By sunrise, Apocalypse Playground had already gone nuclear online.
Clips of Aria's lightning-fast takedown flooded every feed, replayed in slow motion like a national sport.
Fans cheered. Skeptics frothed. Conspiracy theorists wrote manifestos.
Inside the park, Aria sat on a cracked bench eating from a ration tin labeled "Zombie Chow — Prop Only."
It tasted like cardboard and regret, but she ate it anyway. Calories were calories.
"Do you have to eat that?" one of her teammates whined, still pale from yesterday's encounter.
Aria looked up mid-bite. "Would you rather I eat you?"
He blinked. "You're… joking, right?"
Her expression didn't change. "Probably."
---
Meanwhile, on the livestream chat:
> 💬 "She's literally eating prop food 💀"
💬 "Why is she calm while everyone else is losing it?"
💬 "Her chaos energy is feeding me."
💬 "This isn't acting. That dodge yesterday was military-level precision."
💬 "#AriaLaneIsASpy trending in 3…2…1…"
And right alongside the hype, a counterwave rose —
> 💬 "It's fake. Staged."
💬 "The 'zombie attack' was clearly scripted."
💬 "She's just acting tough for attention."
💬 "Fragile starlet trying too hard."
The hashtags warred like rival armies:
#ApocalypseQueen vs #FragileStarletFailsAgain.
---
At the production trailer, the director was sweating bullets.
"Where's zombie actor #14?" he barked. "The one she 'took down' yesterday?"
A crew member stammered, "We—we can't find him, sir. His GPS tracker's offline."
The director froze. "Offline? He's not supposed to have a tracker."
Silence. Then chaos.
The staff scrambled, shouting orders, rebooting feeds, pretending everything was fine for the audience.
"Do not tell the contestants," the director hissed. "Keep filming. If she finds out—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Because Aria already knew.
---
Back in the park, she wandered toward the old carousel, pretending to scout for supplies while the cameras followed.
Her earpiece buzzed faintly again — the one she'd taken from the fallen "zombie."
The same distorted male voice returned, softer this time.
> "A-01. You need to leave the area. This isn't your mission."
She smirked. "Correction. It just became mine."
Static flared. Then silence.
She slipped the earpiece back into her pocket and looked straight into the nearest drone lens.
"Don't worry, everyone," she said sweetly for the livestream, "I'm not scared of a few fake zombies."
The comment feed exploded again:
> 💬 "Fake?! Girl almost died yesterday!"
💬 "She's taunting the production team omg."
💬 "This woman has no fear. Only snacks."
Her teammate, the influencer boy, fumbled with his camera. "Can you not joke right now? You're freaking me out!"
"I'm not joking," she said, kneeling beside a broken ride track. The dirt was disturbed — heavy boot prints leading toward the maintenance tunnel. Too deep for stage actors, too recent for props.
Someone else had been here.
"Great," she muttered. "Real monsters, fake cameras. My kind of circus."
---
Inside the tunnel, shadows clung like wet cloth. She moved quietly, out of drone range.
A metallic scent hung in the air — oil, rust… and something coppery.
Her hand brushed against a wall — then stopped.
A blood smear. Fresh.
She crouched, examining it. Not much, but enough to confirm one thing: whoever that "actor" was, he hadn't just gone missing. He'd been taken.
A faint hum drew her attention to a panel nearby — a concealed control box, half buried behind debris.
She wiped away the dust and saw the symbol etched on it: a small, familiar emblem.
Her old agency's insignia.
Her heart kicked once, hard.
That wasn't possible.
"Kelly," she murmured instinctively — then remembered she couldn't call her. No signal.
She stepped back, thinking fast.
If her old agency was involved here, that meant this show wasn't entertainment — it was a smokescreen.
A live cover operation.
And she'd just walked right into it on national television.
---
The next cut of the show aired thirty minutes later — a heavily edited version of her "exploration."
The drones had followed her up to the carousel, then conveniently lost visual during the tunnel sequence.
The broadcast audience saw only snippets — her crouched figure, the shadows, a quick smile at the camera before static.
The chat went feral.
> 💬 "She disappeared??"
💬 "Production's hiding something!"
💬 "Is this real or scripted???"
💬 "#FindAria trending now!"
In the control room, the director yelled, "Why the hell did she go off-script again?!"
A technician whispered, "Sir… she never had a script."
---
When Aria reappeared, walking calmly back into drone range, she looked perfectly composed — not a speck of dust out of place.
Her teammates rushed over, panicking.
"Where were you?! We thought you got eaten!"
Aria smiled faintly. "I found the kitchen."
They gawked. "You were gone for forty minutes!"
"Long line at the buffet."
The audience roared with laughter.
> 💬 "She jokes after vanishing for almost an hour 💀"
💬 "No one else could pull this off."
💬 "Protect her at all costs."
But behind that easy smile, her mind raced.
Someone from her old world was here — inside this production. Watching her, maybe testing her.
And if they thought she'd play along quietly just because millions were watching…
They'd forgotten exactly who A-01 used to be.
She licked the last of the ration crumbs from her fingers, eyes glinting under the drone light.
"Smile for the camera," she whispered. "It's about to get interesting."