The city looked different from rooftops.
Cleaner. Quieter. Less guilty.
Adrian stood on the ledge of a crumbling parking structure, looking out over District 5. Unlike District 9, this part of the city still sparkled with glass towers and midnight traffic. People below lived their lives in soft ignorance—flickering screens, late-night coffee, blind trust in laws written by liars.
He didn't envy them.
He lit another cigarette. The first had died in the car ride over. Verge's words echoed in his mind like static through a broken radio:
"You're not going to get justice—only blood."
He exhaled slowly, then pulled out the black notebook from his coat pocket. A simple book. Unmarked. Inside were twelve names, written in red ink.
The Ash List.
Every name responsible for his ruin. Every name tied to the blacksite that didn't officially exist. The place where they turned men into whispers and memories into ash.
Verge's was the first name crossed out—not dead, but handled. Controlled.
The next name stared back at him:
Dr. Elias Varrin.
Behavioral Sciences Division.
Codename: "Echo Room."
Adrian tapped the page once with his gloved finger.
Varrin wasn't just part of the system. He designed it. The experiments. The rewiring of identity. Psychological warfare under the pretense of interrogation.
Adrian knew. Because he was Subject E-17.
Elsewhere — 4:47 AM
In a dark room filled with screens, a woman sat cross-legged on a desk, sipping stale black coffee.
Her name was Rhea Calder. Former intelligence analyst. Now freelance. Which meant illegal.
She watched the grainy security feed of Verge's apartment. Motionless. No police had responded. No one had even filed a report.
But she saw him.
The man in black.
The camera caught only fragments—his back, a reflection in the broken hallway mirror—but her instincts screamed louder than the silence on the footage.
She flipped open her own case file. Not government-issued. Personal.
Name: Adrian Kael
Status: Deceased (Official)
Classification: Internal Threat Level Omega
Note: If seen, do not engage. Report directly to Tier-1 Command.
Rhea stared at the screen.
"How the hell are you still alive?"
Back in District 7 – 5:10 AM
Adrian stood in front of an unmarked building tucked between a butcher shop and a defunct pharmacy. The windows were blacked out, the lock electronic.
Inside was a safehouse—his. Stocked over the last six months as he quietly rebuilt everything they tried to erase. IDs. Data chips. A burner rig. His old military watch. And most importantly—audio recordings.
He played one now.
"Subject E-17 shows high pain tolerance, but remains uncooperative. Recommending full sensory deprivation protocol."
—Voice: Dr. Elias Varrin
Adrian stared at the wall as the voice droned on.
He didn't flinch. Didn't speak. Just pressed a red thumbprint onto the wall panel, activating the encrypted system.
A screen lit up.
Tracking…
Target: Elias Varrin
Location Ping: Active — Zurich, Sector Compound.
He closed the panel.
You're next, Doctor.
Adrian opened a hidden drawer and pulled out a black vest, a concealed firearm, and a data spike the size of a thumbnail. He slid it into his pocket like a coin.
Then he looked in the cracked mirror near the door.
Same face. New rules.
…..
The mirror didn't lie—but it didn't tell the whole truth either.
Adrian Kael stared at his reflection.
The man who looked back was built from scars and silence. His eyes were the only part of him that still felt human—until even that faded. What he saw now wasn't a survivor. It was a weapon polished by grief.
He didn't hate what he saw.
He hated that it took losing everything to become it.
5:37 AM
The safehouse was soundproof, reinforced, and wired to burn if he gave the signal. But tonight, it wasn't flames he needed. It was answers.
He sat at a steel desk lit by a single hanging bulb. On it were fragments of data—surveillance stills, classified call logs, medical reports from Project ECHO. He had pieced them together over the last year, one bribe and broken jaw at a time.
He laid them out like a puzzle. Names. Photos. Timelines.
All of it led back to the same place.
Blacksite Thorne.
Not a prison. A laboratory.
A hellhole disguised as "enhanced interrogation," where no trial, no lawyer, and no truth could survive. Run off the books. Hidden even from top-level clearance.
Adrian had been the subject of Phase IV testing—neurological destabilization, memory corrosion, emotional nullification. Most didn't survive. The ones who did were never the same.
He remembered the screams.
Not his.
Others.
A girl with trembling hands who whispered numbers in her sleep. A man who flinched every time a light turned on. A boy who no longer knew what language was.
And then there was Adrian.
He remembered everything.
6:05 AM – Zurich Compound, Private Clinic, Level 3
Dr. Elias Varrin poured himself a glass of bourbon before noon. He always did on Thursdays.
A twitch ran through his left eye. It had started six years ago. Unexplained, the neurologists said. Probably stress. Probably guilt.
But he knew what it really was.
Fear.
He felt it again now, like a buzz in his blood.
The cameras had picked up something. A vehicle that had circled the compound three times in the last two days. No plates. Tinted windows. Standard anti-surveillance tech.
It was the kind of thing the Agency used… back when they still cared.
He set the glass down, hand shaking slightly.
"Dead men don't stay buried."
That's what the note had said.
Slipped under his office door last night. No signature. No trace. Just those five words, printed in blood-red ink.
He didn't sleep after that.
Elias opened a drawer and removed a small black case. Inside was a transdermal capsule—a suicide failsafe. Implanted in every lead scientist when the project began. It would only trigger if certain vitals dropped or if a trigger phrase was spoken.
He stared at it.
Then closed the drawer.
He's not alive. He can't be.
Back in the Safehouse – 6:11 AM
Adrian's burner phone buzzed once. An encrypted ping.
The hacker came through.
"Zurich compound breach protocol: soft spot on sublevel three. Nightshift security change at 2:00 AM."
He memorized it in seconds.
No notes. No backups. He didn't trust paper or cloud.
Only memory.
He stood, gathering what he needed. Pistol. Data spike. EMP chip. Mask.
Then he pulled something personal from the drawer. A thin chain with a locket.
Inside was a photo.
A girl, age ten, with a crooked smile and fire in her eyes.
"I'm gonna be a soldier like you one day, Daddy."
His hand closed around the locket.
He hadn't worn it since the trial.
He slid it over his neck and tucked it under his shirt.
You won't be forgotten, Maya. None of them will be.
7:01 AM – Across the City
Rhea Calder leaned back in her chair, eyes locked on a wall of monitors. Multiple angles of Adrian Kael's old life. His military service. His trial. The scandal. The shutdown of the Echo Project.
And now, his resurrection.
She dialed a private line. It rang twice.
A voice answered.
"Tier-1 Ops. Go ahead."
"I have a problem," Rhea said.
"Define 'problem.'"
"He's alive. Adrian Kael. Operating with intent."
Silence.
Then: "Do not engage."
"Too late for that," she said. "He knows we're watching."
A pause.
Then: "Then stop watching."
The line went dead.
Rhea stared at the phone.
So it's like that…
They didn't want him caught.
They wanted him to disappear. Again.
She pulled a flash drive from her desk drawer and slipped it into her boot. Then she grabbed her coat and gun.
If they wanted her to shut up, they should've paid her more.