(Liam's Perspective)
The mission brief glowed in the air before Liam, its cold light etching the planes of his face.
[Priority: Alpha-Immediate | Target Designation: "Wraith" | Resonant Classification: Unknown / Presumed Beta-plus]
[Profile: Hazard. The ability profile suggests a targeted, deep emotional resonance. Last confirmed activity: Sectors 3 & University Ring. Linked to three high-value data breaches.]
[Description: Male. Estimated age 25-35. Exceptional evasion capability. No confirmed visual. Last capture: partial silhouette (attached).]
The attached image was a nightmare of pixels, blown up from some archaic, low-resolution security feed. It showed a man in a dark hooded jacket, head bowed, the hood casting his face into complete shadow. Only the sharp line of a jaw was visible. The background was a blur of shelves laden with old data-crystals.
"Wraith," Liam stated the codename. His voice held no inflection. Beta-plus Resonants were rare. They either hid exceptionally well or were already in permanent containment. 'Targeted deep-emotional resonance'—the phrase made a nerve beneath his modulator twitch, a faint echo of his own blue-wall phantoms. He dismissed the connection instantly. Resonant abilities were myriad and bizarre. It meant nothing.
"Agent Thorne." The holographic image of Deputy Director Sebastian Croft materialized at the other end of the briefing room. He was a man carved from polished marble—older than Liam, blond hair immaculate, eyes like twin sapphires: flawless and depthless. His uniform was without a crease. "The 'Wraith' has exfiltrated data about the foundational protocols of the early Purge studies. While obsolete, in the hands of a resistance element like 'Echo,' it could be weaponized to incite non-compliant emotional states. You will locate and neutralize him before that data transfers."
"Neutralize," Liam repeated, a confirmation, not a question.
"The Directorate assesses his threat level as exceeding viable containment parameters." Croft's hologram took a step closer, an illusion of pressure. "Your efficiency metrics are unmatched, Liam. Do not allow… personal factors to cloud assessment." The blue gaze seemed to linger on the faint outline of Liam's neural modulator.
"There are no personal factors, Deputy Director." Liam met the gaze, his own eyes unwavering. "Objective: locate and neutralize the Resonant codenamed 'Wraith.' Understood."
Croft gave a micrometric nod. His image flickered out.
Liam dismissed the brief and called up a map of the University Ring, overlaying it with the Wraith's last suspected location: the Historical Archives Depository. A place of dust and decaying information. He began planning the assault vector, marking entry points, blind spots, and escape routes. His mind worked with the clean, efficient click of gears meshing.
Yet, in the sealed vault where he kept the anomaly labeled 'memory redundancy,' the image of the blue wall shimmered, for a heartbeat, with troubling clarity.
(Kaito 'Kai' Archer's Perspective)
The air in the New London University Archives Depository smelled of dust, slow decay, and the faint, sweet ozone of aging climate-control units. To most, it was a tomb for facts. To Kaito Archer, it whispered.
Not in words, but in emotions.
The elderly archivist, Professor Glenn, sat hunched in a pool of lamplight, squinting at a physical paper log—a relic of a bygone era. His surface emotions were a placid lake of academic focus, the gentle, slow current of an aging mind. But beneath, running dark and deep, was a powerful, time-smoothed undercurrent: guilt. And beneath that, the sharp, brittle stone of fear.
Kai stood three aisles away, fingers trailing along leather-bound spines, the picture of a dedicated researcher. He wore nondescript grey, his dark hair falling loosely over his forehead. He closed his eyes, not in rest, but in focused listening.
He extended a filament of his awareness, finer than a spider's silk, brushing against the edges of the professor's emotional undertow. He couldn't dive in; that would be an assault, a violation that could shatter the older man's mind. He only needed to catch the fragments that bubbled up with specific memories.
Guilt… fear… associated image-shards: white lab coats, the sterile glow of monitors, children's wide, frightened eyes… a project designation fragment: Genesis-7.
There.
Kai's breath hitched, just once. The Genesis Project. They were getting closer.
At that exact moment, a new emotional signature stabbed into his perceptual field. Cold. Razor-sharp. Hyper-focused, with an undercurrent of utterly merciless intent. It came from outside, moving fast, a drop of ink spreading poison in clear water.
Purifiers. A full team. Highly trained.
The leader's signature… it was intense. A vacuum of feeling, a monument to rational will. But within that absolute zero, Kai perceived a single, almost undetectable flaw—a faint, strained harmonic, a note of dissonance buried under miles of ice. It felt strangely, unsettlingly familiar, but there was no time to examine it.
