The heart of PHALANX Command was a cathedral of silence.
High above the endless hum of data cores and encrypted relay nodes, Agent Shadow stood before a panoramic holo-display, arms clasped behind his back.
The command floor below him pulsed with quiet urgency — hundreds of analysts, engineers, and tacticians moving like pieces on a living chessboard.
Every screen, every system, every heartbeat of the city was theirs to command.
And yet tonight, a whisper of imperfection had wormed its way through the flawless machinery.
A red glyph flickered on the upper quadrant of the master console.
A junior surveillance officer hesitated — just long enough to earn a glance from his supervisor.
"Sector Delta-3, sir," the officer said, voice tight. "Localized anomalous readings detected."
Shadow's gaze sharpened behind his visor.
He moved without sound, descending a set of polished black stairs toward the officer's station.
"Define anomalous," he said, voice soft — dangerous.
The officer licked his lips, scrolling the data rapidly.
"Localized electromagnetic disruptions. Low magnitude. Approximately fifty meters below ground. Erratic pulse signatures."
"Environmental decay?" another officer suggested nervously.
Shadow shook his head slowly.
No.
This wasn't decay.
This was structure.
This was intent.
He leaned closer to the holographic stream.
The disruptions were small, almost imperceptible among the noise of the decaying infrastructure.
But they weren't random.
They came in clusters.
They moved.
They lived.
"Pulse-based tech." Shadow murmured, mostly to himself.
Primitive. Crude.
But unmistakable.
He had seen it before — during the early uprisings in other sectors.
Foolish attempts to claw back autonomy.
Desperate men thinking signals could fight steel.
They were wrong then.
They would be wrong again.
"Expand the underground detection grids," Shadow ordered, his voice slicing cleanly through the room.
"Deploy nano-scout units. Divert surveillance drones to secondary sewer networks and abandoned metro lines."
"Authorization?" the supervisor asked, hesitating.
Shadow's visor glinted.
"Shadow Protocol Two. Silent sweep. No public disturbance."
Operators snapped into motion.
Across Kuala Lumpur, silent orders rippled outward.
Tiny, almost invisible drones — no larger than birds — reactivated across forgotten infrastructure, spreading out like a digital web.
Subroutines armed themselves with search-and-purge programs.
The city would hunt its own disease.
Quietly.
Efficiently.
Without mercy.
Shadow ascended back to the main observation deck, his mind already two steps ahead.
These anomalies were weak.
Fledglings, barely able to disrupt a toy network.
But they would grow.
Resistance was a cancer.
It fed on hope, desperation, pride.
And if left unchecked, it could topple empires.
He would not allow that.
Not here.
Not now.
Not ever.
From his private console, he accessed restricted archives.
A black file opened with heavy security seals.
Project CODE: WRAITHHOUND
Prototype Pursuit Entity – Semi-Autonomous Neural Seeker.
A weapon built not from loyalty, but from predatory instinct engineered in silicon and flesh.
Designed to track pulse emissions.
Designed to hunt those foolish enough to spark resistance.
Shadow hesitated only a moment.
Then entered the authorization code.
Deployment status: Pending Activation.
If the rats scurried underground, then he would send a hound bred to feast on the scent of rebellion.
Around the command room, the main holographic city map zoomed in.
Heat signatures. Neural frequencies. Sound variances.
A low, nearly imperceptible hum began to vibrate through the lower sectors of the city.
The trap tightening.
The storm gathering.
Shadow's gloved hand tightened behind his back.
The Resistance thought themselves clever.
Hidden.
Safe.
He smiled — a cold, invisible thing.
The first mistake of all prey was believing they could outrun the predator.
Above Kuala Lumpur, the night deepened.
The neon lights still flickered.
The citizens still slept.
The city still breathed.
But beneath it all, in the bones of forgotten tunnels and crumbling sectors, something darker had been awakened.
The hounds had been released.
And there would be no peace left for the dreamers.
Only silence.
Only submission.
Only the end.