002 — The Whisper Protocol

Weeks Later

Conrad's Hideout

Tyzion sat in a corner, unmoving, staring at nothing.

Conrad approached him slowly.

"You calm now?" he asked quietly.

Tyzion didn't answer.

But Conrad understood. He felt the same weight pressing down on him. Seeing Micquel in that condition—barely alive, broken—it hollowed something inside him.

And part of him blamed himself.

He waited too long. Waited for the right moment, the safe opportunity. And in doing so, he almost lost her.

His mind drifted—back to the chaos of the previous week.

---

Flashback..

Yellow Team's Secondary Safe Zone

They weren't supposed to be there.

The Black Team had no reason to interfere—not during an active clash between three other factions, not in a contested zone already tearing itself apart.

But Conrad didn't care about the rules of the Game.

Not when she was in danger.

They'd been tracking her ever since she vanished. Not through official channels. Not through the Game's system. But through a buried trace left behind in her wristband—an old failsafe protocol. One Conrad had helped design, back when trust still meant something.

It wasn't a beacon.

It was a whisper. Barely detectable pulses, faint enough to go unnoticed—unless you knew how to listen.

When she was first taken, the signal activated.

But the timing was wrong.

The zone was too volatile. Shifting control. Too many eyes, too much interference.

So they waited.

Conrad watched the signal like a heartbeat.

And then—it spiked.

A sudden burst, triggered by the failsafe: a near-lethal drop in her vitals. The wristband responded automatically, hijacking an old comms relay buried under Yellow Team's territory. It flared just long enough to confirm the truth.

Micquel was dying.

The timing wasn't right—not even close.

But Conrad didn't care anymore.

No orders.

Just action.

He moved instantly. No planning session. No approval. He pulled together a strike unit, used the Black Team's clearance to override map locks, and forged a mission code that made their incursion look official.

But it wasn't.

The Game didn't know they were there.

Conrad used the Black Team's name only because it opened doors.

In truth, they were ghosts.

By the time they arrived, the building was already collapsing. Red, Yellow, and Blue were slaughtering each other. Gunfire tore through concrete. Explosions rocked the walls. The stench of burning steel filled the air.

Conrad's team moved through the wreckage like shadows—avoiding conflict, bypassing surveillance. They weren't there to fight.

They were there for her.

Rooftop access was clearer than expected. Sniper fire echoed from nearby towers but didn't slow them down. Conrad knelt beside a rusted vent, pulling a matte-black capsule from his belt—marked with a single white stripe.

"Set the charge," he ordered.

One of his men inserted the canister into the central air duct, locked it in, tapped twice.

Conrad nodded.

The device hissed.

A cloud of pressurized vapor slipped into the system, snaking through vents and corridors. In seconds, it thickened—an engineered neuro-sedative. Non-lethal, but powerful enough to incapacitate trained players in moments.

They didn't wait to see the results.

"Move."

Conrad led the descent. Rappelled down shattered windows, bypassing the stairwell. Landed hard on a blood-soaked floor filled with smoke and broken bodies.

Then he saw her.

Micquel.

Pinned under debris, barely conscious. Blood streaked her face. Her uniform was torn. One arm twisted at an unnatural angle.

But she was breathing.

Barely.

Conrad didn't hesitate.

He dropped to his knees. Checked her pulse. Too weak. But there.

"We're moving."

He lifted her himself.

The team formed around them, silent and alert. The sedative was spreading now—muffled thuds echoed from below as fighters collapsed in mid-combat.

No time.

No explanations.

Just extraction.

And under the chaos of collapsing factions, the Black Team vanished into the ruins once more—unseen, unrecorded.

…End of Flashback

---

The silence in the hideout stretched on.

Tyzion finally spoke—his voice low, brittle.

"Do you think the Reapers are behind this?"

"Don't even go there," Conrad snapped. His voice echoed slightly against the cold concrete walls of the underground hideout. There was a warning in his tone—sharp and immediate—but also laced with something else: fear.

He knew Tyzion too well. When it came to Micquel, no amount of reason could hold him back.

Tyzion stood, unmoving, his eyes locked on the floor as if calculating a thousand possibilities in his head. When he finally spoke again, his voice was calm—too calm.

"No, Conrad," he said, lifting his gaze. "You need to understand—if there's even a chance the Reapers have the antidote for Micquel, I have to take it. You know we can't lose her, right?"

When they finally got to her—when Conrad's team pulled her from the wreckage and ran the diagnostics—the truth hit harder than the collapse itself.

She wasn't just injured.

She'd been poisoned.

Something engineered. Slow-acting. Designed to slip beneath standard scans until it was too late. And now, every second counted.

His words hung in the air like a storm cloud, thick and threatening. The desperation beneath his calm tone made Conrad's chest tighten.

"They are behind this," Conrad admitted, rubbing his temples. "And yes… they probably have the antidote. But they want this to happen, Tyzion. Don't you get it? They're not just players in the Game—they are the one who built it. They thrive on chaos. If you go to them, it's not a negotiation. It's a trap."

"I don't care," Tyzion muttered. "Let it be a trap. Let them come at me. If it means saving her, I'll burn their entire stronghold to the ground."

Conrad slammed a fist against the wall, startling Tyzion. "This isn't about revenge! You go to their base, and we lose everything. You'll start a war we're not ready for."

"I'm already at war," Tyzion growled. "We all are. And the longer we sit here pretending we're above it, the more people die. The more she fades."

Conrad turned away. His knuckles went white. "I can fix her," he said quietly. "You know I can."

Tyzion narrowed his eyes. "By removing her heart? That's your solution? You honestly believe she can survive that?"

"Yes," Conrad replied without hesitation. "We'll use Grandpa's invention. He designed it for scenarios like this. Synthetic heart interface. No rejection. No decay. It's our best shot."

"Our best shot," Tyzion repeated, bitterness creeping into his tone. "And what if she wakes up and she's not the same? What if she's just… a machine?"

"She won't be," Conrad said firmly. "Her consciousness will stay intact. I've mapped her neuro-patterns. Everything that makes her Micquel—it's still there."

Tyzion looked away, jaw clenched. "And the Reapers? I'm just supposed to let them get away with this?"

"Yes," Conrad stepped forward. "You have to. You're not even part of the Game, Tyzion. We were never meant to interfere directly—we operate from the shadows, remember?"

"I remember what it felt like—watching chaos unfold from behind a screen. Knowing we had the power to intervene… and being ordered not to."

He stepped forward, voice low.

"Told to 'observe.' To stay invisible while people died."

"That's not fair—"

"No," Tyzion cut him off. "What's not fair is pretending we can save people by doing nothing. What's worse is locking me in here while Micquel lies dying, just because some bastard behind a screen thinks it's all part of a narrative."

The silence between them was heavy, suffocating.

Finally, Conrad spoke—quieter this time. "This isn't about a narrative anymore, Ty. It's survival. And if you want to save Micquel, we need to be smart. We do it my way. We fix her first. Then we plan."

Tyzion didn't respond right away.

When he finally looked up, his eyes were darker than before.

"Fine," he said. "But if this doesn't work… I'm going to the Reapers.

And I'm not coming back empty-handed."

---