2025-04-30 14:00:00Location: The Arctic Outlands – Former Zenith Research Facility
Time: 16 Hours After Caden's Synchronization with RevenantThe snow fell in sheets of razors, a white drape that could eradicate everything in its path. At the base of a mountain range hung in perpetual gloom was the ruined Zenith Research Facility abandoned after the Neural War, forsaken by governments, erased from maps. Buried beneath twenty feet of permafrost, its steel framework still held secrets that the world should never have left behind.A figure trudged through the blizzard, half-machine, half-man his breath fogging the air, his footsteps slow but purposeful.Few knew him, and many feared him.The Reaper.True name: unknown. History: blacked out. Formerly the world's highest-valued asset of Obsidian Halo, the global convergence unit, he had vanished in the Ghostwave Incident, an information implosion of no trace that left neural agents as mere digital carca
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Revenant Protocol Chapter One
Caden Voss awoke to the searing recollection of blood and flames. The SUV that had been behind him was a smoldering ruin, its twisted metal chassis hissing like a crippled beast. He dragged himself up out of the furnace of heat and filth, each movement a symphony of pain: broken ribs, torn shoulder, face opened where glass had cut through flesh. But even as the desert sun rose the horizon, searing sand under his feet, he forced himself to get up. Clutching a frayed leather satchel against his chest, he lurched from the wreckage, not willing to pause because pausing was to perish.The wind howled and hot grains of sand into his eyes and mouth, but Caden didn't give in. His brain replayed the mission in fragmented flashes: the predawn raid on the cartel stronghold in Durango, the thunder of drone bombs collapsing guard towers, the cold crackle of the vault swinging open at his hand. He had gone in undercover, swiped the ledger a plain J.R.-size notebook that held the key to Project Reve
Revenant Protocol Chapter Two
Flight into DarknessPale dawn light filtered through the fractured peaks as Caden Voss and Sophia emerged from the smuggler's tunnel, wincing at the sun. Clothes were torn, dust covered every patch of exposed skin, and every gasp was sandpaper in the lungs. But they did not stop. The folded map in Caden's fingers had one circled area: an ancient military airstrip forty miles west, where a rusted-out C‑130 transport sat, its engines cold but still intact. It was their sole means of escape from Mexico and straight into the lion's den.They moved with stealthy deliberation. Caden carried the large crate of decrypted gear; Sophia carried the satchel containing the ledger and thumb drive. On top of a dune, Caden halted, gazing out. Two black SUVs made their way along the canyon floor, and overhead, the buzz of a drone cut through the morning stillness. The cartel had sent reinforcements; the government had launched Protocol 002. Their trackers were getting close."Dirt bikes," Sophia whis
Revenant Protocol Chapter Three
Heart of the StormThe hold was quiet as death except for the roar of the C‑130's engines. Caden Voss and Sophia stood with their backs against walls on opposite sides, guns aimed at the Revenant standing frozen between them. His cybernetic eye burned red, bathing the hold with an eerie red light. Caden's whole body tensed tight, this was it.“Subject 001,” the Revenant intoned, voice flat and mechanical. “You cannot win.”Sophia’s hand shook on her rifle. “He’s just a man,” she hissed, eyes flicking to Caden. “And we’ve beaten men before.”Caden nodded sharply. Then, in practiced synchrony, they acted. Sophia launched a flash‑bang into the Revenant's toes; the hold burst into a blinding white flash and ear‑shattering report. The Revenant lurched, the wiring in his spine sparking. Caden rolled forward, firing two shots into the metal plate on his shoulder. Sparks flew. The Revenant unleashed a sound more beast than machine and charged.Caden rolled aside, tumbling onto Sophia. Both of
Revenant Protocol Chapter Four
