Part 3: Security Breach
The security team was called "Tier Zero" a protocol team reserved for asset recoveries, containment failures, or in rare cases, corpse confirmation for black-class anomalies. They weren't told what Kairo-7 was, just that he needed to be verified dead.
Tier Zero never failed, not because they were good.
Because what they were sent to clean up usually couldn't move.
They dropped in six strongmen armed with cloaked exo suits, silencers, and magnetic pulse carbines. Their visors flicked with red overlays, names didn't matter, just roles. One lead, two flankers, one sniper overwatch, one tech, and one heartbeat monitor.
They entered the cryo floor in silence. The door to the chamber was open, their boots crunched over shattered glass and melted circuitry.
"Confirm ID on the pod," said the lead, voice flattened by comm static. "Minimal force, low sound. Could be power fluctuations."
The tech stepped forward, sweeping a low signal field over the ruined chamber.
"Kairo-7 pod's been opened. Not by code. Exterior rupture, heat damage, system override."
"Biometric trace?"
"Still warm. Extremely warm. Readings are fluctuating."
"You mean corrupted?"
"I mean alive," the tech whispered.
The leader raised a hand and signaled silence, but it was already too late.
Behind them, something moved in the dark.
Not footsteps.
Breathing.
A long, slow inhale, barely audible, just enough to tickle the back of the brain and light up evolutionary panic.
The flanker turned, flashlight sweeping the walls.
Nothing.
Then the lights flickered.
Once. Twice. Then pitch black.
The entire corridor fell silent.
"Eyes up," the lead hissed. "Switch to thermal."
They toggled.
And then they saw him.
Standing at the far end of the hall, still, framed by firelight leaking from a control panel he'd just overloaded. His body was leaking smoke, arms at his sides, chest rising slowly. The blue veins across his neck pulsed like circuitry.
"Shit—" one of them whispered.
But by the time the squad raised their weapons, Kairo was already gone.
"Target's moving—where the hell did he—?"
A scream.
Short. Wet. Too close.
The tech dropped first—his helmet crushed inward like a tin can, spine bent at an unnatural angle, eyes still glowing behind the cracked visor.
"Contact! Contact—"
The flanker turned to fire but caught only his reflection in a burst pipe's mirror panel—before Kairo's arm blurred through it and snapped the rifle in half, then drove the sharpened end of it through the man's throat.
Two down.
The squad fired in panic, lighting up the hallway with muzzle flashes, but they were chasing ghosts. Kairo moved like heat itself—bending light, bleeding from one shadow into another.
The sniper above tried to triangulate and set up overwatch from the ventilation crawl above the corridor.
She took position, locked in, finger over the trigger—
And heard a whisper beside her.
"You're late."
She spun.
Kairo grabbed her rifle, crushed it in one hand, and rammed the fractured barrel into her chest. Her scream never reached her squad, the soundproof crawlspace ate it whole.
The lead and remaining flanker were retreating now, tactical fallback.
They reached the main junction, back to each other, scanning all angles.
The lead hissed into the mic, "Command, we have a breach—Tier Zero compromised—requesting asset countermeasures, now."
But the signal was dead.
The flanker turned and his shadow stretched unnaturally across the floor.
Then Kairo stepped out of it.
No sound. No breath. Just presence.
The flanker didn't even get to scream. A single palm across the mouth, then Kairo's hand shoved into the man's chest cavity and crackled with unstable energy. The body convulsed, and every nerve lit on fire from within.
When the hand was withdrawn, the heart was gone.
The man dropped without a word.
Now, only the squad leader remained.
He backed down the corridor, keeping his carbine up. Sweat beaded under his helmet. He turned a corner, fast.
And froze.
Kairo was already there.
Waiting.
Not attacking.
Just watching.
The leader hesitated, "We tried to shut you down."
"I noticed," Kairo rasped. His voice sounded like two frequencies overlayed, one human, one wrong.
"You're not supposed to exist anymore."
Kairo stepped forward, slow.
"I know."
He reached out and placed one hand on the carbine.
The metal sizzled. The weapon melted around the leader's fingers, fusing into his gloves.
"Where is Mercer Halden?" Kairo asked.
"I don't know," the man gasped, backing into the wall. "They moved him. Everyone involved in Paragon's been relocated."
"Not well enough."
"You won't make it out of here. You're unstable."
Kairo smiled—thin, humorless.
"I'm rewriting the mission."
Then he raised his hand and pressed two fingers to the squad leader's temple.
The scream was short, sharp, and then cut off as the man dropped, smoke rising from his ears.
Silence returned to the corridor.
Kairo stood still for a long moment, surrounded by corpses, weapons, sparks and blood.
It smelled like victory.
But it felt... hollow.
His breath slowed.
The hum of backup power flickered around him.
He turned toward the stairwell leading to the command floor—one step at a time, barefoot, walking through blood.
Let them come.
Let them hide.
He wasn't a failed asset anymore.
He was the consequence.