243 Hunted
243 Hunted
In the end, I stepped outside the SRC’s safe space.
The moment I crossed the threshold, my lungs burned like I had inhaled molten glass. I staggered slightly, catching myself before I embarrassed myself in front of everyone. The air felt too heavy and real. Time was moving again, and so was the deterioration inside my body.
Would I need an oxygen tank from now on?
Hopefully not.
“How are you doing?” Tempest asked. Chad, beneath the mask.
The remaining SRC special forces had just withdrawn after receiving orders from headquarters. They left without protest, without coordination, as if each limb operated without knowing what the brain wanted. Watching them disperse made something painfully clear. The SRC’s body was fractured. Even its ground forces were disconnected from upper management. It was a rotting structure pretending to stand tall. The irony was, I needed them and there was just no getting rid of them.
“I’m fine,” I said, though my chest tightened with every breath. “Hey, I have a request.”
I handed the porcelain mask to him.
“Can you do part-time as Eclipse? The Company will pay you generously.”
Chad stared at the mask, then at me. “Are you right in the head?”
“You’ve done it once already,” I replied evenly. “How about a second time? You made a convincing performance.”
“I’m too weak compared to you,” he shot back. “Did you just forget what you did? You phased their weapons out of their hands with a single gesture.”
“I can teach you how to use intangibility.”
He shook his head. “No. We’re built different. That’s your primary. Mine’s speed. Intangibility’s just a secondary function for me, closer to elementalization if anything.”
“But it’s a huge pay,” I insisted. “Like, really huge.”
“And what if I get caught?” he countered. “You want me back in prison?”
“We can’t have that,” I said. “The Company and the GDF will cover you. We’ll make it official on both sides. Say you’re infiltrating us. It becomes a sanctioned op.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “You’re really unhinged, you know that?”
He extended his hand anyway.
I took it.
“I guess we have an agreement,” he muttered.
I felt like I was already dying.
I tapped my specially issued smartwatch. “Guesswork?”
A portal bloomed open behind me, a clean tear in space.
I waved Chad off. “Talk to Nicole about the rest of the details. Work it out with Amelia while you’re at it.”
Then I stepped backward into the portal.
The burning in my lungs vanished instantly.
The relief was intoxicating. Inside the SRC facility, outside the normal flow of time, my condition halted. No progression. No decay. I could breathe again without feeling like my ribs were cracking from within.
Waiting beyond the apparatus were several lab-coated personnel.
“Let’s go,” Guesswork said, falling into step beside me. “Time is of the essence, right?”
I followed him down a corridor into a room filled with layered screens and humming devices. He navigated the clutter effortlessly and handed me a laptop.
He tapped a few keys.
A familiar face flickered onto the screen.
“Hey, is it working?” Nicole asked. A Company employee stood beside her, adjusting something off-screen.
“Yes, ma’am, trust my technopathy!” the employee chirped.
“That’s why I’m worried,” Nicole replied dryly.
“Ma’am, p-please don’t scare me like that.”
Guesswork turned the laptop toward me.
I lifted a hand. “Hey.”
Nicole’s expression softened immediately. She waved back.
Just before I had rushed to Mirch University earlier, we had been discussing the aftermath of the assassination attempt. Everything had spiraled since then.
“Our talk got interrupted,” I said.
I wanted to see her in person. Not through a screen. Not through layers of protection and politics. Just her.
“We’ll have plenty of chances to talk,” she replied gently. “We’ve acquired Dullahan. She wishes to speak with you. What do you think?”
Dullahan.
Of all times.
I leaned back slightly, considering it.
“We’ve got nothing to lose,” I said at last. “Let me see her.”
Nicole made a small gesture off-screen, and the camera rotated.
Dullahan stood in frame.
Headless. Bare metal and synthetic tissue partially exposed where repairs were incomplete. Someone had draped a simple cloth around her torso for decency, though it did little to soften the image. Behind her stood Mira.
Mira looked terrible.
Her eyes were bloodshot, her posture rigid, like she was holding herself together by sheer will.
“Sir,” Mira began, voice tight, “before we start, I have something to report.”
“What is it?” I asked.
Her gaze flickered downward before she forced herself to continue. “It’s recent. I apologize, Ms. Nicole, if you’re only hearing this now. The explosion at Mirch University was highly likely caused by portal technology hidden within the campus. It was connected to Hotel Savoir, where another me was conducting an operation.”
My fingers tightened slightly on the edge of the table.
“There,” she continued, “we confronted an old enemy of yours. Paleman. Formerly of the Ten. My clone triggered a self-destruct on the portal tech from the other side. It was supposed to be contained. It wasn’t. The cascade effect brought Mirch University down.”
I said nothing.
Mira had always been the kindest among us. Too kind, sometimes. I had thought she would flourish in the GDF without the shadows of the Ten clinging to her. The only reason she still stood on my side of the fence was guilt. Indebtedness.
Even as Spoiler, she still saw herself as mine.
“It’s not your fault,” I said finally. “If it’s anyone’s fault, it’s Paleman.”
The fact that he was alive unsettled me more than I let on.
