The next morning dawned clear and electric. Kairo woke with a strange sense of purpose humming through his veins. The world wasn't just visible anymore—it was transparent, layered, intricate. And for the first time, he wasn't afraid of it.
He sat on the edge of his bed, watching as pale threads of color traced themselves across the morning light spilling through his window. Outside, the city stirred: buses rumbled, horns blared, and a thousand stories unfolded behind glass and steel.
Kairo had made a decision.
He wasn't going to run from this.
He was going to use it.
But not for vengeance. Not for cheap thrills. For truth.
He remembered how, before the accident, he had always been obsessed with uncovering secrets—corporate corruption, political scandal, celebrity hypocrisy, the realities people pretended didn't exist. The media was always ten steps behind or bought out. But now, he could get to the truth before anyone else even knew where to look.
He opened his laptop and scrolled through job boards. Not for manual labor, not for customer service. He needed a place that could house his new path.
He typed one word into the search bar: exposé.
Several options popped up, but one caught his eye—Channel Verge.
An old titan of the media world, Channel Verge had survived the upheavals of the industry, not because of its size or money, but because of the iron will of those at its helm. Its founder remained a mystery, rarely seen or mentioned in public. But the company endured, respected and feared, balancing public trust with a willingness to expose uncomfortable truths.
"Perfect," Kairo muttered.
He cleaned up, dressed simply, and headed out. As he walked through the city, the layers around him pulsed with soft energy. He passed people whose threads pulsed red with anxiety, gold with ambition, green with envy. The numbers, always floating, offered quick reads—states of mind, potential, connections. They changed with every thought, every lie.
But he had learned to let most of it pass without stopping. Not every truth needed to be unraveled. Not yet.
Channel Verge's office was a fusion of aged elegance and quiet force—polished wood, granite accents, and thick walls that whispered of old money and untold scandals. It was the kind of place that had heard secrets never spoken aloud.
Kairo approached the front desk, where a receptionist scanned him with practiced boredom.
"Hi. I'm here to see someone about a content researcher or contributor role. Investigative work, especially."
The woman arched an eyebrow. "Appointment?"
"No. But I have something better."
She handed him a tablet. "Fill it out. Someone might see you if you're lucky."
While he waited, Kairo's gaze naturally drifted. With a flick of concentration, the office walls blurred, revealing layers underneath:
—A department head, late fifties, stood behind a frosted glass panel. Through the wall, Kairo saw a young female employee kneeling by his desk—not picking anything up. Her aura was dull, submissive, tainted.
—Two employees from rival departments—departments that were not supposed to mingle—met in secret by the stairwell, exchanging physical closeness and whispered promises. Information passed between hands, unseen by any camera or supervisor.
—In the far north hallway, a senior figure in IT had rigged a bypass in the surveillance feed. Kairo followed the invisible threads to see that the blackout always aligned with certain room reservations—private meetings that never showed up on the public booking system.
The entire building breathed lies, intimacy, leverage.
Then a voice broke the trance.
"You the walk-in?" A woman in a slate-gray suit with sharp cheekbones and calculating eyes approached. Her aura was pale orange, firm. Her expression held curiosity veiled in skepticism.
"Yes. Kairo Vale."
"Rhea Madon. Senior editor. Five minutes. Make it count."
In a private room, he didn't sell a resume. He offered an edge.
"I see what others miss. Patterns. Connections. Secrets hiding in plain sight. Give me access to your archives, your feeds, your ground team—I'll give you leads before the story breaks."
She gave him a long look. "And why would I believe you?"
Kairo leaned forward, eyes narrowing slightly. "Because your company isn't as clean as it looks. And I don't mean old scandals. I mean now. A department head using his authority to get women into compromising positions. Two inter-department staffers sharing information from rival teams while pretending not to know each other. Secret meetings in blackout rooms tied to IT bypasses."
Rhea's posture shifted, slightly.
"I don't have access," he continued, "but I don't need it. I see enough."
Rhea left the room without a word.
Nearly an hour later, she returned. Her aura now shimmered with steel gray and soft silver.
"You're on trial. Temporary role. You provide us with something real, you stay. You screw up, you vanish."
Kairo accepted the ID badge.
"And Vale," she added as he reached the door. "Don't come sniffing around upper management. You won't like what you find."
He gave a small, amused nod. "I prefer discovering things on my own."
Outside, the city glinted under the dying light. The streets pulsed with secrets. For the first time, he had a legitimate platform, a reason to dive deeper without drawing suspicion.
But behind the respectable veneer of Channel Verge, Kairo had already seen cracks. Covert exchanges. Power games. Hidden violations.
He wouldn't expose them yet.
Some secrets needed time to ripen.
And the boss at the very top?
He'd find out eventually. Not through files or whispers.
Through the walls. Through the dark.