CENTI

chapter 4

CH 4: KAZUO'S OFFER

3:17 AM. Basement in Poland. One lightbulb. Concrete walls.

The comm buzzed on the floor.

Ryze had been moving every 6 hours. Trains. Buses. Walking. Sleeping 2 hours at a time in alleys.

The timer in his chest ticked louder every day. 179 days. Now 178.

The comm buzzed again.

He stared at it. He knew who it was.

Finally he picked it up. "What."

"Hello, son."

That voice.

Kazuo.

The man who built CENTI. The man who built Ryze. The man who called him "property" for 18 years.

On the small cracked screen, Kazuo appeared. 60 years old. Perfect suit. White hair. A smile that never reached his eyes. Eyes like a shark.

"Ryze," Kazuo said warmly. "You look tired. Have you been eating? Sleeping? You always looked terrible without sleep."

"Get to the point."

Kazuo laughed. Soft. "Straight to business. That’s my boy. That’s what I designed."

He leaned forward. The background behind him was his office. Floor to ceiling windows. Tokyo skyline.

"I’m calling to offer you a choice, Ryze. A real choice. For the first time in your life."

He held up one finger. "Option one. Come home. Let me remove the timer. Fix the instability. Give you a room. Food. Training. Purpose. Together we can fix this broken world. No more running. No more pain."

He held up two fingers. "Option two. You keep running. You die in 6 months. And I send VIPER to bring your body back anyway."

"There’s no option three?" Ryze asked.

"There never was," Kazuo said. "The governments made you a weapon then threw you away when they got scared. The people fear what they don’t understand. They will always fear you. But I don’t. I made you. We don’t need them, Ryze. We need each other."

For one second, Ryze saw it. No countdown. No pain. A bed. A father who looked at him like he mattered.

Then he remembered the lab. The tubes. SIREN singing while they burned him.

"No," Ryze said. "I’m not your weapon anymore. I’m not your son."

Kazuo’s smile didn’t fade. But the warmth in his eyes died.

"I was hoping you’d say that," he said softly. "Makes it more fun."

He tapped his screen.

"24 hours, Ryze. That’s how long you have before VIPER finds you again. And next time, he’s bringing friends. After that... I come myself."

"Why?"

"Because you’re mine," Kazuo said. "And I don’t like it when my property walks away."

The call cut. Black screen.

Ryze threw the comm across the room. It shattered against the wall.

24 hours.

He looked at his hands. Fire flickered on the right. Ice on the left. Both unstable.

He wasn’t running anymore.

He was hunting.