(Kai's Perspective)
The plan was a clockwork of madness, each tick a potential disaster. Finn's voice was a tense, constant stream in Kai's ear via a subdermal receiver.
"Purifier chatter is spiking. They're mobilizing. I'm seeing encrypted traffic from Croft's office direct to Thorne's command channel. It's happening tonight. They know."
Kai checked the power cell on his compact EMP pistol. Around him, in the cramped back of a disguised waste-hauler, the Echo strike team moved with quiet purpose. Marcus, a mountain of calm, checked the seals on his tactical gear. Ren, beside him, methodically loaded specialized rounds into her rifle—armor-piercing mixed with sonic disorientation charges. Six other operatives, faces set, completed final checks. The air smelled of ozone, sweat, and the sharp scent of adrenaline Kai could taste on his own tongue.
"We proceed," Kai said, his voice low. "We have to. 'Clean Slate' is already moving. This data is the only proof, the only weapon we have."
"And you're sure your Purifier pet isn't leading the welcoming committee right to us?" Ren asked, not accusingly, but with pragmatic doubt.
Kai thought of the bond, that faint, humming awareness of Liam out there in the city. It wasn't giving him words or images, but a…tone—a frequency of resolve, underscored by a chilling, controlled fury. Liam wasn't coming to welcome them. He was coming to fight, but the enemy wasn't entirely clear. "He's playing his own game," Kai said finally. "We have to play ours. Finn, status on the archive's central security grid?"
"Ancient," Finn's voice crackled. "It's a standalone relic—pre-Purge encryption. I can crack it, but it'll take ninety seconds from the moment you jack in. Ninety seconds of screaming alarms and every local enforcer knowing your business. You'll have a window."
"A window before the Purifiers arrive," Marcus rumbled.
"Or as they arrive," Ren corrected grimly.
The truck slowed to a stop. They were in a service alley two blocks from the Old Federal Archive Annex—a behemoth of carved stone and narrow windows, a fortress of forgotten law. The team disembarked, shadows among shadows. Kai looked up at the monolithic structure. Somewhere in its heart, in a vault designed to preserve the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, lay the original sin of the New Order: the Purge Protocol.
"Move," he whispered.
(Liam's Perspective)
The Purifier assault transport was a study in silent menace. Liam stood at the head of a twelve-man team, his face hidden behind his helmet's opaque visor. The mission brief glowed on the interior display: secure the archive, prevent data theft, apprehend all Echo operatives. The specific, unspoken objective hung in the air: capture or kill the Wraith.
His own adjustments to the assault plan were live in the system. Subtle. Plausibly deniable. The loading bay approach was riskier, noisier. He'd assigned the overzealous Agent Ryker to hold the rear perimeter with three others, far from the predicted central server room. He'd highlighted the "potential structural weakness" of the drainage culvert. It was a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a back door, a trail only someone looking for it would see.
"Two minutes," the pilot's voice intoned.
Liam's new modulator thrummed steadily. But beneath its regulation, the bond with Kai was a live wire, pulling taut. He could feel the echo of Kai's focus, his tension. They were close. The trap was set. Croft was the spider. Liam was the fly pretending to be a wasp. And Kai… Kai was the other fly he was trying to steer out of the web.
"Deploy!"
The transport's rear ramp hissed open. Night air, cold and sharp, flooded in. Liam led the charge, his team flowing out behind him in a practiced, lethal wedge. They approached the main entrance of the archive. His visor showed no thermal signatures inside the grand foyer. Too quiet.
"Breach team, go," he ordered.
Shaped charges detonated on the massive doors with muffled thumps. The ancient wood and metal exploded inward. The Purifiers surged through, weapons up, scanning the vast, marble-floored hall lined with silent, towering bookcases.
It was a tomb. And tombs were perfect for ambushes.
The first shot didn't come from ahead. It came from the balcony.
A sonic round shattered the silence, not aimed to kill, but to disorient. It hit the marble floor near the lead Purifiers and detonated in a wave of nauseating, earsplitting frequency. Two agents staggered, clutching their helmets.
"Contact! Upper level!" Liam yelled, returning fire toward the muzzle flash. His team scattered for cover behind reading desks and pillars.
The Echo team had taken the high ground. They weren't here to hide; they were here to fight a delaying action. They're buying time for the data download, Liam realized.
A fierce firefight erupted. Kinetic rounds chewed through priceless wood and paper. Stun pulses lit up the shadows in brief, electric blue flashes. Liam saw Marcus, a solid silhouette behind a balcony railing, laying down suppressing fire with terrifying accuracy. Ren moved like a ghost, flanking, her shots taking out Purifier helmet cams and comm relays.
Liam's tactical display showed his team's positions. Ryker and his rear guard were holding position at the perimeter, confused by the engagement happening inside. Good.
