Chapter 76: The Purge Protocol
Leaving the mentally shattered Elliot Kwan, Moiré proceeded without pause. Her next target was Karl Strange, an Operations Coordinator for Militech's Special Projects Division.
Unlike Kwan, who hid behind layers of passive defenses, Strange displayed a confidence born of his surroundings. He was located in a high-end private club in Heywood, a Militech-controlled subsidiary. Publicly an elite social venue, it was, in reality, a fortified sanctum for high-level corporate summits.
The club's security protocols far exceeded a standard corporate facility, equipped with dynamic thermal-augur networks, pressure-sensitive flooring, and vox-print recognition systems. It was permanently staffed by a twelve-man elite security cohort, all trained in counter-infiltration and close-quarters-combat, and equipped with the latest smart-weaponry and light-composite armor.
These defenses were parsed and quantified by Moiré's re-sanctified augur-suite. She ignored the conventional paths. From a shadow 150 meters from the main structure, she activated her Sandevistan.
Her form became a blur of motion, an afterimage moving at extreme velocity. The thermal-augur network logged only a brief fluctuation, dismissed by the system as ambient sensor-ghosting. The pressure-plates had not even finished transmitting their data before she, like a silent gale, had already crossed the outer perimeter.
Karl Strange was in a secure comms-sanctum on the third floor. The room was a vault, its walls lined with signal-shielding, its windows made of dual-layer, armored transparisteel. He was on an encrypted vox-link with Militech Command, discussing the next phase of operations against Maine's crew and their mysterious benefactor.
Moiré did not attempt the door. She calculated the optimal vector, using the building's exterior fittings to ascend at a trans-human velocity, settling in a sensor-blind-spot above the window.
She raised one arm. The transonic-coated monowire shot from her knuckle, its anchor-tip biting into the window's metal frame.
Her Sandevistan pulsed to its peak-cycle. Using the wire as a guide, Moiré catapulted herself, her body horizontal, striking the armored transparisteel with immense kinetic force. In the microsecond before impact, the Transonic Razor in her other palm activated, focusing its invisible, high-frequency vibration wave on the impact point.
KRA-SHHH!
The armored transparisteel, under the dual assault of molecular-resonance and kinetic-force, did not spiderweb. It was annihilated, exploding inward in a cloud of fine, particulate matter.
Moiré burst through the cloud. The two bodyguards in the room reacted, their combat-implants granting them trans-human reflexes. But in Moiré's time-dilated perception, they were mired in thick sludge. One's finger was just beginning to tighten on his trigger; the other was only halfway through his turn.
The Transonic Razor hummed, passing through the air and across the back of Strange's neck. The vibration did not tear the flesh; it passed through it, and his cervical vertebrae and central nerve-cluster were molecularly un-made. Strange's horrified expression froze. He collapsed onto the expensive carpet.
Breach-to-purge: 1.8 seconds.
Moiré's cold, compound-optics swept over the two paralyzed guards and the stunned face of the Militech executive still frozen on the comms-screen. Her directive was the efficient purging of a specific target, not indiscriminate slaughter. She did not engage them.
As the guards' reflexes finally overcame their neural-lag, she activated her Sandevistan again, launching herself backward through the breach. She vanished into the complex exterior as the building's klaxons, far too late, began to wail.
The final target was in Charter Hill, in a high-security community called "Odeum Manor"—one of Biotechnica board member Julia Winters's primary residences. The security was managed by a high-end PMC, integrating facial recognition, thermal-augur patrols, automated gun-servitors, and subterranean seismic-augurs. The perimeter was electrified.
Moiré arrived in the darkest hour, 04:30. She ignored the main gate, selecting a blind-spot in the wall near Winters's villa. Calculating the pulse-cycle of the electric fence and the sensor dead-zones of the turrets, she used an explosive burst of her bionic limbs to silently clear the multi-meter wall, landing without a sound.
Four guards patrolled the courtyard in two-man teams, their optical-augmetics scanning the grounds. Moiré used the landscaping as cover, her movements exceeding their dynamic-capture-threshold. She neutralized all four with precise, incapacitating blows before any alarm could be raised.
She then stood before the bedroom's floor-to-ceiling armored-transparisteel window. She raised her arm, the Transonic Razor sliding into her palm, the air shimmering from its vibration. She focused the energy at the tip and thrust. The high-frequency wave propagated through the glass. It didn't shatter; it was molecularly severed.
Moiré pushed the heavy, cut-out section inward. It landed on the thick carpet with a dull thud. She stepped through.
Julia Winters, a light sleeper, was jolted awake by the sound. She saw the dark figure that had breached her sanctum and scrambled in terror for the panic-button on her nightstand.
Moiré's Sandevistan flared. She crossed the room in the microsecond it took Winters's finger to move. The Transonic Razor hummed and flashed once.
Winters's motion ceased. A fine red line appeared on her throat, followed by a slow welling of blood. Her eyes remained wide with terror and disbelief as she collapsed, her finger inches from the button.
Moiré stood over the bed, calmly running a scan to confirm bio-sign termination. Directive complete. She left no trace, retreating back through the hole she had made and into the pre-dawn darkness. Seconds later, the room's internal sensors, detecting the motion and the flatline, finally triggered the alarm.
But the executioner was long gone.
(End of Chapter)
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