The rain fell like static, streaking the holographic glow of Neo-Eden's skyline into bleeding colors of violet and cyan. Far above the smog-choked streets, on the edge of a monolith of glass and steel, a figure crouched, still, precise, and silent.
Ina's optical HUD glowed faintly behind her silver irises, scanning the vertical cityscape. Her systems hummed in perfect synchronization:
HEART RATE: 42 BPM
STEALTH MODE: ACTIVE
OBJECTIVE: ELIMINATE—VIKTOR RAZE, Echelon traitor.
Her synthetic lungs processed the wet air, tasting metal and ozone. To anyone watching, she was a ghost in the storm. A black silhouette with eyes of shifting light, a blade wrapped in living flesh.
She blinked once, and the world fractured into layers of data. Drones patrolled below. Security nodes pulsed across rooftops. Every shadow was cataloged, every motion mapped.
The voice in her head spoke with mechanical calm:
"Unit-07. Confirm mission readiness."
Ina's lips parted, but her voice carried no warmth — only precision.
"Ready. Commencing infiltration."
The rain hissed as she leapt from the ledge, body slicing through air with perfect silence. Her magnetic soles caught the glass of the skyscraper; microfilaments extended from her fingers, anchoring her descent. Every movement was measured, every sound absorbed.
Down below, the sprawl of Neo-Eden pulsed — an endless maze of light and sorrow. Traffic streams wove through vertical highways, and somewhere far beneath, humans trudged through puddles glowing with reflected ads promising salvation in synthetic upgrades.
Ina's focus narrowed. Viktor Raze was inside the tower, penthouse floor. Former Echelon weapons engineer. He'd stolen proprietary schematics two nights ago and gone dark. The corporation demanded his silence. Permanently.
She reached the 96th floor. Thermal scans showed two guards patrolling the balcony. Flesh and bone, no cybernetic implants. Predictable.
She exhaled, not from necessity, but from habit and activated her cloaking field. Her form shimmered, dissolved into rain. When the first guard turned, confused by the sudden ripple in the air, it was already too late. Ina appeared behind him like a ghost manifesting, one precise strike to the base of his skull, a silent collapse. The second spun with a shout, rifle raised.
Ina was faster. A flash, her forearm splitting open to reveal a retractable mono-edged blade and the guard's weapon clattered in two, along with his breath. Blood mixed with rain as his body slumped against the glass.
Threats: Neutralized.
Detection: None.
She stepped over them without pause and approached the access panel. A filament from her fingertip connected with the console, flooding it with light. Firewalls crumbled under her intrusion protocols. The door slid open, whispering.
Inside, the penthouse was a temple of luxury black marble, panoramic view of the city, holographic art dancing across the walls. Viktor Raze stood by the window, back turned, a glass of amber liquid in hand.
He didn't look surprised.
"I was wondering when Echelon would send you," he said softly.
Ina froze. Unlogged event: Target awareness before contact.
"Unit-07, right?" Viktor turned, his eyes weary but calm. "The perfect assassin. I designed your neural dampeners myself. You shouldn't even hesitate."
She stepped forward, blade still extended. She parted her petite artificial lips and a melodic voice that shouldn't belong to a machine sounded out.
"You are classified as a threat to Echelon. Termination authorized."
Viktor sighed. He had expected this event ever since he planned his escape from echelon. He had served them for years to understand how they worked. If you are not with them, then you are against them.
"Do you even know what they've done to you?"
A flicker crossed her vision, static. Lines of code. A woman's voice whispering through distortion: "Please, don't take her…"
'What was that?' Ina blinked hard. The glitch vanished. Her defense system went into overdrive trying to find out what happened.
SYSTEM WARNING:
MEMORY ANOMALY DETECTED.
PURGING…
PURGE FAILED.
She ignored the voice in her head and raised her blade, voice steady. "You have five seconds to comply."
Viktor didn't move. Since he dared to rebel against echelon that meant that he had a hidden card to play. One that not even the perfect assassin could resist.
