The boardroom sat on the 80th floor of Dhark Tower, wide windows pouring daylight across the long, polished table. Vyre City stretched out behind the glass like a living, breathing machine—cars, trains, smoke, noise. All of it distant.
Inside, it was quiet. Almost too quiet.
Bruce Dhark stood at the head of the table. Sleeves rolled, jaw locked, tie loose like he didn't care anymore about the formalities. The men and women seated before him were all high-ranking—heads of security, finance, tech, and development. Most of them looked nervous. A few tried to hide it. Nobody spoke first.
Bruce dropped a tablet on the table.
The screen lit up with footage from the city hall breach—lines of code, crashing firewalls, footage glitching out. Static. Then darkness.
"Due to the recent event with my mother-in-law," Bruce started, his voice even but cold, "and the laughable security system that let a hacker walk right through the damn front door of our government's mainframe, I had a thought."
He paced slowly behind his chair, hand in his pocket, like he was chewing on the idea as he spoke.
"A hacker didn't just crack a password. They walked through the firewall like it was wet paper. Turned the lights off on a building that controls everything from water to records to traffic lights. And they didn't leave a trace."
He stopped. Faced them.
"Now imagine if that wasn't a message. Imagine if it was the start."
Silence.
He pulled a remote and tapped it. The screen changed. A new diagram appeared—circles, sectors, a layered defense system. It wasn't finished. Looked like a prototype.
"I want to build something. Not another firewall. Not just software. A full spectrum defense AI."
He walked to the edge of the screen and tapped on the center circle.
"Something that learns. Something that adapts. Something that sees every line of traffic, every bit of movement across the city's networks. From cameras to satellites to subways. I want it to watch in real-time, react in real-time, and predict threats before they even hit the damn server."
He paused. Let it sink in.
"I don't want Vyre to be reactive anymore. I want it to be ahead."
One of the board members, a woman in a grey suit with her hair tied back, raised her hand slightly. "You're talking about a surveillance net… but bigger than anything the city's ever allowed. That'll cause noise."
Bruce nodded. "Then let them make noise. While we build."
Another board member, older man, glasses slipping down his nose, leaned forward. "There'll be legal red tape. Ethics committees. Public outcry."
"I'm not putting cameras in homes," Bruce said. "I'm building a brain that keeps this city breathing when everything else shuts down."
He pulled up a second screen.
More diagrams. Concepts. A glowing name at the top.
Project HELIOS.
"This is not about spying. It's about control. Not of people, but of information. Because the ones who attacked us—they used our laziness. Our comfort. They used how damn predictable we've gotten."
Bruce stepped back. He looked tired, but clear.
"I'm done playing catch-up. We build HELIOS. From the ground up. I already have a team in mind. Coders, engineers, a couple of... former ghosts who owe me favors."
A few of them exchanged glances. They knew what that meant.
Bruce set the tablet down again. "You want to vote, vote. But I'm starting this whether the board backs it or not. Because next time, it might not just be city hall. Next time, it might be the dam. The hospitals. The grid. And I'm not gonna wait until after."
The room stayed quiet.
A long breath passed.
Then the woman in the grey suit nodded. "I'm in. Let's build it."
One by one, the others followed.
Bruce didn't smile. He just nodded once and turned back to the glass.
Outside, Vyre City crawled on like it didn't know how close it had come to falling apart.
But Bruce Dhark knew.
And he was already building the weapon.
VYRE CITY – HECTOR'S RESIDENCE
Rain poured like nails. Cold and relentless. It made the sirens sound farther away, like the city was trying to drown itself in static.
Flashing red and blue lights lit up the cul-de-sac. Crime scene tape fluttered in the wind. Neighbors stood behind fences in silence, robes clutched, faces pale. No one spoke. Some cried. Most just stared.
The house was a two-story place—fancy, suburban, safe. Or at least it was supposed to be. Now the front door hung crooked off the hinges. Windows shattered. The lawn soaked in red that didn't come from the rain.
Inside, it was a massacre.
Six bodies.
Hector Voss, a former city data analyst, his wife, his two sons, a daughter, and their dog. None of them spared. Some were shot. Others—worse. The kind of thing you didn't write down in a report. The kind of thing that sticks in your bones.
And across the white walls, in thick lines of blood, written like a scream:
WE ARE COMING FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU.
MAYOR DIANA HALBROOK — ALWAYS WATCH YOUR BACK.
The letters were jagged. Fast. But deliberate. A message. Not just for the family. For the whole city.
Detectives hovered around the living room, gloves on, faces hard. But no one took charge. Not yet.
Until the car pulled up.
A black sedan, no markings. No sirens. Just pulled in, slow and quiet. The rain hissed on its roof.
And out stepped him.
Tall. Lean. Slate-gray coat, collar popped against the wind. Dark gloves. A cigarette already between his lips, unlit.
Detective Rafe Calder.
Vyre's best, depending on who you asked. Or its worst, if you believed the people in power. The department barely kept him on payroll, but when the cases got sick—when they got ugly—they called Calder.
He didn't speak at first. Just lit his cigarette, took a drag, and walked under the yellow tape like it wasn't even there.
"Where's the captain?" he asked.
"Still in Midtown," one of the uniforms said. "Mayor's locked everything down. Wants answers fast."
Calder nodded like he didn't care, then walked inside.
The smell hit him first. Blood and metal. Mixed with wood polish and rain. He didn't flinch.
His eyes scanned everything—angles, streaks, positions. He moved slow. Like he'd been here before. Like he'd seen things worse than this.
He crouched beside Hector's body, one hand on his knee. Looked at the man's eyes—still wide open. Still frozen in that last second of horror.
Then he stood. Turned to the message on the wall.
He walked up to it. Smelled it. Touched it with a gloved finger.
"Not dry yet," he muttered. "Means they stayed… watched them die one by one."
A younger cop behind him gagged. Calder didn't even turn.
"Why Hector?" someone asked from behind. "He was just data cleanup. Guy barely left his house."
Calder exhaled smoke and tilted his head slightly.
"Because he did something," he said. "Something someone didn't take every well."
Another detective leaned in. "What do we tell the Mayor?"
Calder's eyes didn't move from the blood.
"Tell her to stay inside. Tell her to check her windows. And tell her they're not bluffing."
He looked down at the daughter's room. Door cracked. Stuffed animals on the floor. A little ballerina music box still spinning.
Calder stepped in. Looked around.
Blood was everywhere.
But on the back of the door, scribbled in small writing, almost missed—something new.
"For The Bloom Injustice."
Calder froze.