District 9 — Residential Sector — 8:45 PM
Kazuki walked home under the flickering streetlights. He was wearing the black-rimmed "Limiter Glasses" Renji had given him.
For the first time in days, he felt... peaceful.
The glasses worked. The roar of the city was just a hum. The vibration of the ground was gone. He was just a teenager walking home after a long day.
He stopped at a vending machine to buy a soda.
He dropped a coin in. Clink.
He pressed the button. Click.
The soda fell. Thud.
Then... nothing.
The soda can didn't roll. The hum of the vending machine vanished. The distant sound of traffic cut out like someone had pulled a plug.
Kazuki looked around. A car drove past him on the street, but it made no noise. It glided silently like a ghost.
A stray cat meowed on a fence, its mouth opening, but no sound came out.
[WARNING: AUDIO SENSORS OFFLINE.]
[DIAGNOSTIC: HARDWARE FUNCTIONAL. ENVIRONMENTAL ANOMALY DETECTED.]
Kazuki tapped his ear. Nothing.
He took off the glasses.
Usually, taking them off unleashed a flood of noise.
But tonight? Absolute zero.
A chill went down his spine. This wasn't a malfunction. This was a weapon.
He spun around.
Standing in the middle of the empty street, twenty meters away, was a man.
He wore a long, charcoal-grey trench coat and a metallic mask that covered the lower half of his face. In his hands, he held two tuning forks the size of batons.
The man tapped the forks together.
There was no sound, but the air rippled. A distortion wave shot toward Kazuki.
[THREAT: CONCUSSIVE WAVE.]
Kazuki moved. He dove to the right just as the invisible wave hit the vending machine.
CRUNCH.
The machine didn't explode; it imploded. The metal crumpled inward as if crushed by a giant invisible fist.
Kazuki scrambled to his feet, panic rising.
"Who are you?!" he yelled.
But he couldn't hear his own voice. The silence swallowed his words instantly.
The man in the mask walked forward calmly. He raised a hand and pointed a finger at his own temple, then twisted it.
Suddenly, sound returned—but only for Kazuki.
"Baron Ryx," a smooth, synthesized voice whispered directly into Kazuki's inner ear. "But the Helix calls me The Silencer. Please, do not attempt to run. It will only make the nausea worse."
"Nausea?" Kazuki thought.
Ryx struck the tuning forks against the pavement.
HMMMMMM.
A low-frequency vibration hit Kazuki.
It didn't hurt his skin. It hit his inner ear.
Instantly, Kazuki's sense of balance vanished. The world spun violently sideways. Up became down. Left became right.
Kazuki fell to his knees, vomiting bile. He tried to stand, but his legs were jelly.
"You are fast," The Silencer walked closer, his boots making no sound. "But speed requires balance. If you cannot tell which way is forward, you cannot run."
Ryx raised a tuning fork. The tip began to glow red. He aimed it at Kazuki's exposed neck.
"Target acquired. Velocity Core extraction imminent."
I'm going to die, Kazuki thought. I can't stand up. The world is spinning.
"KAZUKI!"
A voice exploded in his earpiece. It was Aeva.
"Listen to me! He's hijacking your equilibrium! Your biological ears are compromised!"
"I... I can't... stand..." Kazuki gasped, clutching the pavement.
"Ignore your ears!" Aeva screamed. "Let the Suit drive! Close your eyes and sync with the Gyros!"
Let the Suit drive.
Kazuki squeezed his eyes shut. The spinning world vanished.
He focused on the cold, liquid metal fused to his skin.
[GYROSCOPIC STABILIZATION: ENGAGED.]
The suit took over. It ignored the confused signals from Kazuki's brain and locked his limbs into perfect mechanical balance.
Kazuki stopped swaying.
He opened his eyes. The glowing red tuning fork was inches from his face.
[SLOW MOTION ACTIVATED.]
Kazuki didn't try to run away. He ran up.
He kicked off the ground, doing a backflip that defied gravity. His foot caught the Silencer's jaw on the way up.
CRACK.
The Silencer stumbled back, his mask dented. The vibration field broke for a split second. Sound rushed back into the world—horns, wind, sirens.
Kazuki landed on the side of a brick building. The suit's magnetic soles locked him to the wall. He was standing horizontally, twenty feet off the ground.
"You broke my nose," The Silencer said, his voice calm but irritated. "That creates noise. I hate noise."
He slammed the forks together again. A massive sonic boom erupted, aiming for the wall Kazuki was standing on.
"Run, kid!" Aeva yelled.
Kazuki sprinted.
He ran straight up the side of the apartment complex.
BOOM.
The sonic blast decimated the brickwork just below his heels. Debris showered down, but Kazuki was already at the roof.
He vaulted over the edge and didn't stop. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop, a silver blur against the moon.
He didn't look back. He ran until his lungs burned and the suit's battery warning flashed.
The Safe House — 9:30 PM
Kazuki collapsed onto the floor of the arcade bunker. He ripped the mask off his face, gasping for air.
"He... he was in my head. He turned off the world."
Renji was cleaning his rifle. He didn't look up.
"Baron Ryx. Tier 3. Nasty piece of work."
"You knew?!" Kazuki yelled, standing up shakily. "You knew he was out there and you let me walk home?"
Renji set the rifle down. He looked at Kazuki with cold eyes.
"I didn't let you walk home, Kazuki. I used you as bait."
Kazuki froze. "What?"
"We needed to know if they were tracking your thermal signature or your bio-rhythm," Renji said matter-of-factly. "Now we know. They tracked your bio-rhythm. Which means they know who you are."
Kazuki stared at him, betrayed. "You could have told me. I could have died!"
"But you didn't," Renji stood up and walked over. "You survived. You engaged a Tier 3 Hunter and escaped. Yesterday, you would have frozen. Today, you ran up a wall."
Renji reached out and tapped the glowing blue core on Kazuki's chest.
"Stop looking for an apology. I'm not your father. I'm your commanding officer. And right now? You just passed basic training."
Renji turned to Aeva.
"He's ready. Unlock the armory."
Aeva hesitated, then nodded. She walked to the back of the room and placed her hand on a biometric scanner.
A heavy metal wall slid open.
Inside, bathed in blue light, were weapons. Not guns. Speedster Weapons.
"If they are going to hunt you," Renji said, a cruel smile touching his lips. "It's time you learned how to hunt back."
[To Be Continued…]