100 years left: The Unseen Executioner

> [New Target Identified.]

Name: Kira Venth – Observation Officer, Terminal-9

Status: Passive Observer – Unlisted Surveillance of Sector Cleaners

Risk Level: Low (Non-Combatant)

Mission Type: Confirmed Kill – Silent Disposal

Reward: +1 Intelligence

Branch Bonus: Memory Integration – Shadow Step (60%)

This one wasn't a mistake.

They'd sent someone to watch him. Quietly. No orders. No chain of command. Just observation logs buried inside secured drives—ones only select terminals could access.

He moved before the alert fully finished. No hesitation.

The janitor's shift ended on paper, but he didn't return to his bunk. Instead, he followed the service route that connected to Central Systems—then detoured down a forgotten duct leading toward Terminal-9. Most people didn't even know it existed. The last map update for it was twelve years ago.

That's why they chose it.

Hidden. Isolated. Easy to deny.

He passed three dead checkpoints, all offline, then stopped at a vent grille marked with a faint green line—barely visible to the naked eye.

Green, not red.

The cleaner signal. Safe passage. But only if you were still a cleaner.

He wasn't sure he was anymore.

—

Kira Venth sat behind three rotating feeds of janitor zones. The screens were blurry, unstable—old tech with feedback flickers. But her expression never changed. Calm. Focused. Almost too still.

She sipped something from a recycled cup. Wrote something on a datapad. Leaned back.

No guards. No drones.

Just one woman watching invisible men.

He slipped in through the ceiling vent, using only minimal movement. Stealth Veil stayed active, but he didn't need it here. She wasn't looking for shadows. She was reading patterns. Movement logs. Timing gaps. Places where the schedule didn't make sense.

She was good.

Too good.

> [Proximity Alert: Target Reading Mission Interference Logs – RED Status Triggered]

Time Window: 2 Minutes Before Possible Report Submission

Penalty if Failed: System-Wide Alert Flag on Cleaner ID 005A

He dropped.

Not from the ceiling—too loud. He phased through the floor using Disruption Blink (Rank I) for the first time. A short-range dimensional slip. It cost energy. It didn't matter.

She blinked when she felt the breeze behind her.

He was already there.

The blade didn't slide in.

It pressed. Slow. Measured. Just enough to pierce the base of her skull and clip the spine before her body reacted. No scream. No flinch. She dropped sideways, half-aware, eyes shaking.

Still alive. Still aware.

> [Execution Confirmed.]

[Reward: +1 Intelligence]

[Branch Growth – Shadow Step (60%) | Disruption Blink (35%)]

[Path Unlocked – Silent Fang Tier I]

He stared down.

Then something flickered.

> [Memory Extraction Available – Accept?]

[Optional Subroutine Triggered: Watcher Protocol Detected]

Watcher Tag: "Alpha Channel: Echo Variant"

Message Log (Encrypted):

Fragment 1: "Echo-type cleaners are not accidents. They appear during cycles of collapse."

Fragment 2: "No one assigned this cleaner. The system grew it. Like a tumor."

Fragment 3: "If I die, it means the culling has started. Warn the Archives."

He paused.

He hadn't been assigned?

The system created him?

That wasn't part of any mission briefing. No reward mentioned it. No log ever referenced his existence before the cleaner uniform.

What the hell was he?

—

He burned the terminal and left nothing. No body. No surveillance drives. He walked out with a mop again, but this time... he wasn't hiding.

He passed two guards. One nodded.

He didn't nod back.

They looked confused, then looked away. That was the right choice.

He went straight to the cleaning pit, logged a false completion signal, then walked past the exit.

He wasn't going to a bunk.

He was going to find the Archives.

—

> [New Path Unlocked: Silent Fang – Tier I]

Skill Branches Available:

• Shadow Step – Rank II (Unlocked)

• Disruption Blink – Rank I (Enhanced Range)

• Adaptive Kill Memory – Passive

• Neural Reweave – Passive (Allows memory reshaping of low-level targets)

[System Message: Asset Echo Has Triggered Hidden Branch Activation. Observer Response Expected.]

Somewhere, unseen, another watcher read the system update.

Their hand hovered over an override key.

And paused.

They didn't press it.

Not yet.