A week had passed since M stocked his mansion with the tools of a life he hadn't lived yet. The Caliburn purred like a jaguar in sleep beneath the glass-roofed garage. The Type-66, a panther ready to maul. The Aerondight shimmered like liquid chrome. The Nazare waited like a street demon begging for release. They were his now. All of them. Like his suits—custom tailored, silk-lined, carbon-threaded armor against a world that respected only power.
He favored black and gold. Always had. Black because it devoured the light. Gold because .... well because he liked it.
But today? Today he had a problem no amount of eurodollars could fix:
He was hungry.
M, the man who knew fifty different ways to end a life and zero ways to boil an egg, was starving.
He stood in front of his fridge—a polished glass monolith filled with exotic produce, synthetic meats, and high-nutrient packs. He stared at it like it had offended him.
"...I should've hired a chef," he muttered.
Half an Hour Later – North Oak
The Caliburn whispered through the wide lanes of North Oak. The inside cabin was a cathedral of quiet and performance: suspension tuned like a race car, comfort set to automatic. M sat in the driver's seat like a monarch on a mobile throne.
His suit today was obsidian-black with thin gold thread along the lapels and cuffs. His shirt, jet-black silk. A gold pin—stylized as a wolf's fang—rested against the left collar.
He pulled up in front of Eden's Bite, a restaurant so elite its guest list had a guest list. The valet didn't ask questions. No one asked M questions. Not when he looked like that, and not when the car he stepped out of cost more than the building.
One Hour Later
Stuffed on exotic braised synth-veal with real truffle flakes, sipping highland whiskey aged two centuries, M stepped back into his Caliburn and leaned back into the seat.
His glasses rested across his face—sleek, curved, matte black with gold rims. They were more than eyewear. They were his second brain.
On the surface, they were sunglasses. Behind the glass? A full neural interface, linked to every known database, encrypted and secure. They allowed calls, payments, streaming, and the one feature he valued most: omniscience.
Thermal detection. X-ray capabilities. Facial recognition. Real-time scanning. The city couldn't hide from him. And perhaps more importantly—
They hid him.
Any camera or feed trying to record him saw only a blur. Untrackable. Untouchable.
The Caliburn glided through Corpo Plaza. Polished towers scraped at artificial clouds. People walked, ran, shouted, cried. The usual.
Then the light turned red.
And he saw it.
The Car
It was unremarkable at a glance. A beat-up old quadra coupe. Matte silver, dented, a little rust at the edges. The kind of car a salaryman or street punk might drive.
But M had instincts. Instincts carved from blood, bone, and battle. And something tingled at the base of his skull. He activated the scanning functions on his glasses. Heat signatures flared behind the car's thin steel walls.
Five individuals. Four males. One female.
Weapons detected: Heavy. Modified. Unsanctioned.
One lifeform: Trunk. Female. Tied. Sedated. Condition: Elevated heart rate. Internal bruising.
ID Check: Four known SCAVs. Wanted in three districts.
M's jaw set. Not from anger. From focus.
Not because he was a hero. That wasn't the game he played.
But points were points.
And it had been a while since he stretched his real muscles.
He followed them.
The SCAV car made no erratic moves. Didn't notice. They weren't used to being hunted—only being the hunters.
Big mistake.
SCAV Base – Industrial Zone, Pacifica Border
The building was a corpse. A three-story, long-dead factory on the edge of Pacifica, swallowed by graffiti, grime, and desperation. Its windows were shattered. Its walls wept rust.
The car pulled in through a side gate. M parked the Caliburn three blocks away, activated its stealth lock, took his boot knife and vanished into the shadows.
He moved like mist. Like war made flesh. Every step a calculated promise of death.
Glasses switched to thermal.
Forty-seven hostiles.
Multiple sectors. Scatter formation. Low discipline. High aggression.
Perfect.
He came in through the roof. Old maintenance hatch.
Dropped into a control room.
Two SCAVs arguing over a disassembled gun.
They died with holes in their throats, their screams muffled by steel.
He moved like a ghost through hallways soaked in piss and blood. Rooms lit by flickering neon and suffering. The smell of meat and death.
One by one, they fell.
Some died before they realized he was real. Others saw a blur of gold-lined black and then nothing.
He stabbed with precision. Fought with the efficiency of a man who didn't waste breath on grunts.
A knife into the kidneys. A knife between the eyes. A neck broken in the dark.
Blood. Screams. Static.
But he was calm. Always calm. Always cold.
By the time he stood in the middle of the atrium—scarlet on the floor, bodies piled like twisted art—his system pinged softly.
Kill count: 47
Attribute points earned: +0.47
Skill points earned: +0.47
Back Outside .....
He found it again. The beater quadra. Parked crooked near the back gate.
He approached it, wiping blood off his gloves with a silk handkerchief.
The trunk was closed. Locked. But nothing stayed locked for M.
A went back inside and took the car keys from a corpse and it popped open with a click.
And he froze.
He stared at the girl in the trunk, bound and bruised, unconscious.
Then he laughed ...