Part 2: Fear Protocol
There are deaths, and then there are messages.
When Halden received the report from the New Mexico satellite node, he was alone in the command room of Obsidian Vault 9, eating cold oatmeal seated beneath four inches of concrete and history. He chewed with robotic precision, reading an old report on Project Paragon neural deterioration rates.
He didn't flinch when the alert pinged.
He didn't stop chewing.
But when the word Keren appeared on the screen—tagged red with a blinking pulse beside vital signs terminated—he did something no one had seen him do in twenty years.
He froze.
Then he set the bowl down.
By the time the kill site footage came in, Halden was already surrounded by executives and clean suit response teams. The terminal room's lights had dimmed automatically, low threat protocols gave way to Class A lockdown measures.
No one spoke. No one breathed loudly.
The file arrived under encrypted code. A satellite drone had reactivated above the long dead rail station, triggered by sudden thermal spikes and chemical vapor signatures from deep underground.
It recorded just nine seconds of internal temperature readings before the feed went static.
All anyone needed.
Halden pulled it onto the central screen.
The image froze on frame six.
Everyone in the room went still.
The projection showed what had once been a secure room. Burned walls, scorched ceiling tiles, blood slicked in arcs along the floor. A single white crib overturned, plastic melted into the remains of a woman slumped against the corner—arms splayed at odd angles, mouth open in a scream as if it had been fused into her jaw.
Holes just big enough on the side of her head.
Blood oozing out of it.
The back of her skull had burst outward from concentrated internal pressure, brain matter spray painted in ribbons on the back wall.
Her tongue was missing.
The flesh of her hands was stripped to tendon and nail.
Body almost unrecognizable.
And beside her, in a neat, almost elegant script scrawled in arterial red,
"ONE DOWN"
Somewhere in the back of the room, one of the junior analysts vomited behind his mask.
Halden didn't react.
He just turned to Dr. Arnett, a grey skinned, cold-eyed biometrics officer, and asked calmly,
"Was it fast?"
Arnett shook his head, swallowing hard.
"No, sir. Muscle contraction analysis indicates she remained alive for at least ninety seconds after initial neural flash-over. The burns were... progressive. Purposeful."
"Any footage?"
"None," another tech replied. "No breach logs. No entry. No power loss. He bypassed the retinal lock, but the scanner has no record of external interference, he was simply... inside."
"Good," Halden said.
Someone near the back stared at him, confused. "Good?"
"Yes," he said, his voice as steady as a loaded gun. "Because it confirms the next stage of his evolution, he doesn't just kill now, he wants us to see it. He's making fear part of the system."
He walked closer to the screen, staring into the blood pattern like it was a divine message.
"He's marking us, Hunting us. Not just ending us. Making examples."
Arnett stepped forward, pale. "Sir... I—I recommend Ghost Protocol."
The room hushed.
That phrase wasn't spoken lightly.
It meant one thing:
Everyone involved in Project Paragon—past or present—was to be erased from the global grid.
No names.
No records.
No existence.
Halden didn't hesitate.
"Approved," he said. "Effective immediately."
A flood of commands lit the room. Code streamed like fire across six walls. Every Paragon executive with any knowledge of Kairo's real origin was queued for identity purge and deep relocation.
But it was already far too late for many.
Elsewhere: Singapore
Dr. Julian Mire, former emotional override engineer, hadn't slept in six days. He watched the Keren footage on loop from his private vault beneath a skyscraper in Orchard.
He hadn't left his safe room in over a week.
The floor was covered in Red Bull cans and stimulants, his hands trembled as he tried to reprogram his alias node, but the screen wouldn't stop showing the blood on the crib wall. He unplugged it. Plugged it back in. Unplugged it again.
ONE DOWN
ONE DOWN
ONE DOWN
The message pulsed behind his eyelids even when the screen was dark.
The whole room spun.
He took a shard of broken mirror, stared at his own reflection.
Then slit his throat sideways.
Somewhere in Belarus
Colonel Freya Lynn, retired Paragon tactical commander, activated her private defense squad—twenty two elite exo suit mercenaries, handpicked. She laughed when she saw the alert, called him a rumor. A myth.
"I trained that thing," she said, pouring whiskey into her coffee. "He was programmed. Predictable. One dimensiona—"
The lights in her command trailer flickered.
And then turned red.
Her squad never even fired a shot.
The first man found flayed from sternum to pelvis, organs arranged in the shape of the Paragon logo, the second torn in half vertically, upper body nailed to the wall by a melted combat knife fused into bone. Freya's head was discovered floating in the toilet, eyes rolled back.
Back at Obsidian Vault 9
Reports flooded Halden's command center in waves.
Screens lit with words they had prayed to never see,
DR. MIRE – SELF TERMINATED
COMMANDER LYNN – ELIMINATED
KAIRO-7 – SIGHTED
KAIRO-7 – ACTIVE
KAIRO-7 – HUNTING
And above it all, one single repeating phrase echoed across hacked radio loops, old servers, shortwave broadcasts, and stolen agency comms.
FAILED ASSET = HUNTER
Halden finally turned to the command room.
His voice was colder than the walls.
"Delete the last twenty years. Now. All of it. If you're on the list—disappear."
"Where do we go?" someone asked, completely horrified.
Halden didn't blink.
"You don't go anywhere."
He pointed to the screen. To the blood. To the nursery.
"He's already on his way."