Chen was a fair-skinned, lanky computer scientist in his twenties. He was the one who had first flagged the public's digital outcry. He presented the data to his UBI colleagues, and a decision was made: They would interrogate this "Meera" to determine if she was a conspiracy theorist sowing dissent or a whistleblower revealing an ugly truth.
They invited her to a Black Site. The people refused, their trust in authority shattered. After tense negotiations, the UBI agreed to come to her.
Chen volunteered. His entire career had been spent behind a desk; this field mission seemed straightforward—just a few questions. He persuaded his superiors to send him.
Leaving the Black Site, a spring in his step, he was jogging lightly when a man sprinted directly toward him. Chen shifted to the side to let him pass. The man mirrored his movement, and they collided.
The man's hands pattered over Chen's shirt and jacket in a frantic scramble before pushing off.
"Sorry," the man muttered, and dashed away without a backward glance.
Chen stared after him, a cold knot forming in his stomach. He'd seen that face near his neighborhood. And now, here, outside the securest building on Mars? Coincidence? He shrugged the feeling off, chalking it up to paranoia.
A few hours later, he was deep in the Yellow Zones, standing before a Cadet Barracks. The Cadets were the advanced police force, handling daily law enforcement and filtering major cases up to the UBI. Meera's safe house was nestled within the walls of the Cadet Barrack. This Barrack was the headquarters of every other Barrack in the district.
He was ushered inside with professional courtesy. He recognized a few faces from past operations. Finally, they led him to Meera.
They began a livestream, broadcast simultaneously on Meera's channel and the official UBI profile. The public response was electric—a flicker of hope that the UBI might actually be independent of the Caliphates.
"Hi, everyone. We have a special guest today," Meera began, her voice steadying. "This is Special Agent Chen from the UBI."
Chen turned to the camera. "Hello. I'm here today to discuss the virus that Meera has—"
He froze. The staccato rhythm of gunfire erupted outside, followed by the concussive whump of an explosion.
He spun toward the door. A split second before he reached it, the reinforced steel door blasted inward, slamming into him and hurling him across the room, near Meera's seat.
Two figures stood in the doorway, clad in the red camouflage of the Martian Military. Their faces were masked.
The lead soldier didn't hesitate. His weapon snapped up, aimed directly at Meera.
Chen moved on pure instinct. He rolled and threw himself in front of her as the gun fired. Silent bullets grazed his right arm.
Gritting his teeth against the pain, Chen brought out two knives from his inner pocket. He didn't aim for the soldier's body. He threw one blade to the right of the man's head, the other to the left—a calculated feint.
It worked. The soldier dodged sideways, directly into the path of the first knife. The blade sank deep into his open mouth, silencing him forever.
Chen's hand was already diving inside his jacket.
But the second assassin wasn't idle. Seeing his partner fall, he fired three rapid shots from his KSA.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
The first round missed sparkling off the reinforced doorframe near Chen's head. The second and third punched through the advanced trauma plate in his vest but were deflected—one tearing through the meat of his shoulder, the other grazing his ribcage with a searing burn. The combined force spun him and slammed him hard onto the floor. The breath blasted from his lungs; white-hot pain swamped him, but his core was intact.
The assassin turned, leveling his KSA at a terrified Meera.
"Don't you dare!" Chen snarled, his voice a ragged gasp as he pushed himself up on one elbow.
The man whirled around, eyes wide with disbelief. "How?!" he spat. "How are you still alive? Oh, I see you have the UBI body armor!"
From downstairs, a voice bellowed, "You underestimated us! The Cadets are not a force you attack with just eight men!"
The Assassin looked through the window, two of his colleagues were dead, and the rest lay injured, surrounded by Cadets. The Cadets also had casualties, twelve Cadets were heavily wounded, and one was missing a head.
The assassin's eyes narrowed. "I need to end this." He rushed Chen, delivering a brutal blow to his head. As he reared back for a second strike, Chen reached for his jacket.
He brought out a glistening dagger that shone with a cruel, morning-star light.
With the last of his strength, Chen drove the blade into the man's neck.
The assassin's finger clenched on the trigger in a final, spasmodic reflex.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
The remaining shells erupted, the blast shaking the room. Chen's jacket was shredded, revealing an advanced, energy-dispersing bulletproof shield beneath. He slumped to the floor, unconscious, blood dripping from his mouth.
Meera, who had been frozen in shock, finally rushed to his side, her pleas and sobs filling the room. She blinked, reaching for her B-Wax, forgetting the emergency lines were dead.
A Cadet officer burst in, took in the scene with a single, professional glance, and barked orders into his own comms. A medical team swarmed the room, rolling Chen onto a wheeler.
As they lifted the dead assassin, a small, diamond-shaped emblem fell from his pocket.
The doctor who retrieved it gasped, dropping the body in her shock. This is a seal that is carried around by high-ranking militants. Driven by a morbid curiosity, she ripped off the man's mask.
Her voice was a horrified whisper. "This is Marshal Daemion."
A colleague snapped her out of it, and they hurried Chen away.
The entire violent, shocking confrontation had played out in real time. Millions had witnessed it all as the live stream was still on.