2025-08-03 19:43:52The scent of antiseptic punched Ethan ’s nose the moment he stepped into the emergency ward.
He wasn’t breathing—he couldn’t. “Code Blue in Room 7!” The shout echoed down the corridor like a bullet through his skull. Room 7. His mother’s room. His feet moved on instinct, tearing through nurses, IV poles, and screaming orderlies. His heartbeat thudded like war drums in his ears. Please no… Not her. Not again. Not now. When he slammed through the door, what he saw nearly brought him to his knees. His mother—pale, fragile, the woman who used to sing lullabies through her broken voice—was convulsing. Her IV bag had already been yanked out. Nurses scrambled to resuscitate her. “Ma!” Ethan choked. “What happened to her?!” The head nurse didn’t even look at him. “Get security in here!” Ethan ignored her. “System, save her. Save her now!” [Emergency Medical Protocol Activated.] Analyzing bloodstream… Toxin Detected: Type-C neuroagent. Source: IV fluid. Countermeasure Initiated. Injecting anti-serum via NeuralSync Port. Administering micro-drones for clot reversal and cardiac stabilization. The HUD flashed red and gold in his eyes. His knees hit the cold tile. His hand found hers—cold, trembling, slipping away. “Come on, Ma… Please. Please, don’t leave me. Not after everything. You’re all I have…” Seconds ticked like hours. Her heart monitor shrieked once… then steadied. Again… and steadied more. A nurse gasped. “What the… she’s stabilizing? How?!” Ethan didn’t answer. He just bowed his head, trembling as he whispered against her knuckles, “Thank you… thank you…” [Stabilization Complete. Recommend 48-hour neural observation. Target will survive.] But Ethan ’s eyes were already different. The raw fear was gone. Replaced with something cold. Rage. The kind that doesn’t explode… but simmers. Boils. Evolves. ⸻ He sat alone in the hallway, staring at his hands. They were still shaking. [Source of toxin traced.] Accessing hospital surveillance. Reverse-tracking all movement tied to IV entry.] Match found. Subject: Unlicensed male, approx. 42, disguised as janitor. Affiliation: Brooks Corp Private Black Ops. Ethan didn’t speak for a long moment. Then: “Give me his face. And the name of the one who paid him.” [Generating Facial Recognition Match…] Name: David Sloan . Brooks Corp Level-3 Security. Orders authorized by: Lin Bai.] Ethan stood. Straightened his collar. Walked to the vending machine, calm as a man about to attend a funeral. “System,” he said quietly. “Track Lin Bai’s current location.” [Location: Brooks Mansion. Private Dining Hall. ETA: 22 minutes by drone.] Ethan smiled, but there was no humor in it. “Then let’s go crash dinner.” ⸻ Twenty-two minutes later, a black drone—sleek, silent, military-grade—descended into the private courtyard of the Brooks family’s fortress-like estate. Inside, the family sat around a long table. Roasted duck, wine glasses, laughter. Brooks Lili was mid-toast. “To the death of pests,” she said smugly, her eyes glinting. “And the return of our company’s honor.” Lin Bai leaned back, smug. “That should teach that street rat to know his place. Honestly, I don’t know why you even married trash like him.” Suddenly— THUNK. Something dropped onto the center of the table. A small, metallic sphere. The room went still. “What the hell is that—” CLICK. The drone unfolded. Projected a hologram into the air. It was Ethan ’s face. Smirking. “I told you not to touch my mother.” “Now you’ll see what real tech is.” The lights in the room flickered. The fireplace died. The temperature dropped as power surged. Every camera on the walls rotated toward them. The steel dining room doors slammed shut automatically. Locking. The drone emitted a soft chime. Then: [Brooks Family Internal Network: Breached.] [Security Systems: Disabled.] [Comm Units: Jammed.] [Backup Generators: Offline.] [Firewall Status: Bypassed.] All over the mansion, security went black. Phones went dead. Alarms failed to ring. And every speaker in the home echoed the same line: “Welcome to the Void.”
