The storm outside raged louder than ever, but it couldn't compare to the storm Carter felt inside.
He stood face to face with a ghost—his father, Ezra Voss. The man whose death had shaped his entire life. The man who, until this moment, had been nothing more than a photo and a file in a sealed Eden archive.
Sera kept her distance, eyes darting between father and son. Kairo's voice buzzed in her comm:
"We're three minutes out. You find Carter?"
"Yeah," she said softly. "But you won't believe who's with him."
Ezra looked thinner than Carter remembered, but there was power behind those tired eyes—an energy that hadn't been crushed by Eden's decades of abuse.
"You've grown," Ezra said, voice hoarse with disuse but laced with pride. "Just like your mother. Always defiant."
Carter swallowed hard. His hands trembled slightly. "Why didn't they kill you?"
Ezra sat slowly on the bunk, motioning for them to lower their weapons. "Because I know too much. I was Eden's lead architect once, remember? The algorithms, the behavioral net, the psychological maps used to control entire cities? I designed them."
Sera's eyes widened. "You… what?"
Ezra nodded. "Before I learned the truth about what they were planning. Before I tried to stop it."
"Let me guess," Carter said bitterly. "They made you disappear."
Ezra exhaled. "They needed me quiet. But not dead. I've been kept here, moved from cell to cell, program to program, while they dissected my work. And now... now they're getting ready to use it for something far worse."
Carter leaned forward. "What do you mean?"
Ezra locked eyes with his son. "They've created something called Valkyrie Protocol. It's not just surveillance. It's full neural override—remote mind control at scale. They can overwrite a person's decisions in real time."
Sera cursed under her breath. "That's not possible."
"I thought so too," Ezra replied. "But they've advanced farther than I imagined. They're no longer just controlling society—they're rewriting it."
---
Outside the facility, the Resistance team approached under cover of darkness.
Kairo stayed close to the entrance with Emory, setting up a wireless override. "We need two minutes to punch through the external firewall," he whispered.
Damian looked through his scope. "Movement on the rooftop."
Kairo looked up, squinting through the rain.
There he was again. The Watcher.
Cloaked. Still. Watching them.
Emory's grip tightened on her weapon. "Who the hell is that guy?"
"Not one of ours," Kairo muttered. "But he hasn't tried to stop us. Yet."
Then the figure lifted a hand.
The entire facility shuddered—like it had been yanked backward in time. Lights flickered, metal groaned, and for a moment, Kairo swore the building breathed.
"What was that?" Emory hissed.
Kairo just shook his head. "Something's wrong. Something's really wrong."
---
Inside, Ezra stood, pulling up the tattered sleeve of his jumpsuit to reveal a scarred implant embedded in his forearm.
"I hacked it from the inside," he said. "Took me years. But I've mapped nearly every neural line in the Valkyrie system. And I've stored it… in my mind."
Carter stared. "You're saying you're the key?"
"I'm saying," Ezra whispered, "if they get me, they activate it. If we destroy it, we cripple Eden forever."
Sera touched her earpiece. "Team's here. We need to move."
Ezra smiled faintly. "Then let's not keep them waiting."
---
Back at the rooftop, the Watcher turned slightly—just enough for a security drone to glimpse a sliver of his face.
It was young. Too young. Barely in his twenties.
Yet his eyes… they were ancient.
He spoke a single word, voice broadcast across a thousand hidden frequencies.
"Initiate."
In the Resistance's comms, static exploded. Kairo's systems began to short out. Emory's helmet displayed a swarm of error codes.
The Watcher walked away from the edge, vanishing into the rain.
And far below, a hidden protocol activated deep beneath the facility—beneath even the Resistance's awareness.
Protocol_Zero.v01: Online.