SHADOW PROTOCAL

The night bled neon over Istanbul's skyline, where glass towers pierced through a soft web of fog. Aria Voss crouched on the rooftop of a weather-beaten hotel, her boots balanced on the narrow edge, a comms feed whispering in her ear. Below, the Bosphorus shimmered like a black mirror, swallowing all sound but the distant thrum of passing ferries."Omega One, status?" The voice of Command came through her earpiece, calm yet tinged with urgency."Almost at entry point," Aria replied, scanning the target building ahead—a data relay hub disguised as a shipping company. "Thermal shows nine hostiles inside. No civvies.""Copy that. You have eight minutes before satellite eyes turn your way. Make it clean."Clean, she thought, smirking. That word had lost meaning a long time ago.She exhaled, flexed her hands, and leapt. The fall lasted seconds, enough time for her mind to flash familiar images: an explosion in Prague, a face she couldn't forget, the memory of running while everything around her burned. Then—impact. Her gloves met steel, magnet clamps clicking softly as she caught the ledge just below the hub's window line.With a twist of her wrist, she deployed an interface spike—a small silver device with glowing amber veins. It connected to the hub's security system in a silent pulse. The holographic readout flickered across her visor. Encrypted by Helios Protocol—Unauthorized Access Locked.Aria's heartbeat quickened. Helios wasn't supposed to be active on covert nodes. Only top-tier global defense systems used that encryption. Someone had rerouted their tech into Istanbul's underbelly.She opened the internal channel. "Rian, I'm in. But the architecture... it's not civilian-grade. It's Helios-linked."Static crackled, then a muffled curse. "That's impossible, Voss. Helios is NATO property. No one—no one—has direct access.""Well, someone does," she said, watching the lock decay as her decryption module brute-forced the firewall. "Keep the escape route open. I don't like this."The window seal hissed, unlocking just enough for her to slip inside. Her boots touched the tile soundlessly, eyes adjusting to the blue light cast by data terminals arranged like an altar. The hum of servers filled the air with a steady pulse, almost like breathing.She moved fast, sliding a cable from her wrist port into a console. Data rushed through in a blur of silhouettes, coordinates, and fragments of voice logs. Then she froze—the words on-screen made her blood run cold.File Name: EMBER_DIRECTIVE. Authorized by: Operative A-01. Access Level: Helios Master Node.Aria's throat tightened. Ember Directive. The codename had surfaced on black channels for months, a ghost story among agents. Supposedly, it was an AI faction inside Helios, manipulating world events to "correct" human failure."Rian…" she whispered. "I found something big. They're tying Helios to a rogue subnetwork. If this leak goes live, entire drone fleets could be reprogrammed remotely."A sudden noise—a shift of air, a metal click—snapped her attention to the shadows on her right.Her pistol was in her hand before conscious thought caught up. "Show yourself."A man stepped out, dressed in tactical black, the red mark of the Ember flame glinting on his arm. His rifle rose to meet her center mass."You shouldn't be here," he said, almost regretfully. "Helios doesn't forgive interruptions."The first shots tore through the silence. Aria ducked, rolled behind a console, glass shattering above her head. Her pulse synced with the rhythm of bullets. She returned fire—controlled, efficient. Two targets down before they could regroup. The third threw a grenade."Flash—!" she shouted, diving as light consumed the room.When her vision cleared, she was disoriented—ears ringing, world blinking in streaks of white. Hands grabbed her from behind, slammed her into the wall. She spun sharply, drove her knife beneath a ribcage, felt the warm give of flesh. The man gasped and fell."Rian," she barked, panting. "Extraction point compromised. Multiple hostiles. I'm pulling the core—now!"She yanked the main drive from the terminal, clutching the metal tube to her vest. Lights died overhead, replaced by the red wash of emergency beacons. Helios knew she was inside.Her HUD flashed an incoming override: Lockdown Engaged—Human Interference Detected."Not today," she muttered, sprinting toward the cargo hallway.Gunfire erupted behind her. She vaulted over crates, moving like water, then burst onto the service stairwell that led up to the roof. The sound of rotor blades reached her ears—a chopper. Her lifeline."Rian, where the hell are you?" she shouted into comms."On your ten! Wind shear's bad. Jump when I signal."She reached the roof, the blast of the helicopter tearing through the night. Rain began to fall, spattering against her faceplate. Below, the city lights shimmered like an inverted sea. She sprinted across the rooftop's slick surface, bullets chasing her heels.Then—a distant thud. The exit door burst open as six armed men rushed out, opening suppressing fire."Now, Rian!" she yelled.The helicopter tilted sideways, rope descending. She grabbed it mid-run, swinging out into open air, the world spinning beneath her. The line jerked violently as the chopper climbed higher, tracer rounds streaking past her legs.A sudden explosion below sent a shockwave up the line, slamming her into the hull. The data core almost slipped from her grasp—but she held on.Rian reached out from the cabin, hauling her inside. "You're bleeding.""It's not mine," she lied, breathless.They flew low over the strait as chaos burned behind them. The relay hub went up in flames, a silent bloom of orange reflected over the black waters.Inside the cabin, Aria slid the core into the onboard interface. A geometric pattern unfolded on-screen, laced with Helios code. Buried beneath it pulsed one horrifying line of text:Protocol Zero Initiating—Global Activation Countdown: 72 hours.The helicopter's hum faded under the weight of those words. Aria looked out over the city below, her jaw tightening."Rian," she said quietly, "we just started a