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The Soft Trap
The glow of the charity gala spilled through the glass walls like liquid gold, soft music threading between the chatter of suited investors and silk-draped socialites. Ethan stood near the balcony, nursing a glass of sparkling water he hadn’t touched. His mind still lingered on the quiet victory against that rival startup — and the gnawing frustration that Brooks Corp was already slithering back into contracts he thought he’d buried and he couldn’t get the apology and intention of Lena off his mind. As much as he didn’t want to think about it, his mind kept lingering.He told himself he came here for networking. In truth, he just needed air that wasn’t thick with boardroom venom.That’s when he felt the shift. The faint ripple of a presence he knew better than his own reflection.“Ethan.”Her voice wrapped around his name like it used to in the mornings — warm, familiar anddangerous. He turned, and there she was. Lena Brooks. Dressed in black satin that drank the light, hair swept ba
Corporate Cold War
The applause from Lena’s televised apology hadn’t faded from the city’s ears before the next act of the game began.For Ethan, it was supposed to be a day of progress. His team at the small tech firm Gridline Systems had just landed a high-profile contract to integrate adaptive AI security into a rising logistics startup. It wasn’t as big as the Brooks Corp projects he’d crushed before, but every win now was a step toward eroding their influence.Maya slid a printed report across his desk. “Signed, sealed, and wired. We’re officially in.”Ethan gave a small nod, still scanning the data feed. “Good. Make sure their system runs with our cloaked Paragon patch. I want eyes on every shipment.”“That’s the thing…” Maya hesitated, and that alone made Ethan look up. “Two of the minor contracts we got last quarter… they’re not ours anymore.”Ethan frowned. “Not ours?”“Brooks Corp reclaimed them. Quietly. They didn’t announce it, no PR, no gloating.” She tapped a tablet screen. “One by one, th
Public Redemption
The fear in Mr Brooks eyes, the torment in Lena’s and the murmuring in the room kept reechoing in Ethan’s ear when his comm device pinged with a breaking news alert. The headline sprawled across the holographic display like a punch to the gut:“LENA BROOKS: I OWE ETHAN COLE AN APOLOGY.”“What the hell?”Ethan was immediately thrown off guard.Maya, walking beside him, froze mid-step. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”Ethan didn’t answer. His chest tightened as he tapped the feed open. A live broadcast filled the screen — Lena, framed by the glittering skyline atop Brooks Tower, microphones bristling around her like iron thorns.Her voice was soft but carried through the static. “I… made mistakes. I trusted the wrong people. And in that process, I wronged a man who deserved my loyalty, my love and my commitment.” She paused, eyes glistening in a way that could only be rehearsed. “Ethan, if you’re watching… I am really sorry and I know this is not going to change anything, but I want you to
Boardroom Blood
The glass-walled conference room of Brooks Corp’s 42nd floor was a battlefield disguised as a meeting space. The long mahogany table gleamed under the recessed lighting, but it wasn’t the furniture anyone cared about, it was the dozen sets of eyes, each belonging to a power player, all watching Ethan Cole as if he had no right to be here. The Janitor!He didn’t take the empty seat offered at the far end. No, Ethan slid into the chair directly opposite Mr. Brooks, his wee movements slow and deliberate and that too while staring Mr Brooks straight in the eyes. A subtle rebellion. He was done doing what they wanted, now he created his path.Nathan Cross leaned forward with that lazy smirk of his. “You’re in the wrong room, Cole. This meeting’s for stakeholders, not… Janitor or whatever you are now.”Ethan’s lips curved faintly. “I’m exactly where I need to be.” He tapped his tablet, and the massive screen behind him lit up with a series of red-highlighted numbers. “And judging by these f
The Host Killer
The screen in Ethan ’s underground lab glitched—a sudden static burst cutting through the silence.He froze, fingers hovering above the console. This wasn’t Paragon. His AI never made noise like that.Incoming Feed: Host Channel 003Source: Unverified. Encryption Level: Omega.The feed loaded slowly. Then, a grainy video flickered onto the screen.Ethan ’s eyes narrowed.It was a rooftop—wet with rain, lit by the flicker of a dying neon sign. Two figures stood in frame. One was on his knees, bound and trembling. The other wore a sleek black coat, hood up, face blurred by an active distortion field. But Ethan recognized the victim immediately.Tyler tan.The former Brooks Corp developer who’d stolen fragments of Ethan ’s early drone schematics and tried to auction them off on the dark web.Ethan ’s pulse spiked.The hooded figure spoke. The voice was digitally scrambled—cold, mechanical.“Host 005. Unauthorized replications. Attempted system mimicry. Verdict: Termination.”“No, no, wa
Ghost Protocols
The lab was still. Too still.Ethan ’s fingers hovered above the glass console, trembling slightly as the screen pulsed with a sickly green light. Smoke from the city’s collapse still lingered on his coat. His knuckles were raw from breaking through fallen server racks, dragging himself here like a soldier crawling through the rubble of a war he didn’t understand.He didn’t even remember sitting down.But something… called him.Not with words.With code.Unfamiliar glyphs now danced across the console—patterns moving in nonlinear logic, bending and coiling as if alive. They weren’t random. They had structure. Symmetry.They had intention.And for the first time in days, Ethan felt fear crawl back into his bones.“Anomaly detected,” Paragon’s voice said, filtered through digital static.“Residual echo traceable to orbital subnet. Classification: Ghost Network.”Ethan narrowed his eyes. “What subnet?”“MIMIR-7. Unknown satellite cluster. Hidden transmission protocol. Legacy clearance
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