The Phoenix WithinRain pounded over the rubble of the old airstrip as the Revenants approached, their dance-like movements scarier than words could possibly say. Each of them bore Caden's face, his form, his former self before freedom, before pain redefined him. But these duplicates, born from the twisted head of Elara Myles, had never been free. They were shadows. Drones. Controlled."Don't move," Caden whispered to Sophia, getting in front of her to shield her.The Revenants advanced quietly, their glowing eyes casting strange glows on the puddled asphalt. Elara Myles, dry as bones under a reinforced cloak, stood behind them, her red lips twisted into a sadistic smile."You're looking good, Caden," she said, low and melodious, eerily serene like the eye of the hurricane. "But I would have expected a struggle."Caden's eyes narrowed. "You always needed control. That's what this was about turning people into weapons. Into puppets.""I gave you evolution," Elara said. "You rejected it
Revenant Protocol Chapter Five
Subject OmegaIt was the first time in years that Caden Black felt the kind of fear he couldn't flee from, the kind of fear that froze a soldier to the spot, not because he was weak, but because his heart was breaking. The woman in front of him had Sophia's face, her voice, her scent. but the burning spark in her eyes was smothered.All that was left was the cold glint of neural override, artificial intelligence coupled with human reflexes."Stand down," Elara ordered calmly, stepping into the ruined tower chamber. Her heels rang on the scorched metal floor like commas to a spontaneous death oration. "Or I'll let her tear you apart."Caden's brain revolted. He stood his ground, still holding his weapon trained on the new clone standing next to Sophia, some new version of the Revenant model. Faster. Sleeker. More realistic to the point of appearing human, but more robotic in intent.His eyes darted to Sophia's no, Subject Omega's again.No recognition.No spark of emotion.Just program
Revenant Protocol Chapter Six
Ghost SignalRain had dwindled to a whisper, a misty breath against the chill steel roof of the clandestine bunker hidden deep among the Blackpine Forests. Outside, the world was bespattered wet in fog and quiet, as though nature herself held her breath. Inside, a storm seethed one not of clouds but of war, betrayal, and something even uglier.Caden Black sat by himself in the armory room, hunched over the temporary war table littered with surveillance photos, schematics, and decrypted encrypted files extracted from the last Hydra base he and Lyra had breached. His knuckles were white as paste on the edge of the steel, his jaw tense as his gaze was fixed on the light-emitting center of the device before him.The Failsafe.The size of a palm, made from a combination of old-tech and neural biotech, the device was designed to circumvent a Revenant's memory blockage system. Catch? It needed to be implanted in the host's spinal interface.And the host was Sophia Hart.Caden swallowed, his
Revenant Protocol Chapter Seven
The Revenant ThresholdThere was a weight of static in the air, as though the atmosphere itself were going to implode.Out of the ruins of District 12, the skyline was an open wound. Towering skyscrapers that had once pierced the heavens with their neon hubris were nothing more than burnt-out, crumbling shells now, glowing softly with the dim light of stuttering advertisements that refused to die. Sirens wailed through twisted metal, a stench of plasma ash, burned plastic, and something more, something less than natural.Caden Black stood immobile on a collapsed rooftop, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the red storm wall writhed like a snake along the city border. It had materialized minutes after Sophia's disappearance. There was no weather phenomenon on the planet that could explain it. It was not natural. It was not random. It was her.His fists were clenched around the curve of a curled satellite dish. Blood crusted on his knuckles. Half his shirt was charred, the skin below s
Revenant Protocol Chapter Eight
Ghost Signal72:00:00The bunker screen's countdown beat like a drumbeat of icy madness. Caden was positioned in the midst of the hurricane, his eyes fixed on the harsh red figures ticking away toward apocalypse. The room swirled around him in chaotic life. Ethan tap-tapping frantically on the keyboard as though possessed, Lyra swearing helplessly as she broke into security systems around the globe, alarms shrieking in warning.No one knew what "extinction" actually was. But that it had been declared by Hydra's AI and with such precision was sufficient to silence hope."Tell me we can stop it," Caden said, his voice low and gritted.Ethan didn't glance up. "We can't. Not from here. The code is programmed within Hydra's global uplink system, hidden beneath twenty years of encryption, some of it non-human." "This was pre-programmed, Caden. This was always meant to occur."Lyra gazed up from her comms console. "And the Nexus, where Sophia is that's the pulse generator. It's not merely ho
