I flipped open the laptop. The screen illuminated my trembling hands, but they were steadier now. Purpose did that—turned fear into fuel.
The last time I saw Xavier before his arrest, we’d huddled in a corner booth at Malone’s—that dive bar where the bartender never carded me. He’d chosen the table with his back to the wall, facing the door. A soldier’s habit.
“Someone’s watching me, Mae,” he’d said, voice low. His fingers tapped an irregular rhythm against his beer bottle. “If anything happens, don’t believe what they tell you.”
I’d rolled my eyes. “Your paranoia’s showing again.”
“I’m not paranoid.” He’d leaned in, the bar’s dim light casting shadows across his face. “I’m prepared. There’s a difference.”
He’d grabbed my wrist then, his intensity startling me into silence. “Promise me you’ll stay alert. If something feels wrong...”
“—it probably is,” I’dfinished for him. A lesson he’d drilled into me since childhood.
Three weeks later, he was arrested on fabricated charges. Four months after that, I received the call: Xavier Hale had died in prison. Those first few days felt like I had been drawn out of reality. People expected me to cry, but I didn’t. Not at first, anyway. I couldn’t—because I remembered his words. That was what made my brain hold on to doubt…hope.I suspected reality may settle in once I saw his body.
But they never produced one. “Cremated due to procedural error,” they claimed.
I opened the file I’d compiled—hundreds of pages of notes, interviews, dead ends, and breadcrumbs. My finger traced the prison report again. “DECEASED: XAVIER HALE. CAUSE: CEREBRAL HEMORRHAGE. REMAINS: CREMATED.” No body. No witnesses to his death. Just paperwork and bureaucratic apologies.
A journalist didn’t ignore patterns, and I’d found them—other inmates who had disappeared the same way. All dangerous. All criminals with different pasts. All with specific skill sets. All declared dead with no remains.
Something didn’t add up, yet no one researched these disappearances. To the naked eye, of course, it all looked legitimate. It wasn’t until someone dug deeper that inconsistencies were found.
I spoke to families, tried to question the guards, and followed suspicious leads. The research led me through three countries to São Paulo, following the whispers of “The Marionette Project.” Each lead brought more questions,more danger, and finally, an anonymous source who reached out through encrypted channels.
I pulled up the text message that brought me to República Square tonight:
Have confirmation. Your brother = Subject 7. Taken by M-Project. Will bring proof. República Square, 9:30 PM. Watch for the blue cap.
My source never showed. Instead, I got Reaper—an assassin who moved like a ghost and looked at me with empty eyes until I asked his name. A shudder rolled down my body just at the memory of him standing right in front of me. He was robotic, almost, but IthoughtI had somehow managed to reach whatever was still behind those cold eyes.
More memories flooded then. I stared at Xavier’s photo again, remembering the exact moment I refused to believe he was dead. A body was one thing I needed to convince my tortured mind that he was truly gone. Standing in that prison warden’s office as he explained the “unfortunate cremation error” while avoiding my eyes. The subtle shift in his chair when I pressed for details. The missing paperwork. The refusal to let me speak to the doctor who pronounced him dead.
The pieces assembled in my mind like one of the crime boards I built as a rookie reporter. Subject 7. M-Project. Reaper. The missing military personnel. The operational language. The way he moved—not human, but not quite machine either. Programmed.
So many questions flooded my mind. How was something like this even possible? And, more importantly, why were people not looking into this?
My fingers steadied completely as I typed, adding tonight’s encounter to my file. I added in his description, as well as any details about his personality I could recall, though there was not much to include. Like I suspected. Every movement of his was perfectly calculated and almost mechanical. Whatever they were doing to these people…it was fucked up. I could see it firsthand now. And I wouldn’t stop until I got my answers.
The air conditioner rattled to life, its drone matching the steady hum of my laptop. My breathing had synchronized with its rhythm—calm, measured, purposeful.
The trembling in my hands had stopped completely.
I checked the time: 2:17 AM. Sleep wasn’t an option, not with adrenaline still coursing through my system.
My fingers moved across the keyboard, checking the secure channels I’d established with my source. Silence on all fronts. I tried the primary encrypted messaging app. Nothing. The backup channel. Nothing. The emergency forum where we’d arranged to leave coded messages.
Error message:This account has been suspended.
“Damn it.” I slammed my palm against the desk hard enough that my laptop jumped. Did the operation get to them somehow? What the hell was going on?
Three more channels. All dead ends. Either blocked or showing clear signs of tampering—login attempts from unknown IP addresses, password reset notifications I never requested. Someone had been busy.
These weren’t random attacks. Someone was systematically cutting off my communication lines, one by one. The same precision I saw in Reaper’s movements was evident in this digital assault.
I rubbed my eyes and reached for the energy drink in my bag. The familiar burn of caffeine did nothing to quiet the alarm bells in my head. This wasn’t ordinary digital interference. Someone was trying to isolate me…and, so far, they seemed to be doing a good job.
My journalism career had earned me enemies, but nothing like this. This was Xavier-level opposition. Military-grade.
