White Noise
The city never slept.
Not because it couldn't, but because it was never designed to.
From the top of the building, Kael watched the urban sprawl stretch as far as the artificial curvature of the sky allowed. Towers of black steel and translucent polymers rose like surgical needles, piercing an atmosphere saturated with holographic advertisements, aerial traffic, and constant electromagnetic noise. The sky was not dark. It was functional. A canvas of data, routes, and overlapping layers of information.
Drones patrolled in irregular patterns—erratic enough to seem intelligent, predictable enough to be useless against someone who knew how to look.
Kael didn't blink.
His breathing was slow. Measured.
His pulse, steady.
Around him, most connected humans let their implants filter the world for them. Interface overlays, visual corrections, suppression of uncomfortable stimuli. Kael had none of that. He saw everything raw, natural, unlayered.
And yet, he saw more.
Years had taught him how to filter what mattered.
"Two reconnaissance drones, unarmed," he murmured. "One with vertical-axis lag. Expensive firmware, but vulnerable."
The chip in his brain processed the information, but it didn't respond with graphics or visual alerts. It simply adjusted priorities. Kael didn't need confirmation. The analysis had been complete before the sentence had fully formed in his mind.
One hundred and seventeen years.
In a world where the average barely reached eighty.
Most who lived that long did so with rebuilt bodies, backed-up brains, edited memories. Kael didn't. His body was old, yes—but coherent, trained. No incompatible parts. No latency. Every scar had a real cause, a memory, and a lesson.
Artificial wind struck his long coat, woven with fibers that absorbed passive signals. He wasn't invisible. He didn't need to be. Invisibility was a solution for amateurs. In a world with no corner free of cameras, disguise was better than nonexistence.
The ability to blend, to imitate, to copy—those were more important to a killer than the act of killing itself. Kael knew that. With his coat, he looked like a chameleon among trees.
He turned as the sentinels passed and walked toward the building's maintenance hatch. His steps made no sound—not because the surface was silent, but because he knew where not to step, which areas carried less noise, which sounds his coat would cancel out.
The target was three levels below ground.
The Helix-9 Research Center appeared in no public or private registry. Officially, it was a laboratory for developing neuromotor interfaces for civilian prosthetics. In practice, it was a covert subsidiary of Kaulix Dynamics, dedicated to experimenting with technologies that shouldn't yet exist—experimental scientific advances, inventions so costly they weren't worth mass production.
Kael had read the leaked reports.
Not out of interest, but to understand the kind of people who worked there, the building layout, and patrol habits.
Scientists under perpetual non-disclosure contracts. Technicians with partial memory wipes. Supervisors with obedience implants. No one truly responsible. No one truly guilty.
The entrance wasn't guarded by human personnel. That alone said enough. Only sensors, quantum locks, and a security AI patched so many times its original architecture was unrecognizable. The security was so strict, so meticulous, that there were no human traces left.
Kael stopped in front of the door.
He placed his bare hand on the panel.
The chip synchronized.
It didn't hack. It listened and felt.
The security system emitted micro-variations in its latency pattern every 0.3 seconds. Kael waited exactly two full cycles before acting. He introduced a false signal—not to open the door, but to convince it that it already was.
The lock slid open without a sound.
Inside, the air was cleaner. Filtered. Too clean. The kind of purity achieved only by removing everything unnecessary. Including people.
Kael moved through the corridors lit by cold lights. Cameras on the ceiling. Sensors in the walls. Smart floors recording weight, pressure, rhythm.
All useless.
Not because they didn't work—but because they worked as expected. Everything was designed for intruders who were half machine, half human. He wasn't. And he could exploit that.
The first scientist died without realizing it. Kael appeared behind him, one hand covering his mouth, the other applying precise pressure at the point where the cervical implant connected to the spinal cord. No spasm. No sound. The body slid to the floor as if it had simply decided to rest.
The second tried to run.
He didn't complete the first step.
Kael didn't accelerate. There was no need. Every movement was optimized to waste no energy. Eliminating targets was a byproduct, not the goal.
In less than three minutes, the level was clean.
The main laboratory opened before him like a cathedral of glass and metal. At its center, suspended within a containment field, floated the object.
A prism.
It wasn't large.
It wasn't imposing.
But the space around it was… wrong.
Kael frowned slightly.
"Looks like a local distortion," he murmured. "Not electromagnetic."
Something extremely rare.
The chip attempted to classify it.
It failed.
That was even rarer.
The prism had irregular faces, impossible to measure with conventional geometry. Each surface reflected something different—not the environment, but possibilities. Kael had no better word for it. They looked like videos, images, shapes difficult to comprehend. Just looking at it caused dizziness and nausea—something unheard of, considering he had long eliminated those responses from his body.
He approached slowly.
The containment field reacted, adjusting its frequency. Kael took out the nullification device he'd been given. He didn't trust it. He never trusted anything. That's why he carried three alternatives.
The first worked.
"Lucky," he murmured.
The field dissipated with an electric whisper. The prism descended slowly until it hovered inside the nullification cube. He held it with both hands.
