Shadow Contract: The Bodyguard’s War

Silence Protocol

They ran blind through the smoke.

Ash led the charge, rifle in hand and night vision gear clipped over one eye. Damien positioned himself between Sophia and any potential threat, his heart racing as he gripped his pistol in one hand while guilt weighed heavily in the other.

The freight tunnel wasn’t just breached; it was being demolished. Explosives had been strategically placed on support beams and detonated with precision.

Someone knew exactly where they were.

“Shadow Unit,” Ash shouted as they ducked behind an overturned crate. “At least five. Heat signatures moving along the west wall.”

Damien swore softly. “They’re herding us.”

“Toward the secondary exit.”

He turned to Sophia. “You good?”

She nodded, her breath unsteady. “Just keep moving.”

Ash tapped her ear. “Looping signal jammer. I’ll buy us twenty seconds.”

They took off again quickly, low, and methodically. Gunfire erupted behind them in short bursts, bullets tearing through concrete and narrowly missing them. Damien fired a shot without aiming, hearing a grunt as a body hit the ground.

One down.

Four to go.

When they finally burst into the open air, dawn was just breaking.

The tunnel’s exit led them into an old, abandoned train yard. Fog clung to the rusted rails, and decaying boxcars loomed like sleeping giants.

Ash checked her scanner. “They’re not following. Not yet.”

Damien’s gaze shifted to Sophia.

She was shaking, her lips tinged blue, pupils wide.

That didn’t sit right with him.

“We need to get whatever’s in her head out,” he insisted. “Before it shuts her down.”

Ash nodded. “I’ve got the rig. It’s risky.”

“I don’t care.”

Inside an old security cabin, they set up the neural interface again, this time focused solely on extraction.

Sophia lay on a dusty cot, cables snaking into a monitor. Her vitals flickered erratically. Ash studied the readouts in silence while Damien paced the room, a knot tightening in his stomach.

“You’re sure this works?” he asked.

Ash didn’t look up. “It’s black-market tech. Used it once on an asset in Belarus. He lived.”

“How well?”

“Define ‘well.’”

Damien’s jaw clenched. “If she dies”

“She won’t,” Ash interjected. “Unless Eclipse triggers a feedback loop.”

Sophia opened her eyes. “Do it.”

Ash hesitated. “You sure?”

“I’m done running. Get it out of me.”

Ash activated the system.

The extraction process was brutal.

Sophia’s body convulsed violently. The monitor blared. Damien held her down as she arched off the cot, teeth gritted, sweat streaming down her face.

Data streamed across the screensymbols, pulses, sequences a complete neural map of the Eclipse Core Protocol.

It was beautiful.

And deadly.

Ash’s fingers flew across the console, isolating threads and rerouting corrupted loops. “We’re getting a clean signal. This thing is alive.”

Then, the monitor flatlined.

Damien's heart dropped.

“Sophia?!”

Ash scrambled to inject a stimulant. Nothing.

“No pulse,” she said. “I need a defib now!”

Damien grabbed the portable AED, ripped open Sophia’s shirt, placed the pads, and hit the trigger.

Shock.

Her body jolted.

Still nothing.

Ash pressed her fingers to the side of Sophia’s throat. “Still our hearts ’ not responding.”

“Again.”

Shock.

Nothing.

Damien’s voice trembled. “Come on. Come on.”

Then beep.

The monitor flickered.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

She gasped.

Damien caught her as she shot upright, coughing and clutching her chest.

“You’re okay,” he whispered.

“No,” Ash said, staring at the screen. “She’s not.”

They both turned.

The monitor wasn’t just tracking vitals anymore.

It was broadcasting.

A coded signal.

Ash’s voice dropped. “She didn’t just hold Eclipse’s key…”

Damien stared in horror.

“She activated it.”