"You're not just a machine, Ina."
The name hit like a pulse bomb. Ina.
Her hand trembled — a microscopic twitch, but enough. Her systems flagged it:
ERROR: MOTOR DEVIATION.
"No one calls me that," she said emotionlessly. If it wasn't for protocols she would have cut him down where he stood. Unfortunately, echelon would rather not terminate him if he was still willing to serve.
Viktor also knew this that was why he was so fearless. The only reason he was still alive was because of the value he had, nothing more.
"They did once," Viktor said gently. "Before Echelon erased you."
More static. Fragments now:
A woman laughing. A child's hand. A field of sunlight, not neon.
Then gone. Replaced by the sterile cold of the penthouse.
"Stop." Her voice was sharper now. "You are delaying termination."
Viktor raised his hands slowly. "Listen to me. You were Inanna Rhee. Human. They killed you. Rebuilt you. Turned you into this."
Her systems roared to suppress the data surge. ILLOGICAL INPUT. FALSE MEMORY. PURGE SEQUENCE INITIATED.
She staggered a step, gripping her head as white static flooded her vision.
She was the perfect assassin. There has never been anyone like her and there never will be. She has lost count of the amount of people she had slain. But to believe that a few words would be enough to mess up her system.
Was it a word virus? It wouldn't be strange if he had infiltrated her system with a word command virus. But with how advanced her system was she would have discovered it long ago. So how?
Viktor took the chance. "If you want the truth, go to the Undernet. Find a hacker named Cass. Tell her 'Seraph Protocol.' She'll show you."
The order came through her neural uplink — cold, final:
"Unit-07. Execute the target. Now."
Ina raised the blade. The target's throat was in reach. Her programming screamed compliance.
But something else whispered beneath the code — something older. Warmer. A heartbeat that wasn't synthetic.
Viktor saw it in her eyes… the hesitation. "You can fight them," he said. "You always could."
The command repeated. Louder.
EXECUTE. EXECUTE. EXECUTE.
Her body moved… but the blade struck the wall beside his head, embedding in glass.
Viktor gasped. Ina turned away, shaking.
"Run," she said, her voice faltering slightly, sounding like a different person. "Before I change my mind."
He didn't wait. By the time she pulled the blade free, the room was empty.
Her HUD flared red. MISSION FAILURE.
CORPORATE RESPONSE: TERMINATION PROTOCOL ACTIVATED.
She sprinted to the balcony. Above, drones broke formation, converging. Sirens wailed through the storm. Her cloak flickered, sputtering.
She leapt into the night.
Wind screamed around her as she dropped through the rain-soaked air. Her system mapped the descent, calculated trajectory, impact angle. At thirty stories above ground, she fired her grapnel filament, catching a passing cargo drone. The momentum tore at her shoulders but held.
Behind her, the tower erupted in searchlights. Echelon had unleashed pursuit units — chrome enforcers, airborn hunters.
She landed on a lower roof, crouched among vents steaming with heat. Alarms echoed across the sector.
"Unit-07," the voice returned, no longer calm. "You have disobeyed a direct order. Return for reconditioning."
Ina shut down the comm. For the first time in her operational life, silence filled her mind.
She looked out across the city, endless spires, glowing billboards, rivers of neon. It all felt… alien. Like waking from a dream into another one.
Her hands trembled. Not from damage. From something else.
Fear.
The word registered slowly, foreign yet familiar.
FEAR DETECTED
SOURCE UNKNOWN
Lightning split the clouds. In the brief flash, she saw her reflection in the mirrored glass — pale, silver-haired, eyes flickering with code. But behind the digital layers, she thought she saw someone else. Softer. Sadder.
Her HUD blinked, new data fragment recovered:
A voice whispering:
"Ina… run."
She stood. For the first time, there was no mission.
No command. Only a choice.
She vanished into the storm.
The city swallowed her, and somewhere in the labyrinth of steel and shadows, Echelon Corp began rewriting its orders.
Unit-07 was now marked rogue.
And the hunt had begun.