It wasn't cold.
It wasn't hot.
But it was… attentive. Holding it felt heavy, like gripping dynamite with a lit fuse.
Kael stored it in the insulated container and turned away without wasting more time. He had already stayed too long.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
The rendezvous point was an abandoned hangar in the lower district. Officially dismantled. In reality, repurposed for meetings that weren't meant to be recorded.
Kael arrived ten minutes early.
As always. Surveying the area was a habit.
The man waiting for him was easy to recognize. Tall. Very young—an unusual age for his position.
Immaculate suit. Expensive implants visible only because he wanted them to be. The CEO of CHIPS-Innovation didn't need to hide his power. He displayed it like a trophy.
"Kael Drago Everlite von Kaulix," the man said, smiling. "In person. It's always a pleasure dealing with professionals. I never thought you'd accept the contract."
Kael didn't respond.
He placed the container on the metal table.
"The object," he said simply.
The CEO opened it with exaggerated care. His eyes gleamed when he saw the prism.
"Extraordinary," he murmured. "Truly extraordinary. Kaulix Dynamics exceeded my expectations."
"It wasn't part of the deal. You told me to kill the scientists and steal a prototype implant, not this… thing. The fee increases by twenty percent," Kael said.
The man looked up, still smiling.
"Oh, of course. Whatever money you want. I didn't tell you simply out of… appreciation. After all, this 'thing,' this small artifact, can alter, create, and manipulate portals, distort spacetime layers, enhance existing technologies… nothing concrete, of course. At least, that's what they say it can do."
Kael watched him in silence. His arrogance was so obvious it made his thoughts easy to read.
There were guards.
Eight visible.
Twelve concealed.
"You know," the CEO continued, "I've always wondered how someone like you has survived so long without physical augmentations. It's almost… romantic. Hard to believe there's a human with only a cerebral implant. I wonder how you're still alive. In this era, it's practically a miracle."
"The payment?" Kael asked.
The man sighed theatrically.
"Why not chat a little? Let's talk—I'll start. I researched you, Mr. Kael. I was astonished by the corrupted data and fabricated records about you." He paused. "I even doubt your entire name. I only uncovered fragments of truth through rumors and stories."
"You talk too much. The payment," Kael said.
"Patience, Mr. Kael. They're bringing it now… where was I? Ah yes—rumors. The Reaper. The Walking Shadow. The Thousand Faces. Blah, blah, blah. No one who's seen you has lived. But I discovered that—"
"The payment. Now," Kael said firmly.
"Fine, fine. So impatient… You see, Kael, this object is… delicate. Valuable. I can't afford loose ends. Any trace of my involvement would be a one-way ticket to hell. You understand. It's just business."
The guards adjusted their stances. Weapons ready.
Kael tilted his head slightly.
"Yes," he said. "I understand."
He moved.
It wasn't an explosion of violence. It was a correction. He had seen long ago that the man intended to drag things out. He had already calculated the path needed to kill them all.
The first guard fell before his weapon completed its activation sequence. The second died trying to communicate. The third had no time to react. The fourth was killed by a teammate's shot. The fifth—a blade to the temple. The sixth, the seventh, the eighth—
Kael moved among them like a statistical anomaly, always where he wasn't expected, always one step ahead. He found the perfect rhythm so they would fail, unable to assist one another.
The CEO stumbled backward, panic tearing through his mask of arrogance. He had researched the stories—never believed them. A 117-year-old human without physical implants? Nonsense.
Now it was too late.
"Wait! We can renegotiate!"
Kael advanced.
"We already did."
The man activated something—his brachioradial implant [1]. Desperation. A plan B. It didn't matter.
Kael saw it. The micro-shift in posture. The sudden rise in temperature.
"Plasma discharge," he thought. "Too late."
He threw himself backward just as the hangar turned into light and noise. He had seen the intent long before.
It had all been a trap. He wanted one last payment before retirement. It was a mistake, because—
The explosion was contained. Precise. Designed to leave nothing.
Nothing… except a fragment.
That fragment wasn't part of his calculations. Not even a centimeter in size, it flew fast. He had no time to react when it struck the containment cage.
The prism, damaged, reacted. One of its faces fractured, releasing a wave that wasn't conventional energy. Kael felt something break and reconfigure inside his head.
The chip screamed.
Not with sound. With error.
The world folded. He literally saw the sun twist into the shape of an eight. Everything spun.
He heard joyful and sorrowful sounds at the same time—dichotomy, contradiction. He even tasted flavors in colors. In all his years of training and adversity, he had learned not to lose consciousness, not even under the most advanced torture.
Today, he learned he could faint again.
Shhhh.
A void explosion occurred, swallowing everything—the guards, the CEO, even the facility. For a brief moment, a black stain appeared in the world, and then… vanished.
No bodies. No evidence.
Even Kael was consumed by the implosion.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
[1] It's a muscle in the arm—more specifically, near the wrist on the palm side. Think of it as roughly the area where Spider-Man shoots his webs from. More or less.