CHAPTER 124 — BLACK-DELTA PROTOCOL
The city did not sleep.
It waited.
Silva felt it as soon as he stepped into the open—an unnatural stillness, like breath held too long. The streets were empty, not abandoned, but cleared. No vendors. No night buses. No stray dogs tearing through trash.
Only cameras.
Only drones.
Only silence that hummed with surveillance.
Lyra walked beside him, her scanner wrapped in cloth to mute its glow. Every few steps, it vibrated—new pings, overlapping signals.
"They're triangulating us in real time," she whispered. "Not chasing. Herding."
Silva nodded. "They want us boxed."
Behind them, the others moved in tense formation—eight enhanced, three civilians. No one spoke. Fear had settled too deep for words.
Then the air changed.
Silva stopped so suddenly Lyra nearly collided with him.
"Down," he said quietly.
Too late.
The streetlights snapped on at once.
White. Blinding. Surgical.
Concrete barriers slammed up from the ground with mechanical roars, sealing both ends of the street. Windows slammed shut. Metal shutters fell like guillotines.
They were trapped.
A low hum rolled through the air—subsonic, vibrating in Silva's chest, crawling into his bones. The Iron Fist flared in response, then flickered.
Lyra swore. "EMP dampener. Military grade."
A voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere.
"BLACK-DELTA PROTOCOL ENGAGED."
The words were flat. Automated. Inhuman.
Figures stepped from the shadows.
Not soldiers.
Weapons wearing human shapes.
Six of them—tall, armored, matte-black exosuits with no insignia. Their helmets were smooth, featureless except for thin red optics that pulsed like heartbeats.
One of them raised a hand.
The hum intensified.
The young enhanced behind Silva screamed as his glowing veins dimmed—then vanished. He collapsed, convulsing.
"They're suppressors," Lyra said, panic bleeding into her voice. "They neutralize abilities."
Silva stepped forward.
"Get behind me."
The lead Black-Delta unit tilted its head, as if curious.
"TARGET CONFIRMED: IRON FIST.
THREAT LEVEL: MAXIMUM.
ENGAGE."
They moved.
Not fast.
Precise.
The first unit fired—not bullets, but compressed force. The blast hit Silva like a freight train. He skidded across the pavement, slamming into a shuttered storefront. Pain exploded through his ribs.
The Iron Fist surged—but sputtered, weakened by the dampening field.
Lyra dragged a civilian out of the line of fire as another unit fired a net of crackling energy. It wrapped around one of the enhanced women, dropping her instantly.
"Non-lethal my ass!" someone shouted.
Silva pushed himself up, blood in his mouth.
He roared—and charged.
The Iron Fist ignited fully this time, burning through the suppression with raw defiance. He struck the nearest unit square in the chest.
Metal screamed.
The unit flew backward—then rolled to its feet like nothing had happened.
Its chestplate reconfigured, absorbing the impact.
"Adaptive armor," Lyra yelled. "They're learning you!"
Silva didn't stop.
He struck again. And again. Each blow weaker than the last, the Iron Fist flickering as the field recalibrated.
The Black-Delta unit responded with surgical brutality—joint strikes, nerve shocks, gravity pulses that pinned Silva to the ground.
A boot pressed into his spine.
"SUBDUE. DO NOT TERMINATE."
Silva gritted his teeth.
Then he felt it.
The Iron Fist listening.
Not resisting the suppression.
Adjusting.
Silva focused—not on force, but on control. On containment. On the space between power and release.
The glow dimmed… then condensed.
He twisted, slamming his elbow backward.
The impact shattered the unit's knee joint.
For the first time, Black-Delta hesitated.
"ANOMALY DETECTED."
Silva rolled free, breath ragged. "You built them to kill me," he growled. "But you don't know me."
Above, a transport hovered into view.
Director Graves watched from inside, hands clasped behind her back.
"Fascinating," she murmured. "He's evolving."
An aide whispered, "Should we authorize lethal force?"
Graves didn't answer immediately.
Down below, chaos erupted.
Lyra disabled one unit's optics with an EMP spike. Another enhanced detonated a street hydrant, flooding the area and shorting out suppressor fields.
But Black-Delta adapted faster.
They always did.
Two units flanked Silva, synchronizing their strikes. One pinned his arm. The other injected something into his neck.
Cold fire spread through his veins.
"Neural inhibitor," Lyra screamed. "Silva—fight it!"
Silva's vision blurred.
The Iron Fist dimmed to embers.
Then—
A gunshot.
One of the civilians—an older man Silva had saved months ago—stood trembling, holding a stolen sidearm. The bullet did nothing to the armor.
But it distracted the unit.
Long enough.
Silva surged upward, channeling everything he had left. The Iron Fist exploded outward—not as a blast, but a shockwave that shattered suppressor nodes embedded in the street.
The hum died.
Abilities surged back.
Black-Delta recalculated too late.
"Fall back!" Lyra shouted.
They ran.
Not victorious.
Alive.
As they disappeared into the underground, the transport above retreated.
Graves stared at the feeds, jaw tight.
"He broke the field," she said quietly. "He's not just powerful."
She turned to Jared's flickering image beside her.
"He's unpredictable."
Jared smiled. "That's what makes him useful."
Below the city, Silva collapsed against a tunnel wall, shaking.
Lyra knelt beside him, hands glowing as she stabilized his vitals.
"They built monsters for you," she whispered.
Silva looked at his trembling fist.
"And I'm still not enough," he said.
Lyra met his eyes. "Not yet."
Above them, Black-Delta regrouped.
The hunt had failed.
But the war had only just begun.