Rain hammered Neo-Aether City like it had a personal grudge.
Jax "Shade" Harlan crouched on the rusted fire escape of Level 87, Lower Spire district. Forty stories below, the street veins pulsed with red and cyan neon—taxis bleeding light, holographic ads screaming for new chrome upgrades, salarymen hurrying under transparent umbrellas that did nothing against the acid drizzle.
He didn't move. Didn't blink.
Focus.
The target was late. Three minutes. Jax's neural implant ticked the seconds in cold blue digits across his left retina: 22:03:47. The job was simple: intercept, extract data shard from the courier's subdermal pocket, vanish before security drones swept the block. Payment wired in untraceable crypto. Enough to buy another month of blackout suppressants.
He hated suppressants. They dulled the edge. Made the shadow inside him quieter, but never silent.
A flicker—movement on the opposite rooftop. Jax's augmented eyes zoomed: black tactical coat, hood up, courier bag slung low. The mark. Alone. Good.
Jax vaulted the gap in one fluid leap. Boots hit wet concrete with a muted slap. The courier spun, hand already inside his jacket.
Too slow.
Jax closed the distance in three strides. A palm strike to the throat—controlled, not lethal—dropped the man gasping. Jax knelt, fingers finding the subdermal slot behind the left ear. One flick of the micro-blade, a wet pop, and the data shard glistened in his palm like a black pearl.
Done.
He stood, rain streaming off his coat. For a heartbeat, the city felt still. Then the implant glitched.
Static. A low, wet hum in his skull.
The world tilted.
Black.
…
When color bled back, Jax was on his knees.
The courier lay face-down in a spreading pool of red-black. Not just throat—throat torn. Claw marks. Deep. Jax's own hands were slick, knuckles split, nails ragged like he'd been digging through meat.
He stared at them. No memory. No transition. Just blackout… and aftermath.
His chest burned.
He tore open his shirt. There, over his heart, a new mark: an obsidian glyph, edges pulsing with faint violet light. Veins of shadow spiderwebbed outward, faint but growing, like ink bleeding under skin.
The glyph matched the one he'd seen in dreams. The one he told himself wasn't real.
A soft laugh echoed from the shadows across the roof—calm, cultured, amused.
Jax's head snapped up.
A figure stepped into the holographic glow: tall, immaculate white coat untouched by rain, porcelain mask gleaming under shifting neon. The mask had no eyes—just smooth voids that drank light. Vesper Kane.
"You're late to your own awakening, Shade," the voice said, smooth as silk over razor wire. "But don't worry. The Eclipse has been patient."
Jax rose slowly, fists clenched. Blood dripped from his fingers—someone else's.
Focus.
The shadow inside him stirred, hungry.
Vesper tilted his head. "Tell me… how long until you stop pretending the monster is someone else?"
Jax lunged.
Blade out. Aim: throat.
Vesper didn't flinch.
The world flickered again—rain, neon, void.
Black.
…
When Jax came to, he was alone on the roof.
The courier's body gone. No blood. No glyph burning on his chest—only phantom heat.
But in his pocket, the data shard remained.
And etched into its surface, tiny and precise: the same obsidian mark.
A message.
An invitation.
Or a warning.
Jax stared at the city skyline, towers clawing at storm clouds.
Focus.
He whispered to the rain, to the shadow, to himself:
"Not yet."
But deep down, something answered.
Soon.