Chapter One: Jace
Thedoorsinthenorth lobby glide open. Three guards, one at reception, two making lazy circuits on opposite ends of the main floor. They’re not expecting me. Not tonight, not at this hour, not in this city, where security means muscle with guns rather than someone who can think.
I keep my head down, pace measured, hands visible. Black windbreaker, standard-issue courier bag, wireless comm in my left ear. They register me for half a second and dismiss, the way men always do when nothing triggers their lizard-brain alarms.
Even the security cameras, seven on this floor, two pointed at the elevators, will get a compressed, unremarkable feed. I made sure of it hours ago from the hotel across the street. There’s a reason Erasure pays so much for proprietary backdoor access.
The keycard from the target’s discarded gym bag lets me through the elevator lobby. I use the manager’s override, bypassing the biometric lock with a pulse of encrypted code from the dongle in my pocket. Inside, I stand with my back tothe mirrored panel, watching the numbers rise, calibrating my breathing.
In. Hold. Out. Four seconds each.
This isn’t nerves. It’s habit—oxygenation means better performance, faster reaction times, sharper vision. They taught us that in the Foundry before we were old enough to spell the word “adrenaline.”
Forty-one floors up, the doors whisper apart. The hallway is museum-quiet, carpeted in a thick geometric pattern that hides blood better than you’d expect. I walk left, counting the doors, scanning for the magnetic tripwires the dossier warned me about. Apartment 4112, the far corner with the two-hundred-degree view of the city. The entry’s triple-locked: digital, deadbolt, and secondary chain. All bypassed in under fifteen seconds, using tools I built myself.
He’s in the den, exactly where the schedule predicted. Alone, back to the glass, hands busy on a transparent slab of display. His reflection catches me first. He turns, confusion stuttering in his eyes, but not enough time for fear.
One step, two, three. Draw. The pistol is suppressed, tuned for close work. I plant the barrel behind his right ear, thumb already disengaged the safety.
“Wait—” he says, or tries to, but the .22 hollow point ends it with a hiss and a gentle thump as his body folds forward.
Like capturing a raccoon with something shiny.
Easy.
Pathetic.
I holster, check the sightline, then fish a pair of nitrile gloves from my bag.
The next ten minutes are forensics. He’s still twitching, some dumb reptile current trying to restart the meat, but I wait it out, counting the convulsions. Once they stop, I tilt his head up and slip a hand under his chin. The jaw’s slack, tongue lolling. Eyes starting to glass. I check the pulse at the neck, pressing hard enough to feel for bounce back.
Nothing.
I lower him gently to the floor, arranging limbs so it looks like he collapsed mid-step. From the side, it reads like a seizure, or maybe a fainting spell.
From the front, it’s a different story. Brains leaking out of the hole in his forehead.
I wipe down the display panel, locking it with his thumbprint. I retrace my steps to the entry, using a UV torch to spot anything I missed. No prints, no stray hair, no skin cells. The only DNA in this room belongs to the dead man.
Rolling the nitrile gloves into a tight ball, I pack them in a double-sealed baggie, and add it to the biohazard container at the bottom of my bag. One last glance around—lamps off, TV on, random news channel in the background, echoing the same market numbers on repeat.
My comm buzzes, a single vibration against my jaw. I thumb the receiver.
“Harrison,” I say. My voice comes out flat, all vowels clipped, but that’s protocol.
The voice on the other end is less human, more algorithm. “Confirm status.”
“Erasure complete,” I say.
“Directive change. Report to Acquisition. Downtown division. Seventeenth floor. Immediate.”
“Copy.” I don’t ask why. I’ve never been paid to question; only to end.
I let myself out the same way I entered. The corridor is empty. The elevator delivers me to the lobby in silence. The guards don’t even look up. The glass doors on the street level melt open, and the city’s night air hits me.
As I walk, I file away the memory: the target’s posture, the smell of his sweat, the way his mouth fought to form a plea. These aren’t emotional recollections; they’re audit logs. The Boardreviews everything, and if you don’t have a perfect recall, you’re obsolete. That’s what they taught us in the Foundry, too.
Two blocks east, there’s a dumpster behind a Lebanese bakery. I fish the biohazard pouch from my bag and bury it beneath a leaking sack of pita dough. The gloves, the shell casing, the plastic sleeve with a tiny sliver of blood-spattered paper towel—all gone. I use the bakery’s staff restroom to change shirts, swap my windbreaker for a too-bright tourist hoodie. My face has never triggered a single security camera in this sector, but I run the wipe patch over my skin just in case. Paranoia isn’t just encouraged; it’s required.