They were here for him. His little gift at the Third Sector data node had gotten their attention.
Kai opened his eyes, grey irises calm. He carefully replaced a random archive box on the shelf, his finger brushing a specific spot on the metal frame—a tiny, pre-placed scrambler designed to trigger a fire-suppression misfire—a cheap distraction.
Then he turned and became a shadow, slipping toward a grated maintenance shaft at the rear of the chamber. Before dropping into the darkness, he paused. From his pocket, he pulled a small notepad and an old-fashioned ink pen. In the dim emergency light, he scrawled a quick line, folded the paper, and slipped it between the pages of a massive, seldom-touched volume: "Federal Urban Planning: Pre-Stabilization Era."He placed the book squarely on the shelf facing the main entrance.
He vanished into the shaft, the grate whispering shut behind him.
Two seconds later, a piercing alarm shattered the silence, and harmless chemical mist rained from the ceiling. The archives dissolved into a chorus of confused shouts and shuffling feet.
(Liam's Perspective)
The breach was textbook.
The archive's reinforced door dissolved inward with a silent, controlled burn from shaped charges. Liam entered first, visor scanning: panicked researchers, spraying mist, flashing red lights. His team flowed in behind him, securing exits and civilians.
"Heat signature!" a voice crackled in his ear. "Rear stacks, moving fast!"
Liam was already moving, a predator uncoiling. He wove through the maze of shelves. He saw the closing maintenance grate ahead of him.
Too slow.
He raised his sidearm, a compact neural-disruptor. The targeting reticule settled on a fading leg disappearing into the shaft. At this range, a hit was guaranteed. A leg shot would immobilize. The 'neutralize' order could be executed once the target was secured.
His finger began the smooth, practiced compression of the trigger.
Then—it hit him.
Not a sight, sound, or smell. An…atmosphere. A lingering emotional impression, bleeding from the point of the target's disappearance. It hung in the air, subtle yet unmistakable.
It felt like the ghost of warmth from a long-extinguished hearth. Like the accidental touch of sun-warmed wood. Like the safe, drowsy contentment of a forgotten afternoon. It was a sensation that bypassed his senses and brushed directly against the fortified walls of his modulated emotions, seeking a crack.
The light on his modulator flickered from steady green to a rapid, anxious yellow.
[Warning: Ambient emotional particulate concentration elevated. Recommend filtration mode.]
The system voice was a buzz in his ear. Liam clenched his jaw, forcing down the disorienting wave of unwelcome, unbidden feeling. He completed the trigger squeeze.
Phut. The silent round sparked against the metal edge of the shaft. The grate is sealed fully. The target was gone.
"He's down the shaft!" a teammate called.
"Pursuit!" Liam's command was tighter than usual. He reached the shaft, yanked the grate open. Only darkness and cold, rising air greeted him. The target had a grav-descender. He was already far below, pathways unknown.
The primary objective had failed. A cold, efficient anger—a permitted response to mission deficiency—flared, but was quickly doused by a colder, more professional unease. That sensation… what kind of Resonant left such a concrete emotional afterimage? It wasn't in any training module.
"Full sweep! I want every data cache, every hiding spot checked!" he ordered, his voice re-finding its flat, controlled timbre.
The team spread out. Liam remained by the shaft, the sterile alarm lights painting his face in washes of red. That strange, disquieting 'aura' was fading, but its echo seemed to cling to his uniform, to the air in his lungs.
His gaze swept the nearby shelves, passing over spines of forgotten records. It snagged.
A volume on the shelf was slightly askew, as if it had been recently handled. A sliver of white paper peeked from its pages.
He approached, pulled the book—Federal Urban Planning—and extracted the note. It was a simple piece of memo paper. The ink, from an old fountain pen, was not quite dry. The handwriting was fluid, almost elegant, and it read:
"Agent Thorne, your blue wall needs watering."
Liam's fingers froze around the paper. The winter in his eyes didn't melt; it crystallized, turning sharp and deadly.
Blue wall.
The words were a key, turning in a lock he didn't know he possessed, opening a door to a place that was supposed to be empty.
The alarms blared. The mist fell. But it all receded into a distant, unimportant hum.
There was only the paper in his hand, the drying ink, and the silent, seismic shift within him. The hunt was no longer a matter of duty. The Wraith hadn't just evaded him.
He had looked directly into the one hidden room in Liam Thorne's mind and left a calling card.
The game had fundamentally changed.