2025-08-19 15:09:00
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Predators in the Dark
The rain came down in sheets over New Dawn City, streaking the glass towers with a sheen that turned their reflections into warped shadows. Ethan stood at the window of his rented high-rise loft, his jaw tight, the lights of the skyline flickering across his eyes like a thousand unblinking witnesses.Paragon’s overlay glimmered faintly across his vision, but tonight it wasn’t clean streams of code or ordered alerts. It was noise. Static. Like something or someone was clawing at the edges of the system itself.“Paragon,” he muttered, voice hoarse, “give me a read. Who’s out there?”The reply was clipped, colder than usual:[Host Signature Detected: 003 — Codename: Specter]Behavioral Pattern: Hostile. Objective: Terminate weaker Hosts.]Ethan’s stomach dropped. “Terminate?”He paced, fingers raking his hair. “Weaker Hosts? You mean… there are more out there? And this thing is hunting them down?”Paragon didn’t answer immediately. Instead, a faint digital hum filled the silence.That s
The First Cut
The morning news feeds moved like a tide of poison.Every outlet, every trending tag, every whispered boardroom chat — they all seemed to orbit one name.Ethan Cole.And not in the way he once dreamed.“Rogue inventor.”“Unstable genius.”“Liability to the industry.”The phrases bled from one screen to another, seeping into the cracks of his reputation. A fabricated “incident” at a prototype test site. Alleged unsafe code practices in Paragon. An “unnamed source” — which every publication swore they’d protect, claiming Ethan’s work posed “an existential risk.”Ethan sat in the dim corner of his workspace, the city lights from the wall of glass cutting long shadows across the floor. His fingers hovered over the console, but he wasn’t coding. He was scrolling. Searching. Trying to find the origin.It didn’t make sense. Just days ago, the tech press had been cautious but respectful — curious about his sudden return. Now, they were tearing him apart like he’d always been a ticking bomb.T
Ghost Markets
The next evening, the city felt different. Maybe it was just him, but Ethan could swear the air carried a faint hum, like static before a storm.Paragon’s voice had been unusually quiet since the gala, almost as if it was… thinking. Or hiding something. And Ethan couldn’t get Lena’s face out of his head, the way her eyes had softened, the way her voice trembled just enough to feel real. He hated that he remembered every detail.He should have dismissed it as another of her tricks. He should have shut the door in his own mind before she even stepped through it. But instead, here he was, following a thread from the Ghost Network into one of the city’s most dangerous shadows — a black-market tech auction whispered about only in the deepest corners of the dark web.{Paragon: This address is flagged as high-risk. Proceed with extreme caution.}“Since when do you care about caution?” Ethan muttered under his breath.{Paragon: Since you started making irrational decisions.}He pulled the hoo
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
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