CHAPTER 12: DEAD SIGNAL
1064 Words
Rain battered the broken apartment windows while silence stretched between them like a loaded weapon.
Vaelora stood near the doorway with one hand resting dangerously close to her gun.
Kaedrin remained beside the glowing decryptor screen, staring at the classified file displaying his connection to Black Aether.
Neither trusted the other anymore.
And both knew it.
Thunder shook the building outside.
Finally, Kaedrin spoke quietly.
“You think I helped them hurt those children.”
Vaelora’s eyes stayed cold.
“You were security oversight.”
“I was nineteen.”
The sharpness in his voice surprised her.
Kaedrin rarely showed emotion.
Now anger flickered beneath every word.
“They recruited me straight from military academy after Lyrielle disappeared,” he continued. “I thought Black Aether was a containment facility.”
Vaelora laughed bitterly.
“Containment for children?”
“I didn’t know.”
“Maybe you didn’t want to.”
The words struck hard.
Kaedrin looked away briefly.
And that silence told her enough.
Some part of him had always suspected the truth.
The decryptor suddenly beeped again.
A red warning symbol flashed violently across the screen.
GLOBAL NETWORK BREACH DETECTED
Then every light in the apartment shut off instantly.
Darkness swallowed the room.
“What now?” Vaelora muttered.
Outside—
The entire city went black.
Not just their building.
Everything.
Streetlights died.
Skyscrapers vanished into darkness.
Traffic systems failed instantly.
Far below, distant screams echoed through the streets as vehicles crashed in intersections across Neo-Vesper City.
Kaedrin moved toward the window sharply.
“Oh no.”
Vaelora joined him.
The skyline looked dead.
No neon.
No holograms.
No electricity.
Only darkness beneath storm clouds.
Then emergency sirens began howling across the city.
The decryptor screen flickered weakly back to life using emergency battery power.
One message now covered the monitor.
HELIX PHASE ONE ACTIVATED
Vaelora’s blood ran cold.
“That’s impossible.”
“We only have the Red Cipher,” Kaedrin said.
“Someone activated Helix remotely.”
Suddenly—
Every device inside the apartment activated at once.
Television screens.
Radios.
Dead phones.
All flickering with violent static.
Then a face appeared across every screen.
Soryn Kade.
Calm.
Elegant.
Terrifying.
“Good evening,” he said softly.
Behind him, dozens of digital maps displayed power failures spreading worldwide.
Entire countries blinking dark one by one.
“This is only a demonstration.”
Vaelora clenched her fists.
Soryn smiled faintly.
“You’ve spent your lives obeying corrupt governments and hidden intelligence empires.”
Another city vanished from the global map.
Darkness spreading like infection.
“But systems built on lies deserve to collapse.”
Kaedrin stepped closer to the screen.
“What do you want?”
Soryn looked directly into the camera.
“As always, Commander Vale… the truth.”
Then his expression shifted slightly.
Almost amused.
“And Ghost Orchid.”
Vaelora felt ice crawl through her veins.
Soryn continued calmly.
“You still don’t remember what you truly are, do you?”
Static distorted the screen violently.
Then images flashed rapidly behind him—
Black Aether laboratories.
Experiment chambers.
Children screaming.
Satellite systems.
Vaelora’s own face.
Soryn’s voice lowered almost affectionately.
“You were my greatest creation.”
The transmission cut instantly.
Silence followed.
Only rain and distant chaos remained.
Vaelora’s breathing sharpened slightly.
Creation.
The word echoed horribly inside her mind.
Kaedrin looked toward her carefully.
“Don’t listen to him.”
But doubt already lived inside her now.
What if Soryn was right?
What if she wasn’t just a survivor—
—but something made?
Suddenly—
A loud explosion rocked the city outside.
Fire erupted several blocks away.
Military drones swarmed overhead.
Then emergency broadcasts returned across battery-powered radios.
NATIONAL ALERT
ALL INTELLIGENCE PERSONNEL REPORT IMMEDIATELY
TERROR THREAT LEVEL OMEGA
Another voice replaced it seconds later.
Cold.
Official.
Deadly.
“By executive authorization, operatives Kaedrin Vale and Vaelora Vex are hereby designated international terrorists.”
Vaelora closed her eyes briefly.
There it was.
The final betrayal.
The voice continued:
“Use of lethal force is authorized globally.”
Kaedrin swore under his breath.
Every intelligence agency in the world would now hunt them.
No safehouses.
No allies.
No protection.
They were ghosts officially.
Then suddenly—
Vaelora’s encrypted communicator activated weakly.
Nysera’s voice burst through heavy static.
“Vaelora! Kaedrin! Can you hear me?”
Kaedrin grabbed the device quickly.
“Where are you?”
“Not safe,” Nysera answered urgently. “The blackouts triggered riots everywhere. Intelligence divisions are collapsing into panic.”
Vaelora frowned.
“How are you still connected?”
“Emergency satellite relay,” Nysera replied quickly.
Then her voice lowered.
“Listen carefully. I found something inside the Helix archives.”
Kaedrin exchanged a glance with Vaelora.
“What?”
Static crackled violently.
Then Nysera whispered—
“There’s another facility.”
Vaelora’s pulse sharpened instantly.
“Black Aether?”
“No.”
Nysera sounded shaken now.
“Something worse.”
Lightning flashed outside the apartment.
Then Nysera said the words that changed everything:
“It’s called Cerberus Protocol.”
Silence.
Kaedrin frowned.
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“That’s because it was erased from every intelligence database twenty years ago.”
Vaelora stepped closer.
“What is Cerberus?”
Nysera hesitated.
Then quietly—
“It’s where they made people like you.”
The room turned ice cold.
Before Vaelora could respond—
Gunfire exploded downstairs.
Both spies instantly drew weapons.
Heavy boots thundered through the stairwell below.
Kaedrin cursed softly.
“They found us.”
More gunfire erupted.
Walls shook from explosions beneath the apartment building.
Nysera’s voice returned frantically through the communicator.
“Wait—there’s something else—”
Static swallowed her voice.
Then silence.
The transmission died completely.
Kaedrin moved toward the doorway immediately.
“We move now.”
But Vaelora remained frozen for one dangerous second.
People like you.
The words clawed through her mind.
Not person.
Weapon.
Experiment.
Something built.
Then another explosion shook the building violently.
Reality snapped back instantly.
Kaedrin grabbed her wrist.
“Vaelora!”
She looked up sharply.
His expression remained cold—
But concern flickered beneath it.
Real concern.
And somehow that frightened her most of all.
Because despite everything—
Despite the lies—
Some part of her still wanted to trust him.
Outside—
Neo-Vesper City burned in darkness as the world began falling apart.
- Writer
