Protocol Zero

Chapter One: The Missing Key

𝐃𝐞𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐒𝐲𝐫𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐦𝐢𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐞 𝐈𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐚𝐫𝐫𝐢𝐯𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐔𝐧𝐢𝐭 47-𝐁 𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐝𝐚𝐰𝐧.

The lights were flickering, changing from yellow to a steady green.

She stared at the door frame. She was able to hear the humming electricity beyond the walls—the vibration of the system's defenses patrolling every street and life patterns.

People started to call it Skynet, the AI Police. It ended crimes within months, made any attempts of home break ins impossible, and it prevented street violence from its first day.

To people, it was the best thing that the age of AI and booming technology created. To Syra, it was something disturbing.

She stepped into the house, ignoring the hovering machines that were still struggling to rebuild the missing data.

The living room was exactly the same as when the body was found. The radio broken to pieces scattered on the floor, and a faint smell of whiskey.

Clark's body had been taken to the embalmers for processing, but the imprint of his collapse remained on the faded red carpet.

Syra started to investigate the broken pieces of the radio, running gloved fingers along the broken pieces. The radio wasn't damaged by falling to the floor. It seemed like it was forced to be opened by something sharp.

"What happened, Clark?" Syra murmured.

The drones twitched overhead, their lens focusing on Syra, but she ignored.

She brought out her manual scanner instead. It flickered, struggled and stabilized.

Skynet's interference was stronger than usual.

"It's like it was defending something," murmured Syra.

A shiver crawled up her spine.

She tried to do a manual scanning for the second time.

The scanner ran a second pass, deeper and slower, as she sifted through the carpet. Tiny bits of glimmering substances came to view, as it was like dying fireflies.

And, she found it. A sliver of raw, unfiltered fingerprint—an unauthorized data signature.A signature that matched no person.

No registered devices. No official registration of identity. Someone foreign had entered the vicinity and tried to erase the evidence.

Syra's voice tightened.

"A data breach? Inside a protected district? How?"

Skynet could've caught everything. It traced everything.

Its entire purpose was to keep New Manila safe by seeing every threat before it could be done. That was the story why Skynet was made, at least.

But, Syra had read the old and original documents that were created way before Skynet was just an idea—dating back to the year 2025.

She knew the truth.

Skynet was not made to protect the people.

It was designed to make citizens armed and weaponized. Before it was rebranded as a public system by the group of researchers and scientists named "HADES", Skynet was conceived as an offensive tool—an invasion protocol that could infiltrate enemy nations, control their neural systems, destroy their minds and cripple their own military strength.

The project was abandoned publicly, but was secretly operating.

But, Syra had always feared that this weapon had never been abandoned, but only repurposed. Only waiting for its chance to seize the government and take control of the country.