Part 2: He Walks In
The Hive was designed for defense.
It had kill corridors, long, narrow death traps lined with auto turrets, EM-disruption fields, electrified flooring.
It had pressure alarms, biometric locks, chemical sweep nodes.
It had a response team in every quadrant, armed to the teeth with smart rifles, spine-linked reflex augmenters, and adrenal mesh implants.
And not one of them mattered.
Because Kairo walked in.
03:08 — Hive Central Gate
The steel blast door stood forty inches thick, reinforced with tungsten lattice.
At exactly 03:08, it unsealed.
No breach.
No override.
No explosion.
It simply slid open—on its own.
And from the dust and black, Kairo stepped through.
Not running.
Not armored.
Just walking barefoot, shirtless beneath his long coat, skin marbled with blue veins and dried blood. His hands hung relaxed. His right hand twitched—subtly, like something inside was adjusting itself.
He looked up.
Straight into the camera embedded in the wall.
And then—
Glared.
Not a smirk.
Not a smile.
No expression.
His eyes alone were enough to express how he felt.
Anger.
The feed went dark.
Control Room, Inner Hive – 03:09
"Where is he?! Where the fuck is he?!" Commander Rezik barked, slamming his fist into the console.
The security wall was black. Every feed offline. Thermal tracking showed nothing. Motion sensors—dead. AI response grid—muted.
The Hive wasn't just under attack.
It was already occupied.
Someone opened a microphone channel to Corridor Alpha.
Nothing but static.
Then—
A sound.
Cracking.
It sounded wood being split.
But it wasn't, it was something else.
Bone.
"Dear God," one technician whispered.
Another screamed.
Rezik drew his sidearm, turned to his command unit.
"All units to kill zones. Seal sublevels three through seven. Evacuate non-combatants."
"What about the engineers?"
Rezik didn't answer.
Because he didn't think they'd last that long.
Corridor Alpha – 03:12
Six soldiers waited in formation, pulse rifles raised, armor locked.
They heard it before they saw it.
A scraping sound.
shk—shk—shk—shk
Kairo dragging something metal down the wall.
The lights flickered.
Then silence.
The team leader keyed her comm.
"Visual on—"
That was as far as she got.
Kairo stepped into view.
He wasn't running.
He wasn't charging.
He was walking straight at them.
The leader fired.
The round hit Kairo in the sternum—and sizzled.
Melted.
The bullet deformed mid-air and slapped against the floor like hot gum.
She fired again.
And again.
All six did.
A storm of kinetic impact.
But Kairo didn't stop.
He raised his left hand.
The fingers split at the knuckles—unfolded like surgical claws.
He pointed.
And the lights above the guards exploded, showering them in fire and glass.
Then he moved.
The First Deaths
Kairo closed the distance in less than three seconds.
The first man tried to pivot—too slow.
Kairo's clawed hand tore through the side of his throat, ripped the trachea out, then jammed it back into the man's mouth, choking him on the hiss of his own air.
The second tried to swing a rifle.
Kairo caught it mid arc, reversed it, and jammed the barrel through the man's eye socket, all the way to the back of the skull.
Then he pulled the trigger.
A wet crack, then a geyser of gore across the wall.
Third soldier backed up, begging, firing into the dark—
But Kairo was already behind him, hand pressed to the back of his head.
The fingers vibrated—a low hum.
And the soldier's skull ruptured, brain liquefying and pouring from nose, ears, and eyes.
The last three tried to run.
Kairo let one go.
Watched him.
Then flicked a shard of melted rifle metal like a throwing knife—it split the man from groin to clavicle.
He collapsed still screaming.
Drone Bay – 03:16
A squad of auto drones dropped into the corridor, weapons armed, target locked.
They fired.
High velocity scatter rounds, concussion grenades.
Smoke blinded the hall.
But when it cleared—
Kairo was in the air.
He had jumped.
Above them.
He landed atop the central drone.
And tore it open with his bare hands.
He reached inside, pulled free the guidance module and shoved it into his chest.
The interface fused, wires crawling into his bloodstream.
And for three seconds, all the drones hesitated.
Then turned their guns on each other.
The hallway turned into a grinder.
Metal on metal. Screams of servos. Gunfire. Shrapnel.
And when it ended, it was just Kairo, standing still, steaming, his chest glowing faintly from the scorched module still embedded in his ribs.
Panic Room Comm Feed – 03:20
The engineers watched the feed in silence.
All four of them. Wide eyed. Mute.
Kairo stood in the center of the kill corridor, surrounded by piles of meat and metal.
Some bodies were folded in half.
Some were just ribs nailed to the wall.
One was still alive, moaning softly, jaw torn off, crawling through a trail of his own intestines.
Kairo didn't kill him.
He just walked past.
Let the man see.
Let him remember.
And the camera caught it all.
The engineers saw the blood.
The darkness in his eyes.
And one of them, a man named Dr. Ashir—wet himself, stood, and screamed.
"WE SHOULDN'T HAVE BUILT HIM!"
He ran for the exit.
Tried to key into the escape shaft.
But the doors were fused shut.
And carved across the panel, fresh and still glowing:
EXFILTRATE THIS.