
She pulled her shirt back down, breathing out through her nose. The air felt different. The world did.
Sharper. Faster. Like her body was in tune with something she couldn't explain.
She clenched her fist—and felt the sword stir in her arm like a memory waiting to be drawn.
Not yet, she told herself. Later.
Meanwhile, Wren was already deep in the digital underworld.
Three monitors glowed cold light into the room, reflecting off his face as he typed in near silence. His left hand flicked between windows, right hand navigating a patchwork keyboard built from old military scraps and rare earth switches.
Facial recognition. CCTV scrape. Ballistics analysis. Heat maps. Social media cross-index.
He traced her rooftop location back two hours. Spotted her figure jumping. Tracked the shadows that followed. Found a reflection in a window. A man. Dark coat. Cap low. Holding something just before she fell.
Wren slowed the footage. Cleaned it. Enlarged. A rifle. Suppressed. Compact. Not street-level tech.
Military issue.
He narrowed his eyes, leaning in closer.
Whoever shot her had a spotter. A plan. A timetable.
And it wasn't random.
Cara came out of the bathroom fully dressed—tight black jeans, hoodie zipped halfway, eyes sharper than the night before.
"I need a test," she said simply. "make sure I am okay, fit"
Wren raised an eyebrow.
"System gave me tools. If I don't know what they do, I'll never survive the next time someone aims at my head."
He stared at her a moment longer, not understanding her, then nodded, trusting her. Typed something into the keyboard.
A map appeared—an abandoned multi-storey car park in Deptford, gutted and silent since the last gang war.
He pointed.
She smirked.
"Perfect."
They ran across the roofs to get there. She looked back seeing Wren keeping pace. The car park stank of petrol, mould, and pigeon shit. Perfect place to be forgotten. She stepped into the middle of the open concrete level and closed her eyes.
Her fingers curled slightly. The mark on her forearm burned. She thought the blade into her hand. It formed instantly. No delay. Not like before.
She swung it once, fast. The air split with a low hum—clean and sweet.
Then—
A hiss behind her.
She spun. No one there.
But the system pinged:
[Trial Encounter: Synthetic Hostile – Threat Level Low]
Objective: Disarm, Disable, Survive.
A humanoid shape emerged from the shadows. Created by the system. Metallic skin. Blank face. Moving like a puppet on invisible wires.
Her instincts screamed, cut the wires. She didn't hesitate.
Blade up, forward lunge, pivot, slash. Steel met false flesh. Sparks flew.
She used the memory of Reeve's training, paired with the system's rhythm—strikes perfectly timed, balance flawless, no wasted effort.
Ten seconds later, it was in pieces. They dissolved, as if never there.
Breathing hard, she looked at her arm.
The blade melted back into her skin.
[XP +15 | New Skill Path Unlocked: Blade Memory I]
Option to Assign Stat Point Now Available.
New Mission Unlocked: Hunt the Marksman.
She smiled. That made things easier.
Back at the apartment, Wren had narrowed the suspect list to three men—each with military backgrounds, no online presence, and false death certificates.
One photo caught his eye. The same dark coat. Same rifle. But twenty years younger. And standing beside someone he recognized.
Cara.
As a child.
He stared at the image, expression unreadable.
Then stood.
When Cara returned, she found him standing with the monitor turned toward her.
Her breath caught.
"That's me."
He nodded once.
She pointed to the man beside the shooter.
"That's him."
Wren signed, slowly:
Who?
She stared. Voice flat. "The bastard who adopted me."
The monitor glowed faintly in the darkened room.
Cara stared at it—frozen. Unblinking. Breath shallow.
Wren didn't move. He gave her space, watching her from the side, the edges of his features lit by a sea of silent code.
She raised a hand slowly, touched the screen.
The image showed two men—both dressed in dark coats, military posture, cold eyes. The one on the left held a suppressed rifle. The one on the right…
"That's him," she said, her voice hollow.
The man who'd called himself her father.
The one who beat her, starved her, tried to—
Her fingers curled into a fist remembering a fireplace poker. How it felt.
But something else stirred behind her eyes.
The system pulsed faintly in her blood.
A ripple. Like the surface of a pond disturbed by a pebble tossed from far away.
Then—
[Legacy Alert: Suppressed Memory Fragment Detected]
Trigger: Visual Identifier Matched – Subject: "Adoptive Father"
Do you wish to access memory? Y/N
She didn't hesitate.
Yes.
The room melted.
The cold light of Wren's hideout faded into grey mist and shifting shadows.
She was standing in a hallway again. Carpeted. Narrow. Cheap wallpaper peeling at the corners.
Her own feet—smaller, barefoot—padded along the floor.
She was little. Six? Seven?
But it was her.
Her body knew this place. Her stomach tightened at the possible memory.
There was shouting from downstairs. A door slammed. Her name—Tracey—spoken with venom.
She flinched at the sound.
Then another door opened ahead of her, and the man stepped out.
Big.
Broad shoulders.
The same man from the photo. Dark coat. Square jaw. The eyes of a predator dressed in the skin of a father.
But this wasn't the same day as the attempted assault. This was before.
She watched herself, the child, freeze.
He crouched. Put on a smile.
"You hungry, sweetheart?"
Her younger self nodded slowly. He reached out and touched her cheek.
And whispered, "You remember the rules, don't you?"
She nodded again.
He smiled wider. "Good girl. Now go back to your room and pretend we don't exist."
She turned away.
And that's when she saw it—the photo.
Taped on the inside of a kitchen cupboard. Two men in uniform. No background. A military shot.
Same as the one Wren found. Same two men.
Except…
In the bottom right corner, half torn, barely visible was a woman's hand. Pale. Delicate. Holding a toddler.
She blinked. Focused.
It was her.
Same necklace.
Same wide, confused eyes.
This photo wasn't just surveillance. It was proof. She wasn't just taken.
She was stolen.
[Memory Fragment Recovered: 1/5 – "The Photograph"]
Reward: +1 WIS, Legacy Log Updated
New Objective Unlocked: Locate Original Copy of Photo
Cara gasped and staggered back into the present—sweat on her forehead, breath shaking.
Wren caught her before she fell.
She grabbed his wrist. Hard.
"He knew," she said, voice ragged. "He knew who I was. He wasn't just a sadistic bastard—he was planted."
Wren read her lips, he signed:
Planted by who?
She shook her head. "I don't know. But I'm done remembering pieces."
She looked at him, eyes burning.
"I want everything back."