Shadow Contract: The Bodyguard’s War

The Inside Man

The bodies were still warm when Damien closed the hatch.

Four men. No insignia, no dog tags. One of them had a sidearm from Vale, while another carried an encrypted comm unit that had already been wiped clean.

Just ghosts, every last one.

Ash knelt by the nearest body, rummaging through pockets. “They were here to kill her, not to take her alive. Two of them had single-shot darts. Hollow tips. Nerve agents.”

Damien didn’t reply. He was focused on powering up the long-range sat-link burner a backup system relying on a repurposed weather balloon in low orbit. Only one number was programmed in.

Vale.

It connected after two encrypted rings.

Adrian Vale’s face appeared on the screen, lit up by the sterile glow of a white-walled office. His suit was sharp and tailored, but his eyes told a different story.

“Damien,” he said, his voice smooth and corporate. “I assume this isn’t just a friendly chat.”

“You sent assassins.”

Vale frowned. “I sent no one.”

“One of them had a weapon from you.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Just like Project Eclipse,” Damien shot back, “but here we are.”

Vale leaned in closer. “I gave you one job: keep her alive.”

“You only gave me half the truth.”

An uncomfortable silence filled the air.

Finally, Vale let out a slow breath. “They’re not mine.”

“Then whose are they?”

Vale glanced off-screen for a moment. When he returned, his voice dropped. “There’s someone else. Someone who activated an old asset chain I thought was done three years ago.”

Damien stiffened. “Rourke.”

Vale’s silence said it all.

“You knew he was still alive.”

“I hoped he wasn’t,” Vale admitted. “But you’ve always been better at dealing with ghosts than I was.”

“You handed Sophia’s mother over to him,” Damien said. “I heard the recording.”

Vale’s expression darkened. “That was a mistake. One of many.”

“She died believing she saved her daughter. You let Eclipse keep running.”

“I tried to kill it,” Vale snapped. “But Rourke already had fragments. The AI restructured. It became decentralized.”

Damien clenched his jaw. “And now?”

“Now it’s testing how far it can go without us.”

Ash cut the link.

“Do you believe him?” she asked.

Damien stayed quiet.

Ash frowned. “You should. Vale’s a lot of thingsarrogant, manipulative but scared? That’s new.”

Sophia stepped out from behind a rusty cabinet, her face pale but steady.

“What happens if this… Rourke gets what he wants?” she asked.

Ash looked grim. “Then Eclipse stops needing people.”

Sophia swallowed hard. “And if he doesn’t get it?”

“Then he’ll burn everything down trying.”

They moved again, this time to an old freight tunnel that used to transport weapons beneath the city during the Cold War. Ash set it up with proximity sensors and thermal traps. Meanwhile, Damien scanned encrypted traffic for patterns.

He found one.

A repeated phrase embedded within burst data across old military satellite networks:

“Protocol Reign: 13 Days Remaining.”

He showed it to Ash.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Looks like a countdown.”

“To what?”

“I don’t know.”

Sophia sat across from them, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes blank.

Ash glanced at her. “She’s fading.”

“She’s processing,” Damien replied.

“She’s just a girl caught in a war she didn’t choose.”

“She’s the reason there’s a war.”

Ash shot him a sharp look. “That kind of thinking could get her killed.”

“I don’t treat assets like kids.”

“She’s not just an asset.”

“She’s not a civilian anymore, either.”

They locked eyes until Sophia broke the tension.

“I need to know what’s inside me.”

Ash stood slowly. “Then we’ll extract it.”

The next night, in a makeshift med bay pieced together from scavenged field equipment, Sophia lay on a padded bench as Ash hooked her up to a portable neural monitor.

“I don’t remember anything,” she whispered.

“You don’t need to,” Ash said gently. “The pattern’s embedded in echo neurons that trigger when you’re stressed, scared, or feeling intense emotions. We’re just going to listen to the rhythm.”

Damien stood by the door, arms crossed. Every muscle in his body screamed to stop this.

But he didn’t move. 

Sophia closed her eyes, her breathing slowing.