Part 4: The Message
The stairs groaned beneath his steps, the metal was warped from the earlier concussive blast, bending slightly under his weight. Each step creaked as if trying to warn whatever still breathed above.
Something is coming.
Kairo ignored the blood crusting along his side, the wound had partially closed. The fibers within him, wires, tendrils, synthetic muscle, worked without his command. That wasn't healing, that was evolution.
Every step seemed easier now.
Every breath... less human.
He reached the command level.
The room beyond was an observation deck, semicircular, lined with floor-to-ceiling reinforced glass that once offered a pristine view of the facility's core labs below, now it was cracked. Smoke veiled the lower chambers, flames flickered in distant halls, everything reeked of ozone, ash, and something chemical and sour, fear left too long in the air.
Kairo walked past the shattered glass wall and approached the primary console.
Dead. No power.
He pressed his palm to the surface. The lights flickered chaotically, the screen stuttered back to life under his hand, He didn't just activate it, he overrode it. His body was interfacing with the system like an invasive species.
The screen split into twelve windows, Footage.
Old.
Archived.
Still intact.
He stared at the top-left feed,
there he was,
Tied to a chair, straps across his chest, ankles, arms. Eyes blank. Mouth slightly open, electrodes attached to his temples. A figure off-screen pressed a button, Kairo convulsed in the chair. Foam streaked his lips.
"Cycle forty seven complete," said the voice. "Emotional residue remains high, visual triggers ineffective."
Another screen, Kairo in a corridor, escorted by guards. Docile. His movements perfect, lifeless. A scientist reciting the mission parameters as if reading a recipe.
Another, A younger Kairo, screaming into a padded wall, no sound.
Another, Surgery. His eyes open while they rewired his spine.
Another, The mission.
The mission.
Kairo's breath caught. His hands trembled against the console,
there she was.
Sera.
The girl, her hair was matted, her wrists restrained. She was now older than he remembered her being, but the shape of her, her eyes, the tilt of her jaw, it was his.
His blood.
His sister.
She was staring at him across a scorched warehouse floor, hands raised. Crying.
"No more," she was saying, though the audio was low. "Please, you know me. You know who you are."
And then—her scream.
Kairo saw his own image falter in the footage. Something inside his controlled self hesitated. And then he dropped the weapon, turned. Defied the mission.
That was the moment, that was when they decided he had to die.
He watched it again.
And again.
He wanted it etched in his brain, he wanted to remember.
Because that scream—it woke him up.
And now they'd hear his.
Kairo turned to the wall beside the console, a wide slab of black steel alloy, untouched.
He pressed his hand to it, the tips of his fingers lit, blue light bleeding from his pores, energy thrumming under his skin. He dragged his hand down slowly, sparks spat, Smoke curled. And as if his fingers were made of plasma, he began to write.
No tool.
No weapon.
Just raw will.
The letters burned into the wall,
FAILED ASSET = HUNTER
The word HUNTER was etched twice as deep.
And then he looked up.
A small security cam in the corner of the ceiling blinked, Still live,
Still recording.
Kairo walked to it, let it take his full image, let the world see what their discarded weapon had become.
He didn't smile.
Didn't snarl.
He just stared into the lens with dead, glowing eyes and whispered one word.
"Run."
Then he raised his hand and flicked two fingers.
The entire console shorted out in an explosion of sparks, the camera popped and died in a puff of smoke.
The message was sent.
They would see it.
They would know.
Kairo-7 was back from the dead.
And this time—he wasn't following orders.
He was erasing them.