The notification materialized in Alex Stone's mind like a verdict delivered by digital gods.
『 ✦ Simulation Status: COMPLETE ✦ 』 『 ★★★★★ MAXIMUM DIFFICULTY ★★★★★ 』 『 Case File: The Riverside Strangler — New Harbor Downtown 』 『 Skills Acquired: Master-Level Manual Strangulation 』 『 ⚠️ WARNING: Psychological Barriers at 8% Integrity ⚠️ 』
Alex remained motionless on his narrow dorm bed, eyes fixed on the water-stained ceiling above. Late afternoon light bled through cracked venetian blinds, casting prison bar shadows across the floor. In the distance, sirens wailed their familiar song.
The sound used to make his heart race.
Now it was just... background noise.
Four years. Four years of becoming every monster the system could imagine.
『 ◆ CRIMESYNC™ NEURAL INTERFACE ◆ 』 『 Total Simulations: 100,000 』 『 Criminal Methodologies Mastered: 1,247 』 『 Perfect Crimes Executed: 99,847 』 『 Psychological Profile: CRITICALLY UNSTABLE 』 『 Moral Degradation: 92% COMPLETE 』
The numbers told only part of the story. Behind each statistic lay a world—a scene—a death. His hands retained muscle memory from a thousand different ways to kill. His mind catalogued vulnerabilities in every person he met.
CRIMESYNC™ had promised to forge the perfect detective. To catch monsters, the creators said, you had to think like one.
They never mentioned the toll.
He clenched his jaw until molars ground together. Eight percent integrity—all that remained of his original moral framework. Everything else had been systematically dismantled, rewritten, corrupted.
"Fuck," he whispered to the empty room.
Even his voice belonged to someone else now.
The door exploded inward.
"ALEX!"
Kevin Ross burst through like a hurricane of enthusiasm, Riverside Police Academy jacket half-zipped, brown hair defying gravity in twelve different directions.
"Rise and shine, sleeping beauty! Today's the big day!"
Alex sat up with mechanical precision, every movement calculated. Kevin was oblivious to the change.
"Internship placement! New Harbor Metropolitan Criminal Investigation Bureau!" Kevin's grin could have powered the building. "We're finally getting out of this shithole academy!"
Kevin's excitement was genuine. Pure. He had no idea what his roommate had become. No comprehension of what CRIMESYNC™ had carved away.
No clue what was studying him from behind familiar eyes.
"I'm up," Alex said softly.
Kevin's celebration stuttered. Not at the words—at the tone beneath them.
"You good, man? You sound..."
Alex manufactured a smile he'd worn a thousand times in simulations. "Just nervous about the placement."
Kevin's enthusiasm reignited, though uncertainty lingered at its edges. "Nervous? Dude, you destroyed that final exam. Perfect score—first in academy history! They're probably fighting over you."
『 ◆ PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS ◆ 』 『 Subject: Kevin Ross — Roommate/Asset 』 『 Threat Level: NEGLIGIBLE 』 『 Manipulation Potential: EXTREMELY HIGH 』 『 Emotional Attachment: CRITICAL VULNERABILITY 』 『 Recommended Action: MAINTAIN OPERATIONAL DISTANCE 』
Alex blinked hard, forcing the analysis away.
Kevin was his friend. His anchor to whatever humanity remained.
He needed that connection.
Even if the system flagged it as weakness.
"Let's go," Alex said, rising fluidly.
His reflection in the desk mirror showed ordinary features—brown hair, average build, forgettable face. The kind of person who disappeared in crowds.
But his eyes told a different story.
They belonged to someone who had lived a hundred thousand lives and ended just as many. Someone who knew exactly how much pressure it took to crush a windpipe, how long a person could survive with a punctured lung, the precise angle to slide a blade between ribs.
Someone who was very, very dangerous.
『 ◆ CRIMESYNC™ STATUS REPORT ◆ 』 『 Subject Integration: 99.7% COMPLETE 』 『 Field Deployment: AUTHORIZED 』 『 Primary Directive: Hunt or Be Hunted 』 『 Secondary Objective: LOCATE AND ASSESS SUBJECT BETA 』
Alex froze.
That was new.
Mission parameters he'd never seen before. Subject Beta—another product of the program? Another weapon like himself?
"You coming or what?" Kevin called from the hallway.
Alex followed, his enhanced awareness cataloguing everything. Exit points. Sight lines. Potential weapons. Every person was now a variable in an equation he didn't fully understand.
Across the street, partially concealed behind an ancient oak tree, sat an unmarked black surveillance van.
Inside, a woman with platinum blonde hair in a severe wolf-cut scrolled through data on a military-grade tablet. Her face possessed the kind of beauty that belonged in art galleries—sharp, angular, designed to be admired from a safe distance.
The tablet displayed Alex's complete psychological profile. Every simulation. Every skill acquired. Every moral boundary crossed.
She smiled.
It wasn't a human expression.
"Subject Alpha is mobile," she spoke into a encrypted comm unit. "Beginning active surveillance. Phase One initiated."
Her real name was buried in classified files so deep they might as well not exist. But the Bureau's shadow database knew her by a single designation:
Subject Beta.
The game was beginning.
And only one of them knew the rules.
『 ◆ CRIMESYNC™ SYSTEM LOG 01 ◆ 』
› Subject: ALEX STONE
› Classification: ALPHA PROTOTYPE
› Status: FIELD DEPLOYMENT ACTIVE
› System Integration: NEAR-COMPLETE
› Cognitive Resistance: MINIMAL
› Hunter Protocol: ENGAGED
› Observation: "They created the perfect predator to catch predators. They just forgot to install a leash."
⟿ END CHAPTER 1
⟿ NEXUS PROTOCOL INITIATED...