100 years left: The Unseen Executioner

The facility buzzed with morning drills. Combat divisions sprinted through obstacle courses, their shouts echoing through the corridors like a war chant. Tech units calibrated new drones with practiced movements, sparks flying as adjustment tools hummed to life. Maintenance crews pushed carts and unclogged waste tubes, disappearing into access tunnels without a word.

No one noticed the boy scrubbing reactor seals.

No one ever did.

He wore the grey of the unnoticed—maintenance uniform, grease-stained gloves, and a datapad clipped to his side. His hair was cropped short, his face blank. To others, he looked like every other overlooked gear in the massive machine of Sector-9.

He didn't speak. He didn't need to.

The system flickered again.

A notification pulsed against his retinal interface—barely noticeable, masked behind a routine diagnostic overlay.

[Mission Available: "Asset Recovery – Unauthorized Extraction Detected"]

Target: Class-F Supervisor Rennic (Tech Division)

Status: Selling bio-enhancement cores off-record

Reward: Attribute Boost (Dexterity +1), Minor Technique Blueprint – Nerve Slice

Penalty for Refusal: None. Optional Mission.

Mission Type: Silent Termination – No Witnesses.

He accepted without blinking.

Later that evening, he walked the outer perimeter of the tech compound, pushing a cart filled with spent coolant pods. Two security bots scanned him as he passed; neither flagged the movement as abnormal. His Stealth Veil, calibrated to mimic a non-essential personnel field, pulsed faintly and synced to the building's surveillance blind zones.

He moved like mist—seen, but not registered.

The compound was massive. The hum of generators, the hiss of pressurized gates, and the static chatter of internal comms created a constant white noise. He had memorized every patrol route, every timing cycle. His bracer flickered once—confirmation. The guards had looped.

He reached the ventilation level.

Here, no one lingered.

The hall smelled of ozone and coolant. Lights flickered overhead, casting strobing shadows across the metal walls. Cameras tracked movement in slow arcs, unaware they were seeing a ghost.

Rennic stood alone near the coolant disposal vault.

He always came here late, when no one should be watching.

Tonight was no different.

The man leaned against a terminal, puffing a nicotine strip and humming an off-key tune. His comms were off. ID chip deactivated. Standard protocol for shady business. He likely thought no one would bother him here.

He was right.

And he was wrong.

The boy stepped forward. No flashy movements—just a narrow blade in his hand, forged from scrap circuitry and dipped in a paralytic toxin extracted from the specimen lab. He moved in silence, his heartbeat perfectly steady.

One stab. Between the ribs.

Straight through the heart.

Rennic's eyes widened, but no sound came out. No cry. No struggle. Just a soft exhale, and then stillness.

The body slumped forward, limp.

He caught it, lowered it gently, and triggered the incineration chute beside the coolant pipes. The remains would be ash before sunrise. No traces. No reports.

Only silence.

[Target Eliminated. Mission Complete.]

[Reward Acquired: Dexterity +1]

He exhaled slowly as the system updated.

A second ping followed.

[Blueprint Gained: Nerve Slice – Tier 0 Assassination Technique]

Effect: Briefly disables target's motor control on contact.

Effective On: C-rank or lower.

Cooldown: 30 seconds.

He tapped his bracer once. The blueprint loaded into his neural archive. A pulse ran through his muscles as the technique's principles synced with his body—joint angle, entry point, tissue depth. Muscle memory installed, like a software patch for his nerves.

He left through the maintenance corridor, invisible among the clanging tools and dim lights.

No one noticed a

boy passing by with an empty cart.

No one ever did.

But the system noticed.