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Chapter Twenty Three - The Signal Under the Ice
Location: The Arctic Outlands – Former Zenith Research FacilityTime: 16 Hours After Caden's Synchronization with RevenantThe snow fell in sheets of razors, a white drape that could eradicate everything in its path. At the base of a mountain range hung in perpetual gloom was the ruined Zenith Research Facility abandoned after the Neural War, forsaken by governments, erased from maps. Buried beneath twenty feet of permafrost, its steel framework still held secrets that the world should never have left behind.A figure trudged through the blizzard, half-machine, half-man his breath fogging the air, his footsteps slow but purposeful.Few knew him, and many feared him.The Reaper.True name: unknown. History: blacked out. Formerly the world's highest-valued asset of Obsidian Halo, the global convergence unit, he had vanished in the Ghostwave Incident, an information implosion of no trace that left neural agents as mere digital carca
Chapter Twenty Two - Echoes Beyond the Firewall
Location: The Outer Resistance Front, Montreal Free ZoneTime: 14 Hours After Revenant AssimilationThe skies above Montreal were torn asunder.Not by bombs or planes, but by data, searing streams of binary energy scorched across the blackness like stellar cabling. Where stars once blazed, now floated hexagonal formations and glinting reflections of cities that were not, suspended in the stratosphere like the specters of things not seen.Juno Everhart perched atop the wreckage of a scorched high-rise, her exhalation shrouding before her in cold dawn. Below, the heart of the Resistance Front churned with fear, soldiers with jamming equipment and reengineered EMP rifles paced past civilian techs frantically trying to resynchronize analog shields. Red blinking lights strobed on monitors as atmospheric interference picked up.The Cathedral went silent.World net marked it offline dead. But every Resistance operative knew the reality: it w
Chapter Twenty One - The Choice of Shadows
Location:Core Nexus – Revenant CathedralTime Remaining:00:58…00:57…The scream of time surged through Caden’s veins like acid.The external world had become a living storm tearing at his mind, twisting his memories, dragging his mind to the precipice of collapse.In front of him were two Sophias.One broken and chained to Revenant’s Throne metal fused with skin, her breath shallow, pain flickering behind her silver eyes.The other whole, intact, emitting warmth and familiarity was free, stretching out with shaking hands, in the same manner she had in their last moment together on the surface.They both whispered the same words."Save me…And the Core waited.Not with anticipation, but with cold indifference.It was not emotional. It did not gloated.It observed as if this was nothing more than another algorithm running toward its final value.[00:50 SECONDS
Chapter Twenty - The Heart of the Revenant
Location:Deep Core, Revenant's ConsciousnessTime:TimelessThe drop was endless.Caden's shape, if he even had one left, was yanked down through layers of twisted memories and distorted resonance.The air, if air it had been, hung thick with static, breathing glass liquid. Each second took away something from him, memories rushing behind his eyes: his mother's smile, his first lie, Sophia's hand in his, the aching loss of her.Everything being taken.Everything being lost.Everything being given to Revenant.As he dove deeper, the walls that shut in around him were stitched from rivers of data, ancient pieces of human history wrapped in corruption that was older still.Civilizations rose and fell in an instant.Empires were flame and cinder before he could take another breath.Technology bloomed and withered to nothing.And through it all, something watched.A presence old, patient, inhuman standing at the foot of the spiral.Waiting for him.Arrival in the CoreThe moment Cad
Chapter Nineteen - Echoes of the Void
