In the year 2028, under a fractured moonlight, a man's body washed onto the rocky shore, limbs splayed like driftwood. The ocean's waves churned over him, their rhythm blending with distant screams and the dull thunder of explosions—a horrific melody of a world in collapse. His chest twitched faintly, a sign of life amid the chaos, though his eyes remained shut, caked with salt and blood.
Miles away, in the fortified bunker of the World's Defence Dome Federation, panic gripped a dimly lit council chamber. Scientists hunched over flickering holographic displays, tracking asteroid trajectories as red alerts pulsed. Generals barked orders, their voices drowned by the rising clamor. Senator Ruiz, his face carved with fury, slammed a fist on the obsidian table.
"Major Dillon!" Ruiz's voice cut through the din.
Dillon, a grizzled officer with sweat beading on his brow, straightened. "Senator."
"What the hell is happening?" Ruiz snapped. "The Global Protection Act promised an impenetrable shield. Your team's failure has doomed us!"
Dillon's jaw tightened. "Sir, we deflected 79% of the asteroid swarm. No system could've stopped them all—not with this volume."
Ruiz's eyes narrowed. "You're proud of that? Over 800 million dead, Major, and the fallout's killing millions more. Cities are ash!"
Senator Abara, her voice cold as steel, leaned forward. "The world paid trillions for your dome network. We trusted you."
The Minister of Defense, his uniform rumpled, pointed a trembling finger. "Your incompetence has gutted us. You and your team will answer for this—behind bars if I have my way."
Dillon's gaze flickered to the hologram, where Earth's surface glowed with impact craters. He swallowed the truth: someone had sabotaged the dome's core systems. But who?
----
On the shore, the man stirred, coughing seawater. Pain seared his ribs, and his head throbbed as if hammered. He forced his eyes open, squinting against the moon's glare. His name—Kael Voss—surfaced like debris in his fractured mind. Ex-military. Assassin. Subject 17 of the Rig, a bio lab hidden on an oil platform in the North Atlantic. He remembered needles, glowing vials, and a voice promising "evolution." Then the blast—a shockwave that tore the rig apart, hurling him into the sea.
Kael staggered to his feet, his black tactical suit shredded. The air reeked of sulfur, and the horizon glowed orange with distant fires. His enhanced senses, a gift from the lab's experiments, picked up the faint hum of drones overhead. Survivors? Looters? He didn't know. His hand instinctively reached for a weapon that wasn't there.
Two years ago, he'd lost everything. His twins, Mara and Eli, burned in a car crash—or so he'd been told. The grief had driven him to the Rig, volunteering for experiments to escape the pain. Now, standing on this ruined shore, he wondered if anything was left to fight for. The sky churned with ash, a reminder of the asteroid fallout choking the planet.
Kael's eyes caught a glint in the sand—a data chip, half-buried. He knelt, brushing it clean. It bore the Rig's insignia: a double helix pierced by a trident. His pulse quickened. Whatever was on this chip might explain why the lab had been targeted—and why he'd survived.
-----
Back in the bunker, the council's argument grew heated. Dr. Lena Korsakov, a climatologist with dark circles under her eyes, stood abruptly. "Enough blame! The fallout's the real threat now. Impact dust is triggering a global winter. Crops will fail within months, and 25% of survivors won't outlast the year."
Ruiz scoffed. "And your solution, Doctor?"
Korsakov tapped her tablet, projecting a model of Earth's atmosphere. "A fusion pulse in the stratosphere could burn off the dust layer. But it's risky—detonating it could destabilize what's left of the grid."
Abara's eyes widened. "You'd gamble with the planet?"
"We're already gambling," Korsakov shot back. "The shelters are failing—some crushed, others sabotaged. We need answers, not just scapegoats."
Dillon stayed silent, his mind racing. Sabotage. The word echoed Abara's accusation. He'd seen the dome's logs before the meeting—encrypted commands had disabled key interceptors just before the swarm hit. Someone on the inside had betrayed them.
----
Kael trudged inland, the chip clutched in his fist. His augmented muscles ached, but they held—whatever the Rig had done to him, it made him stronger, faster. He crested a dune and froze. Below stretched a coastal city, or what remained of it: skyscrapers reduced to twisted metal, streets choked with debris. Survivors huddled around fires, their faces gaunt with fear. A child's wail pierced the silence, and Kael's heart clenched—Mara's laugh, Eli's giggle, memories he couldn't shake.
He needed a terminal to read the chip. The Rig's experiments, the asteroid strike, his survival—it couldn't be coincidence. If the lab had been targeted, someone wanted its secrets buried. Kael's assassin instincts kicked in: find the truth, find the enemy. He didn't know the world was already pointing fingers at the Defence Dome Federation, nor that his own past—his wife's betrayal—would soon resurface to haunt him.