By morning, the blood was gone, but the mission still clung to my skin.
I woke at 04:30. No alarm. My body obeyed the discipline long before my mind did. Coffee. Stretch. Loadout check. Knife. Backup blade. Silencer. Burner phone. And silence—always silence.
I didn't wait for Cipher's message. I was already dressed when it came.
> Location: Blackbay Dockyard, Sector 9
> Target: Rafiq Jabara — Cyber-terrorist
> Condition: Capture or kill. Preferably kill.
Rafiq wasn't like the others. He was known in the black channels as Wiregod—a hacker-for-hire with zero moral code. Sold nuclear codes once just to test a system. The Syndicate wanted him erased.
My instructions were simple: No survivors. No traces. No mistakes.
I arrived at the dockyard by 06:00. The sea was still, thick fog blanketing the water like a corpse sheet. My boots barely made a sound on the rusted metal walkways.
Inside the shipping container unit where Rafiq was hiding, the smell of burnt electronics and stress filled the air. He was younger than expected. Twitchy. Thin. Arrogant.
He didn't even see me enter.
"You're early," he said, without turning. "Or late. Time gets weird when you're on the run."
I stepped into view, gun raised.
He froze. "Ah. So they finally found me."
I tilted my head. "You thought they wouldn't?"
He sighed, chuckled bitterly. "I always figured I'd die in front of a screen."
"You are."
One shot. Clean. Right between the eyes.
No theatrics. No delay.
But as i turned to leave, something was off. The air buzzed. My instincts screamed.
I ducked—
A bullet shattered the container wall.
Sniper!!
Someone was watching me
I rolled behind cover, calm but alert. Whoever it was, they weren't Syndicate. This was freelance. Unauthorized.
I pulled my blade and made a fast exit, vanishing into the fog like i was never there.
Back at base, i reviewed my steps. Rechecked my entry. No traces left behind.
But someone had eyes on me. Someone who wasn't supposed to.
And somewhere behind a dozen blacked-out monitors watched me escape—and whispered my name.
"Vuyolwethu... You're not like the others."
_____
The sea at Blackbay smelled like rust and rot.
I crouched on the edge of a shipping crane, my breath steady, my heartbeat even. Below me, rows of container units stretched like a graveyard of secrets. Fog rolled in off the ocean, drowning everything in pale gray. I liked it. Fog made everything quieter.
My target, Rafiq Jabara, was somewhere beneath me—buried in rusted steel and old debts. The Syndicate had tagged him for elimination after he threatened to sell off private military encryption keys. They didn't negotiate with ghosts. They sent me
I adjusted the scope of my silenced pistol and scanned the container yard again. My comms were offline. Level 6 missions were solo. No backup. No trace. No excuses.
A drone buzzed past overhead. I stayed low, watching its path. Civilian tech. Useless.
I descended the crane ladder quickly, silently. Every move calculated. Every breath measured. I body moved like a machine—efficient, elegant, lethal.
I reached Container B-39.
Door half open. No guards. No locks. An invitation.
Too easy, still, i entered....
Inside a single desk, flickering monitors, wires strung like spiderwebs, a half-eaten sandwich, and one very smug man seated in the glow.
Rafiq didn't turn around.
"You're not Cipher," he said, voice young but weathered. "But you're with them."
I raised my pistol. "You know why I'm here?"
"I figured I had a week left. Two, tops. But hey—today's as good a day to die as any."
He finally turned. Skinny, mid-30s, messy beard, glasses slipping down his nose. He didn't even flinch.
"You could sell me," he offered. "I've got intel. Names. IPs. Hidden servers. Codes to—"
A single suppressed shot ended the sentence.
He slumped forward, blood blooming across his keyboard like ink spilled on paper.
I didn't speak. I holstered the pistol, wiped my prints from the desk, and reached into my coat to retrieve a flash drive. I plugged it into the still-warm PC and copied everything.
Syndicate would want proof. Always did.
I stepped outside—and paused.
The fog was thicker now. Too thick. Not natural.
I dropped low just as the bullet sliced through the air above my head, shattering the side of the container in a sharp, thunderous crack.
Sniper. High-caliber. Bolt-action. Suppressed—but not enough.
I didn't panic. I moved. Rolled behind a stack of crates and pulled my secondary: a compact SMG with custom silencer. Eyes up. Senses open.
Another shot hit the ground inches from my shoulder.
I calculated.
Shooter was northeast, elevated, based on angle and echo. Likely the crane she just left.
They waited for the kill. Watched me do the job. Then tried to silence me.
That meant this wasn't about Rafiq.
It was about me
I sprinted across the dockyard, using containers as cover, zigzagging between lines of sight. Another shot rang out—missed again. The fog saved me. So did muscle memory.
Ten minutes later, i was gone.
No trace. No prints. No shadow.
---
Later that night...
The warehouse was hidden beneath a derelict train station—my Syndicate dead-drop. I uploaded the mission data, dropped the flash drive into a lead box, and scanned my fingerprints on the panel.
A single message pinged onto the black screen:
Mission confirmed.
Interference detected. Trace unknown.
Proceed to fallback protocol. No contact.
Next target incoming.
I stared at the screen.
Someone had fired on me—and the Syndicate didn't even flinch.
I left the warehouse colder than when i entered.
---
Back at my apartment
The walls felt closer than usual. The silence too loud.
I showered, scrubbed the blood, watched it swirl down the drain like it had a life of its own. I wrapped myself in black silk and stood by the window, smoking, eyes scanning the city.
Then, I felt it.
That presence again.
Not paranoia. Not nerves.
Someone was watching.
I turned off the lights and walked barefoot to the far wall. Pulled a drawer from beneath the floorboards. Opened it. Inside—an old phone. An untraceable one i hadn't touched in months.
It lit up.
One missed call. No number.
I didn't answer. Just stared at the screen.
It vibrated again.
This time, a message.
"I saw how you handled the sniper. Impressive. But you missed something. You're not the only ghost in this city."
My blood ran still.
No one knew my work. No one ever got that close.
NARRATED....
Across the city, in a penthouse of marble and glass, a man poured whiskey into a crystal glass.
He watched the footage again, she was sliding behind crates, calm under fire, killing without hesitation.
He smiled.
"You're not like the others," he murmured. "You kill because they tell you to. I kill because I want to."
Tyler Benjamin Klaas sipped his drink. The most richest guy in the city, friends with people from higher levels...
And for the first time in years…
He was interested.
He had never needed a reason to kill.
The world liked stories—justifications, trauma, self-defense. He didn't care for any of that. People made choices. He made decisions.
Tonight, he chose to watch her again.
She moved like she was born for the shadows—precise, fluid, emotionally detached. But he'd seen the hesitation. Not in her hand. In her eyes. She was still human. That's what made her interesting.
Most assassins were just tools.
She was art
____________