Ascension Directorate Tower — Hive City Seattle, Level 141
Agent Code: VIREX-9 (Davin Rourke)
Clarity Index: 98.8%
There is no time in the white zone.
Here, inside the Ascension core, where only hybrid operatives are allowed to tread, time is measured in pulses — data packets, chemical signals, priority alerts. Light shifts subtly with each state transition, fading from sterile blue to piercing white as optimization levels rise.
Davin doesn't feel cold or warmth anymore. His skin is synthetic in patches, monitored in the rest. His heartbeat is artificial. His blood, filtered. His bones, reinforced carbon lattice. But most importantly, his mind is curated — or so it should be.
He stands alone in a sanctum of steel, cables trailing from the back of his spine into a data port on the wall. The download completes.
"New directive uploaded. Confirm understanding: Subject Alex Pagne. Sector M-22. Threat Tier: Deviant-Class Two."
Davin's jaw flexes. His voice is metallic but smooth, barely human.
"Confirmed. Priority assigned?"
"Joint operation with KAIRO-7."
That name is a command line trigger. He feels it rattle down his neural stem like ice water.
KAIRO-7.
Lena.
Unwanted Recall Subroutine Activated
Before he can kill the thought, a memory punches through.
A kitchen. Cheap lights. His father at the metal table, hunched and mumbling into a console. The soft glow of red — a referral form. Davin's name on it.
"He's unstable," Gregory Rourke whispered. "You want someone? Take him. You'll be doing him a favor."
Davin had been behind the wall, listening. Not breathing.
That moment — that sound — etched itself so deeply into his mind that even the Ascension purge protocols couldn't strip it away. They tried. He let them. But some betrayals program themselves into the marrow.
He was taken that same week.
Scanned, screened, deemed compatible.
He didn't resist. Not really.
Because part of him agreed.
He didn't deserve to be like them.
He deserved better. And Nexum offered him purpose.
Reinforcement Loop Activated
Back in the present, he watches a holofeed flicker on in front of him.
Lena's face.
Colder now. Subdued. Clean. A perfect operative — or nearly.
Her voice plays on loop:
"Pod Block G4. Pagne is alive. Confirmed visual. No contact. Awaiting escalation protocol."
Davin watches her body language. The flicker in her jaw. The pause after "alive."
"She hesitated."
It's a dangerous word. A word Nexum does not accept.
He leans closer to the feed, scanning frame by frame. He tells himself it's tactical. Necessary.
But deep down, it isn't about protocol. It's personal.
If she hesitated…
If she still feels something for Alex...
"I'll handle it," he says aloud.
"If she fails. If she forgets what we are… I'll remind her."
He stares at the still frame of Lena, eyes downcast.
"You were supposed to become more, Lena. Not drift like him."
Davin disconnects from the port.
The suit seals itself along his spine.
The mask descends over his face.
A red light activates across his visor —
Target: Pagne, Alex
Status: Pending Purification
Secondary Monitoring: KAIRO-7 (Potential Deviation 0.8%)
He steps into the transfer chamber.
This time, he will bring back Alex's head if he has to.
And if Lena stands in the way?
"Then she'll be purified too."
--
Location: Sector M-22 > Abandoned Drainworks > Perimeter Corridor to the Undersprawl
Local Classification: Unauthorized Zone 9 ("Dark Zone")
Temp: 6.7°C | Lighting: Inactive | Surveillance Presence: 0%
Alex hadn't meant to run. Not at first.
He'd told himself he would just leave for a night. Hide. Lay low until Lena's patrol route reset. Maybe she wouldn't report him. Maybe the voice wasn't even hers. Maybe—
No. It was her.
Even distorted by comm-gear and time, Alex knew Lena's voice.
And she said his name.
That was enough to trigger the old instincts.
The ones he'd tried to forget.
He grabbed what little he could: the tablet, some bootleg credits, a thermal vest, and a datajammer wristband. He locked his pod door with the emergency bypass code — not that it would slow them long.
Then he ran.
Now, twenty-one hours later, Alex crouched in the threshold between Hive Order and the void.
Ahead of him stretched the Dark Zone — the collapsed infrastructure of the original city, where pipes from old Seattle ran beneath the Hive like veins in a corpse. There were no Harmonizers here. No drones. No recycling bots or plasma sellers.
"No light," he whispered. "No law. Just the leftovers."
Everyone in the mid-levels had heard stories. No one went down this far unless they were desperate, criminal, or already mad. Some said Nexum sealed this sector off decades ago after something got loose down here.
Others said they just stopped caring.
Alex tapped the wall gently and felt condensation. Mold. Organic matter.
He hadn't touched real stone in years.
"Funny," he muttered. "The farther I fall, the more human everything feels."
He powered on his handheld map — a scavenged relic that barely functioned. The screen glitched.
Old city schematics. Unofficial. Possibly fake.
But it showed paths. Unmarked tunnels. Abandoned lifts. A symbol scrawled at the edge of the deepest section: a withered flame. He didn't know what it meant, but something about it called to him.
He adjusted the tablet in his satchel. It was warm now, even though it shouldn't be.
The Constitution.
The voice on the screen.
"We the People…"
They were just words.
But somehow, they felt like armor.
Alex paused before descending.
Behind him: the Hive. Everything he knew. Everyone who betrayed him. Lena… who might still be something else.
Ahead: rot. Danger. Possibly death.
But also something more.
"Truth. Or at least… something honest."
He took a breath, gripped the rusted ladder, and climbed down into the dark — alone, but alive.