(Previously on Liam Blackwood: Cornered in the ruins of the city, Liam and his allies fought off Captain Hale's Reaper Unit. The chase tightened, the city burned, and the hunter became the hunted…)
Rain hit the shattered glass rooftops like a thousand whispering bullets. Smoke crawled up from the ruins of Sector 12, mixing with the scent of ash and iron.
Liam Blackwood stood at the edge of a fallen skyscraper, eyes scanning the night through the shattered visor of his helmet. His breath came in slow, controlled intervals, the kind only soldiers trained in silence could manage. But beneath the calm, his pulse was fire.
(SYSTEM: Pursuit probability—89%.
Life signatures detected: multiple. North. Reaper Unit.)
"They're not backing down," Elara muttered, crouched beside him, her hair plastered to her face from the drizzle. "We've been running for hours. We need to disappear."
Liam didn't look at her. "Disappearing only works on people who stop looking."
Ronan tightened the strap on his shoulder rig. "You sound like one of them."
Liam's jaw clenched. "I was one of them."
The words cut the air like a blade. Even the System flickered briefly in his HUD, recognizing the spike in emotion.
[SYSTEM NOTICE: Emotional deviation detected]
They slipped into motion again, ghosts weaving through the carcass of the old city. The streets were flooded with dim red light from shattered neon signs, flickering between CLOSED and DEAD like the city itself was trying to send a warning.
Every step echoed with the memory of who he used to be Project Kairon's masterpiece, a perfect weapon. The thought almost made him laugh. Weapons didn't dream. Weapons didn't hesitate. But tonight, he had hesitated.
And that hesitation was why the Reapers were closing in.
They reached the underground, a once bustling metro station, now a cathedral of decay. Trains lay derailed, their metallic bones stretching into the shadows. The air smelled of oil and mold.
Elara moved first, flashlight slicing through the dark. "We can stay here till dawn. Maybe find a working service tunnel."
Liam crouched beside an overturned vending machine, scanning the area. "They'll follow the heat signatures. We need interference."
Ronan knelt, pulling a handful of dusty cables from a broken console. "I can rig a pulse, fry the sensors for a few minutes."
"Do it," Liam said.
He could feel them, trained footsteps moving in patterns, the Reaper Unit tightening their net. Captain Hale wouldn't stop. Not until Liam's heart did.
As Ronan worked, Elara watched Liam closely. "You've changed," she said quietly.
"Changed?"
"You look at the world like you're seeing it for the first time. The rain, the noise… You're not the machine they said you were."
He didn't answer. Somewhere deep down, part of him wanted to believe that. But the System pulsed cold reminders in the back of his mind that he wasn't human. He was built.
Ronan stood. "Done. Pulse ready."
"Now we move," Liam ordered.
He didn't notice the faint blue light blooming from a corner of the platform until Elara gasped. "Liam...what's that?"
A figure stepped out of the glow. The light rippled, forming the outline of a woman, her face serene, her voice soft.
"Liam…?"
His body froze. That voice, he knew it. Not from this life, but from the fragments that haunted his dreams.
She smiled, eyes shining like fragments of memory. "You don't have to run anymore. You kept your promise… You came back to me."
Ronan aimed his rifle. "Who the hell..."
"Don't shoot," Liam said, voice low, trembling for the first time in years.
The hologram tilted her head. "They told me you died, Liam. But you're here. Come home."
Elara's brow furrowed. "Liam… what is she?"
He didn't know. Or maybe he did, and that's what terrified him. The edges of her image flickered, revealing faint drone outlines behind the projection. A trap. He knew the pattern, psychological lures built to exploit fragments of memory.
The illusion reached toward him, voice dripping with warmth. "You remember me, don't you?"
Liam's grip tightened on his pistol. "End the transmission."
She only smiled. "If you do, they'll kill your friends."
Gunfire erupted before he could move. The Reapers swarmed through the broken tunnels, cloaked in adaptive armor. Blue tracer rounds sliced through the dark.
"Cover!" Liam shouted.
Ronan ducked behind a concrete pillar, firing back. Elara rolled behind an overturned bench, tossing a flash grenade that painted the tunnels white.
Liam moved through the chaos like a storm, precise, lethal, efficient. The System tracked every heartbeat, every bullet.
He grabbed a fallen Reaper's rifle and turned it on the next. The echo of metal meeting flesh filled the air. Sparks flared, armor shattered. Liam's movements were pure instinct, a dance of survival.
But between the chaos, he heard her again.
"Liam… please stop."
The voice sliced through him like static in his veins. He turned and saw her standing amid the crossfire, untouched, calm.
"You don't have to fight anymore."
He hesitated for a single second. One heartbeat too long.
A plasma round hit the pillar beside him, detonating in a burst of heat. Elara screamed as debris showered them.
"Liam! Focus!" she yelled, pulling him back.
Captain Hale's voice came through the comms, smooth and confident. "Still fighting ghosts, Blackwood? You're predictable. Always have been."
Hale stepped from the shadows, armor humming with energy. The crimson visor reflected the flicker of the hologram beside him.
"End of the road," Hale said. "Surrender and I'll make it painless."
Liam raised his rifle. "You built me to obey. You forgot to make me stop thinking."
He fired. Hale ducked, rolled, and fired back. Sparks exploded between them as two engineered killers clashed, one built for obedience, the other reborn for freedom.
Their blows cracked through the tunnel like thunder. Fists met armor, weapons broke, walls crumbled. Elara dragged Ronan toward cover as the two titans tore the station apart.
Then, the hologram moved closer, its voice soft, trembling with false warmth. "Liam, please… for me."
He looked up. And for a moment, the illusion wasn't light, it was her. The woman from his fragmented dreams. Laughing beside him in a white lab. The one who used to say his name like it meant something.
His guard dropped just for a breath. Jale moved fast. The trap sprang.
A shock net burst from a hovering drone and wrapped around him in arcs of blue lightning. Pain ripped through his body. Muscles seized, vision fracturing.
He hit the ground, smoke curling from his armor. Elara screamed his name, but her voice felt miles away.
Hale stood over him, breathing hard, his visor cracked. "You're done, soldier."
Through the blur, the hologram knelt beside Liam, smiling sadly. "You were never supposed to feel, Liam. That's why they feared you."
Her hand brushed his face and then she flickered out of existence.
Hale tapped a control on his gauntlet. A containment field wrapped around Liam, humming like an electric cage.
Liam's vision dimmed. He saw Elara's silhouette rushing in to attack but a reaper hit her hard behind her head, Ronan shouting her name was also surrounded by reapers.
The last thing he heard was Hale's voice.
"Welcome home, Blackwood. Project Kairon just got its weapon back."
The darkness swallowed him whole.