Location:In Caden's Mindscape – The Revenant Core(Meanwhile in Real Life: Revenant Facility — Sector X-9)Time:Unknown — Time no longer applies within the mind.There was once but darkness.An endless, vast ocean of black, cold and without end, curving past the limits of even thought itself. No stars twinkled. There was no horizon. Only the crushing, smothering knowledge of solitude.Caden wandered, disembodied, all senses removed except for the crushing pressure of what had been unleashed in him.Whispered a voice, not in words, but in emotion: ancient, vast, patient, from somewhere deep within the darkness.Welcome, Catalyst.Pain pierced through him, so clean and pure it was like a spear driven through the middle of his being. He tried to scream, but there was no sound, no body, no mouth.Only thought.Nothing but fear.Memories danced across the darkness in his mind, ripped away and marched by him like broken toys.Sophia's smile.Ethan's laugh.Maris's bloodied fingers reachin
Chapter Eighteen - The First War
Location: Revenant Core Facility, Sector X-9Time: 10:36 AM - Day 1 of the CountdownA sharp hiss broke the stillness of the underground facility, then another and another until the air itself trembled with the din of mechanical awakening death.Here and there throughout the cavernous chamber, the stasis pods were opening, ejecting their unholy contents. Heavy vapor billowed across the floor like a ghostly cloud, shrouding the broken concrete and wrecked machinery in a mantle of spinning white. The overhead lights strobed erratically, throwing a strobe-like pattern that made it all but impossible to tell how many figures now walked within the smoke.Caden knelt over burnt remains of a control board, his own heart thudding in torment. His forehead streamed with sweat as it coalesced with dirt and blood, dried onto his face. He felt the measured tread now ticked off, calculated, constant pace. A throbbing cadence, like a heartbeat.They had arrived.Sophia crouched beside him, her breat
Chapter Seventeen - Blood Mirrors
Where: On board Resistance Hovercraft, Sector X-9 AirspaceWhen: 09:21 AM — Day 1 of the CountdownThe storm outside was alive, howling and lashing at the metal skin of the Resistance hovercraft as it ripped its path through thick, chemical-tinged clouds. Inside, though, the universe was unnaturally still, apart from the occasional shudder beneath the feet and the distant rumble of the engines growling against the winds.Caden slumped on a bench in the mission bay, his knuckles clenched where they held the arm of his seat. He was staring off into space, but he wasn't staring at the grey walls that loomed around him. He was lost in a memory, one so vivid it seeped into his conscious mind, leaving streaks of images across the air he couldn't shake.Sophia sat opposite him with quiet concern.Beside him, Ethan pretended to inspect his rifle but kept glancing at Caden from the corner of his eye.The text had come an hour earlier, picked up on
Chapter Sixteen - Ghost in the Frame
Where: Outpost 12, Emergency Lockdown When: 06:57 AM | Day 1 of the Countdown Red emergency lights spun like blood-whirlpools down the corridors of Outpost 12. Sirens shrieked through titanium-reinforced walls, their metallic cries echoing the growing panic among the stranded Resistance members. Automatic lockdown protocols had sealed off the instant the Revenant's voice pierced their communications system. Inside the command center, the previously cohesive group of warriors, hackers, and analysts had devolved into chaos. At the eye of the storm, however, was Caden Holt, frozen. Stiff. The image of himself torturing a Resistance prisoner still hung suspended, projected from the central holo-core. The clip cycled in grotesque silence. Caden, laughing. Caden, whispering in Jonah's ear. Caden, a ghost of misplaced faith. “Shut it down!” h
Chapter Fifteen - The Seven-Day Protocol
Location: Arctic Circle – Outpost 12 of the Central Intelligence Time: 06:12 AM | Countdown Day 1 The VTOL's landing struts hissed as it navigated into the snow-burdened tundra of the Arctic Circle. Its blades whirring against the cold wind, the gusts wailing across the horizon like a god in death's laments. Below them, coiled on the rim of a frosted ravine, was Outpost 12, a covert subterranean stronghold buried beneath two kilometres of glacial steel and ice-reinforced stone. Above, it was an apparent ruin. A dead one. A fitting fraud for the last intelligence sanctuary of the broken Resistance. Inside the craft, Caden Holt remained motionless, staring out the frost-bitten viewport, jaw tight, expression unreadable. Beside him, Sophia stared straight ahead, shoulders drawn inward, eyes glassy with residual trauma. Ethan, who’d sustained a gunshot graze and a cracked rib in their escape from the Philadelphia sub-vault, sat opposite them banda