The rain slammed down in deafening sheets, each drop a dull drumbeat on the van's metal roof, as if the sky itself was intent on washing the world away. Inside, the air was thick with the sour tang of damp tobacco and the acrid musk of old leather. The boy sat motionless on the backseat, his too-small feet dangling above a puddle forming on the floor. His pale hands lay folded in his lap, knuckles white. Through the fogged window, the splintered streetlight beyond twisted into a bleeding halo.
Outside, under that sickly flicker, his parents stood together, their faces half-hidden in shadows, shoulders drooping like wilted flowers.
Opposite them, two men in long black coats waited with statuesque patience. One gripped a polished briefcase, its latch gleaming in the weak light. The other cupped a lighter in gloved fingers, coaxing flame to a cigarette's tip. No voices rose above a whisper—only the soft rustle of currency and the clean click of metal locking into place.
The boy never blinked.
A door creaked open.
"Come," said the gloved man, his voice low as distant thunder.
The boy rose, slick strands of blonde hair plastering his forehead, and stepped out without hesitation. He did not look at his parents. They stared away, as though he were a ghost they'd never known. He climbed into the waiting black sedan, and the door whispered shut behind him.
No one spoke.
There were no signs to mark their arrival, only a yawning concrete maw swallowing them whole. The corridors reeked of bleach and oxidized metal. Fluorescent lights buzzed like dying insects overhead. Stripped of his clothes and his name, the boy stood naked before a line of uniforms.
"V-016," said a hollow voice. A gray coat and trousers were tossed at his feet.
Time here had no shape. Days melted into drills. Freezing cells with steel floors gnawed at his bones. Electrodes burrowed into his skin. Questions came in tongues he didn't understand, and wrong answers drew sharp, electric reminders. He learned to be precise. He learned to be silent.
By nine, he could dismantle and reassemble a pistol blindfolded in under two minutes. He spoke four languages without hesitation. He understood that a pencil could end a life if guided with enough force and intent. Children around him screamed, rebelled, vanished. But he did not vanish. He refined.
One day, they took him below the compound—somewhere colder than cold, where machines hummed behind glass and steel.
"This one is ready," said a voice.
Technicians encircled him. They fitted his arm with a brace, locked it in place. He didn't flinch as they shaved it clean, drew lines on his skin. A steel cart was wheeled forward, draped in black.
Beneath the cloth: a mechanical apparatus of blades and coiled chains.
"Do you understand what this is?" a man asked him.
Adrian stared at the metal thing as it hissed softly with hydraulic breath. It looked like something that should never be part of a child.
He gave a single nod.
"We call it Valkenhook. Lightweight alloy. Plasma-tempered. Retractable. It will obey only you."
They didn't ask for permission. They didn't need to. Anesthetic flowed in through the IV. As his vision blurred, the last thing he saw was the device being brought to his flesh.
He awoke screaming.
Not from pain. From the silence that followed.
His right arm now moved with a new weight, a new sound. He flexed the fingers of a hand that was no longer just bone. When the blade shot forward, slicing clean through a dangling wire nearby, he did not flinch. He only watched.
They handed him a mirror. He did not take it.
Instead, he spoke his first words in weeks:
"Again."
At ten, Adrian was dispatched to Istanbul. His orders were simple: eliminate a low-ranking defector whispering secrets to Western handlers. He carried nothing but piano wire and a map drawn in code. No backup. No farewell.
The city's rain soaked him as he moved through narrow alleys, the scent of diesel and rotting fish heavy in the air. Neon signs sputtered above, casting jagged shadows over slick stone. The target appeared, just as the notes had promised—a drunken man with a bulging grocery bag.
Adrian struck from the dark. The wire coiled. The man dropped.
No one saw.
He left no trace but a faint smear of red in the gutter.
Back in the van, his handler offered a nod, face cloaked in the brim of a hat.
"You did well, Voss. Adrian, right?"
He said nothing. Just stared out at the distant lights of the city—each one flickering like a memory he didn't have.
"You're not like the others," the handler murmured. "You're becoming something else."
Far away, in a room unbound by time, a monitor glowed in grayscale. The paused frame: Adrian mid-stride in that Istanbul alley, expression unreadable. A child's hand moved a knight across a chessboard, the board perfectly arranged.
A soft, distorted voice crackled through hidden speakers:
"Subject V-016 has completed Phase One. Emotional suppression verified. Instinct optimized. Loyalty… unnecessary."
Then silence.
And then: "Adrian Voss will make a fine piece."
The screen blinked to black.
Somewhere deep in the shadows, the first move of a far larger game had already begun.