Considering Dullahan stood in front of the camera, perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised. The dead had a habit of returning lately.
Mira swallowed. “I believe Dr. Sequence is also alive. He appeared briefly on the other side. He confronted my other self.”
That made my attention sharpen.
“Speaking of my other self,” she added, voice cracking slightly, “I’ve lost contact with her. I don’t know what happened to the rest of the team.”
Nicole’s voice cut in immediately. “I’ll see to their extraction.”
She stepped away from the camera. For a brief second, she was visible walking out the door before disappearing from frame.
Security seemed lax, leaving Dullahan with only Mira in the room.
Nicole was not that careless.
Was she testing Dullahan? Letting her believe the guard had dropped?
Dullahan spoke then, her voice projecting from hidden speakers embedded in her chassis.
“I will cooperate,” she said. “A good start would be Dr. Sequence. It is not the doctor himself, but a copy. I can say that with certainty.”
“Oh?” I leaned forward slightly. “And how are you certain?”
“As you know,” she replied, “I can communicate with machines. The entity you refer to as Dr. Sequence calls himself Master Sequence.”
Mira flinched faintly. “Y-yeah. He did say something like that.”
Dullahan continued, “Master Sequence has achieved a state where he can traverse the internet itself. He exists as information. He propagates through networks. He no longer requires a singular physical host.”
That sounded uncomfortably familiar.
George.
The structure of it. The principle. The transcendence from matter into data.
“How?” I asked quietly.
Dullahan tilted her headless frame slightly, as if studying me. “I do not yet know the exact mechanism. However, the signature of his transmission patterns resembles distributed cognition. He is not simply uploading himself. He is rewriting himself continuously across nodes.”
A self-evolving digital cape.
Dullahan did not hesitate.
“For some time,” she began, “I was captive under Master Sequence. He used me for my powers. The exact objective was unclear, but whatever new ability he possesses, he created a synergy with mine. He amplified it. Refined it.”
Her metallic fingers flexed faintly at her sides.
“The only reason I escaped was because of your friend, George. He intervened. I believe his motivation was preservation. Master Sequence’s activities posed a risk of data corruption to him.”
George.
Of course it circled back to him.
“Right now,” Dullahan continued, “he is inside me. Dormant. Recuperating. We struck a bargain. In exchange for saving me, I would assist you. Consider it mercenary work.”
“Is that all?” I asked.
She paused briefly.
“Paleman,” she said. “I have tracked his movements for several days. I discovered something interesting. He is connected to the Entity you are hunting. Closely connected.”
My expression hardened.
“What are the chances,” she continued evenly, “that Paleman is the Entity itself? If not, then perhaps a vessel.”
That was a bold claim.
“How much do you know?” I asked.
“Enough,” she replied. “George has been cooperative in that regard.”
I exhaled slowly.
This was escalating faster than I liked. Master Sequence evolving into information. Paleman possibly tied directly to the Entity. George entangled in all of it. I was restrained in more ways than one. Physically deteriorating outside this facility. Politically boxed in. Strategically spread thin.
“Cooperate with Nicole and the Company,” I said at last. “You are dismissed.”
Dullahan inclined her headless frame slightly and exited the room, Mira escorting her.
Moments later, Nicole returned to frame.
I glanced at Guesswork. “What do you think?”
“She’s not lying,” he answered without hesitation.
I turned to Nicole. “You?”
“I had every lie-detection measure active,” she said. “She was honest the entire time. Still, I feel uneasy. These are former members of the Ten, Nick. They’re reappearing after supposedly dying. It’s bizarre. People aren’t blind. When something’s dead, it should be obvious.”
“We don’t know that,” I replied. “Powers don’t follow common sense.”
Nicole studied me. “What’s your plan right now?”
“Raise my ratings,” I answered plainly.
Silence lingered for less than a second before it shattered.
Gunshots.
Energy blasts.
Shouting.
The noise came from Nicole’s side of the connection.
“What’s that?” I demanded.
Guesswork suddenly moved to close the laptop.
I grabbed his wrist, gripping hard. “I will kill you—”
I stopped.
On the screen, chaos unfolded.
Smoke. Movement. A body falling out of frame.
Then the image stabilized.
A normal handgun was pressed against Nicole’s temple.
The shot rang out.
Nicole dropped face-first onto the desk.
Everything inside me went still.
A pale hand shoved her body aside like it weighed nothing.
The figure that sat down in front of the camera… was Mira.
But not the Mira from minutes ago.
Her blue hair was disheveled, rough, as if she had crawled through ruin. Her eyes were bloodshot beyond exhaustion. Sickly pale veins marred her skin. One of her eyes hung loosely in its socket.
“He has a message for you,” she said.
Her voice was wrong. It was hollow.
“He’s coming for you.”
My mind refused to process what I was seeing.
She lifted the gun slowly.
“Pray for salvation,” she continued. “Everything will return to the beginning. The world will heal once more. The messiah has come to save the world.”
Her dangling eye slipped free and fell out of frame.
“Glory to the dark sun that devours worlds.”
Tears streamed down her face.
She placed the barrel into her mouth.
Bang.