SSS-Rank Corporate Predator System

The attack on the Cross-Continental Logistics hub was not a ripple.

It was a tidal wave.

And it had crashed directly into the pristine, marble-floored lobby of Silas Cross's corporate empire.

He stood in his office, a silent, furious storm in a thousand-dollar suit.

His back was to the room, his hands clasped behind him as he stared out at the city lights.

His city.

A city that was, for the first time in a very long time, no longer completely under his control.

His senior aide stood a respectful ten feet behind him, looking pale.

The head of his security, a man built like a concrete bunker, stood beside him, looking grim.

"Say it again," Silas said, his voice dangerously quiet.

It was the quiet that was terrifying.

Silas Cross didn't shout.

He didn't have to.

His quiet was the sound of a predator gathering itself to strike.

"Sir," the aide began, his voice trembling almost imperceptibly. "The preliminary report is… catastrophic."

"Seventeen guards neutralized, non-lethally."

"The head of security, Kaelen Vance, was found unconscious in the server room, suffering from a concussion and severe chemical burns from the fire suppression system."

"And the servers…"

The aide swallowed hard.

"The primary shipping manifests for the last six months were copied."

"And then the entire system was wiped with a data-scrambling virus so advanced that our technicians have never seen anything like it."

"It didn't just delete the data, sir."

"It… it shredded it. Atomized it. The backups, the off-site archives, everything."

"It's all gone."

A deep, profound silence filled the room.

Silas turned around slowly.

His face was a perfect, blank mask of cold fury.

"And the attacker?" he asked, his voice as soft as silk and as sharp as a razor.

"One man," the security chief finally spoke, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.

"According to Vance's debrief, he was young. Fast."

"He had a kinetic shield and some kind of spatial displacement ability."

"He fought Vance, a Tier-3 pyrokinetic, to a standstill and won."

Silas's cold, gray eyes moved to the security chief.

"One boy," Silas corrected him, his voice dripping with venom. "Did this."

"To my facility."

"To my men."

"And you," he said, his gaze like a physical weight, "did nothing."

The security chief flinched, the first sign of emotion Miles had ever seen on the man's stony face.

"We are analyzing the security footage," the chief said, his voice tight. "But the attacker was a ghost. He bypassed everything."

"A ghost," Silas repeated, the words tasting like poison in his mouth.

He walked over to his massive desk and tapped a button on his intercom.

"Get me a secure line to the Echo Chamber," he commanded.

The aide's eyes went wide.

The Echo Chamber was the dark web of their world.

A place for criminals and mercenaries.

A place Silas Cross, with his carefully polished public image, was never supposed to touch directly.

A moment later, a synthesized voice confirmed the connection was live.

Silas leaned over his desk, his voice no longer the voice of a corporate titan, but the voice of a crime lord.

"I am placing a bounty," he said, his words cold and precise.

"Open contract."

"On the head of the individual known as the 'Ghost of Northwood'."

"Fifty thousand dollars for confirmation of identity."

"An additional two hundred thousand for termination."

He paused, letting the numbers sink in.

"The payment will be in untraceable crypto."

"And the full resources of Cross Corp will be made available to the hunter who brings me this ghost's head."

He cut the connection.

He had just put a quarter-of-a-million-dollar price tag on the head of a boy he didn't even know.

He looked at his security chief.

"Your team failed me," Silas said simply.

"Now, I am outsourcing your incompetence."

"Find this ghost before one of those animals from the Echo Chamber does."

"Or the next contract I put out will be for you."

Miles sat in the dark of his apartment, the blue glow of his laptop screen reflecting in his tired eyes.

He was just scrolling through the Echo Chamber forums.

He was a ghost among ghosts, a silent observer in their dark, digital world.

He was looking for whispers, for rumors, for any sign that his attack had been noticed.

He found it on the main contract board.

It was the top post, pinned and highlighted in a blood-red font that seemed to scream from the screen.

[>BOUNTY: OPEN CONTRACT]

[>TARGET: 'THE GHOST OF NORTHWOOD']

[>PAYMENT: $50,000 (ID), $200,000 (TERMINATION)]

[>CLIENT: ANONYMOUS (VERIFIED HIGH-TIER)]

Miles stared at the screen, his blood turning to ice in his veins.

The system in his head, his constant, silent companion, offered its own, chilling analysis.

[BOUNTY DETECTED. HOST HAS BEEN DESIGNATED A HIGH-VALUE TARGET.]

"You don't say," Miles whispered to the empty room, his voice a dry, shaky rasp.

"I was wondering what that giant red target on my back was."

"I thought it was just a fashion statement."

The replies to the bounty post were flooding in, a torrent of greed and bloodlust from the darkest corners of their hidden world.

[>User: VoidRipper]

[>Message: A quarter-mil for some newbie ghost? Sign me up. I'll have his head in a jar by sunrise.]

[>User: ScrapHead]

[>Message: Northwood? That's my turf. This ghost is already dead. He just doesn't know it yet.]

[>User: Nighthawk]

[>Message: I'm in. Taking all contracts in the Northwood sector. Send me any intel you got.]

He was being hunted.

Not by a corporation.

Not by a street gang.

By his own kind.

By an army of ruthless, skilled system users who would happily kill him for a payday.

The system flashed a new, urgent warning in his vision.

[ANALYSIS OF ECHO CHAMBER USER DATA INDICATES 17 CONFIRMED HIGH-LEVEL USERS OPERATING WITHIN THE NORTHWOOD CITY LIMITS HAVE ACCEPTED THE CONTRACT.]

[THREAT LEVEL: CRITICAL.]

[RECOMMENDATION: IMMEDIATELY CEASE ALL HOSTILE OPERATIONS. GO TO GROUND. MAINTAIN COVER IDENTITY AT ALL COSTS.]

Seventeen.

Seventeen assassins.

Seventeen killers, all looking for him.

His little shadow war had just gone public.

And he was target number one.

He should have been terrified.

He should have been packing a bag, getting ready to run as far and as fast as he could.

But as he stared at the bounty, at the threats, at the impossible odds stacked against him, he felt something else.

A slow, cold, and deeply dangerous fire began to burn in his chest.

Silas Cross had made a mistake.

He had tried to hunt a ghost with dogs.

He was about to find out that this ghost hunted back.

He closed the bounty page.

He opened a new file.

The data he had stolen from the logistics hub.

The hunt was on.

And he was no longer the prey.