"Vance, take your squad up the east staircase and flush them out! Cole, suppress from the south!" Liam barked, directing the battle, playing his part perfectly. But his real focus was on the bond. It was pulling him, not toward the balcony, but toward a side archway leading deeper into the stacks, toward the restricted access wings.
The server room.
He broke from cover, gesturing to two agents to follow him. "They're a diversion! The target is deeper in! With me!"
(Kai's Perspective)
Kai hadn't gone to the balcony. While Marcus and Ren created chaos, he, Finn, and two other tech-savvy Echo operatives had slipped through a maintenance hatch Finn had mapped from the old blueprints. They moved through narrow, dusty passages in the walls, the sounds of battle a distant thunder.
"Next left, then fifty yards. The vault door should be there," Finn guided, his voice strained. "I'm ready on the decryption sequence. The moment you plug in the data-siphon."
They reached a heavy, circular door made of dull, brushed steel, utterly out of place in the old building. It was marked with faded warnings: RESTRICTED – PROTOCOL DELTA – EYES ONLY.
One of the operatives, a woman named Jax, slapped a shaped charge around the door's locking mechanism. "Fire in the hole."
A contained crump, a spray of molten metal, and the door groaned open an inch. They heaved it aside.
The room beyond was cold, climate-controlled, and small. In its center, on a lone pedestal, sat a single, outdated server tower, its status lights dark. The Original Purge Protocol. The Genesis of their suffering.
"Now, Finn!" Kai said, jamming the physical data-siphon—a spike of crystalline circuitry—into the server's main access port.
Instantly, a harsh, rotating red light activated in the ceiling, and a piercing, analog alarm began to wail."UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS. PROTOCOL DELTA LOCKDOWN IMMINENT."
"Ninety seconds start… now!" Finn yelled over the alarm.
Lines of code began streaming on the siphon's tiny screen. Too slow.
(Liam's Perspective)
Liam burst into the server room corridor just as the ancient lockdown alarms began to scream. He saw the blown vault door. His two Purifiers moved to flank it.
"Cover me!" he ordered and went in first.
The scene inside was one of desperate focus. Two Echo operatives he didn't recognize covered the door, their weapons snapping up. Behind them, Kai was hunched over the server, a look of agonized concentration on his face.
"Stop! Hands in the air!" Liam's Purifiers shouted, training their weapons.
Before anyone could fire, Liam made a decision. He shifted his aim—not at Kai, but at the Echo operative on the left. He fired. A stun round took the man in the chest, dropping him.
It was a signal. A bloody, violent, but clear signal. I am not here for you.
Kai's head jerked up. Their eyes met across the room. Understanding flashed. The remaining Echo operative hesitated, confused by Liam's target choice.
"The data!" Kai urged, turning back to the siphon. "We need more time!"
Liam's comm erupted. It wasn't his team channel. It was a direct, overriding broadcast from Croft himself, his voice calm, clear, and utterly venomous.
"Agent Thorne. Your tactical adjustments to the mission parameters have been taken note of. Your failure to secure the perimeter is being logged. And your decision to fire upon a secondary target while the primary remains unengaged is… telling. Lockdown Protocol Delta is now under my direct control. The archive is sealed."
Outside the vault door, heavy metallic clangs echoed as massive security shutters slammed down over every exit in the corridor. They were in a sealed box.
Then, a new sound. Marching boots. Precise, heavy, unhurried.
From the shadows at the end of the now-sealed corridor, figures emerged. They were Purifiers, but different. Their armor was sleeker, darker. Their helmet visors were completely black, devoid of the usual status lights. They moved with a unison that was unnerving, more machine than man. Upgraded models. Croft's personal guard.
And walking between them, in his immaculate dress uniform, was Deputy Director Sebastian Croft.
He stopped just outside the vault door, his silver-blue eyes taking in the scene: Liam with his weapon drawn but not aimed at Kai, the downed Echo operative, the frantic data transfer.
"A fascinating tableau," Croft said, his voice carrying easily over the fading alarm. "The loyal weapon, the sentimental revolutionary, and the truth they both think will set them free." He focused on Liam. "You have failed every test, Agent Thorne. But I am a reasonable man. I am offering a choice. A final one."
His gaze shifted to Kai. "Kaito Archer. Surrender yourself to study. Your unique bond with Subject L-14 is of immense scientific value. You will be treated with the respect a rare specimen deserves."
Then back to Liam, his eyes chilling. "And you, Liam. You and your sister, Lily, will submit to a compassionate, full neural reset. You will be relieved of this… conflict—this pain. You will wake with clean slates, useful lives ahead of you within the Harmony we are building. A peaceful life. This is my offer."
The offer hung in the air, a thing of exquisite, logical cruelty. Sacrifice Kai for a chance to save himself and the sister he'd just rediscovered. Or fight, and condemn them all.
The clock on the data-siphon ticked: 12 seconds remaining.