Operation Black Signal

The city was a graveyard of forgotten truths. From the moment Dominion Corp had seized control of the Neural Compliance Network, history itself had been rewritten. Dissidents became terrorists. Uprisings became isolated “containment failures.” The Subversives became myths, whispered only in encrypted channels and dead-drop caches. But despite Dominion’s stranglehold on augmented reality, something had slipped through their digital net. A legend. A ghost in the code. The Black Signal. Some said it was a weapon. Others believed it was an unfinished Dominion experiment, a fail-safe designed to erase rogue AI but abandoned when it became too unstable. The Subversives had spent years trying to prove it existed. Tonight, Cipher was going to steal it.

Cipher’s HUD flickered as he scanned the mission briefing on his retinal overlay. He sat on a rusted chair in an abandoned warehouse beneath Sector 12, the last unmonitored sliver of the city. Across from him, Sylva—his handler—paced in front of an old projection screen displaying a detailed 3D wireframe of Dominion Tower’s underground data vault: Archive-07. “This is where they buried it,” she said, voice tight with urgency. “It’s real. It exists. We finally have a way inside.” Cipher leaned forward, analyzing the defensive grid layered over the vault. Four layers of Dominion firewalls. Thirty seconds before counter-hacks deploy. Five minutes before automated kill protocols activate. “Worst-case scenario?” Cipher asked, adjusting the haptic gloves on his fingers. “Dominion wipes the entire archive, overwrites all traces of the Black Signal, and sends an AI task force to erase us,” Sylva said. “Best case? You get in and out without a trace.” Cipher smirked. “And the realistic scenario?” Sylva exhaled. “You trigger every alarm in the city, Dominion realizes what you’re after, and we see how long it takes for you to become the most wanted cyberterrorist in the world.” From the other side of the room, a heavy voice chuckled. “We’re already there.” Kain, a former Dominion enforcer who had defected to the Subversives, leaned against the wall, polishing the barrel of an old EM-9 Gauss Rifle. Unlike Cipher, who specialized in digital infiltration, Kain believed in direct action—a fancy way of saying he preferred blowing holes through Dominion’s security drones rather than hacking them. Cipher glanced back at the projection. “You sure this intel is solid? Dominion doesn’t usually leave backdoors open.” Sylva nodded. “That’s the problem. They didn’t leave this one open.” The room fell silent. “Someone did it for us,” she continued. “We don’t know who, or why. But this is our only shot.” Cipher exhaled, pulling his hood up. “Alright. Let’s get to work.”

Archive-07 was buried beneath Dominion Tower, hidden behind biometric checkpoints, AR surveillance nodes, and adaptive AI security patrols. Every citizen in Dominion-controlled zones saw the same digital world—one curated by the corporation’s neural compliance network. But Cipher saw something different. The moment he activated Truth Scan, his HUD flickered, stripping away Dominion’s digital veneer. Entire buildings glitched, revealing hidden doorways and suppressed data nodes buried beneath the illusion of empty streets. A digital graveyard. Cipher scanned the security checkpoint ahead. AR cameras flooded the area with compliance prompts, scanning each pedestrian for valid Dominion neural IDs. A man in a business suit passed through—his ID tag glowed green. Cipher’s overlay pulsed red. Not a problem. With a flick of his fingers, he activated Deepfake Identity, rewriting his neural signature in real time. When he stepped through, the scanner registered him as "Daniel Reeves, Senior AI Technician"—a Dominion enforcer on the payroll. No alarms. No alerts. He continued forward, tracking Kain’s position on his mini-map. The ex-enforcer had taken the low route through the service tunnels, moving toward the underground vault access point. “Security node ahead,” Sylva’s voice cut in through Cipher’s uplink. “You’ll need to bypass the firewall before Kain reaches the vault door.” Cipher knelt beside an access panel, plugged in his portable relay, and launched a breach attack. His HUD exploded with data. A shifting network of Dominion AI defense nodes appeared in a virtual space, pulsing with active counter-hack protocols. “I’ve got 30 seconds before it recognizes me,” Cipher muttered, fingers working rapidly through the interface. A security drone hovered past the alleyway, its scanning beam illuminating the pavement just inches from Cipher’s position. If the AI detected an unauthorized presence, Dominion kill teams would be on him in seconds. He worked fast, injecting a false security alert two districts away. The system took the bait. Dominion AI rerouted two patrol squads and a drone cluster to investigate the fake breach. The vault’s firewall flickered, exposing an opening. “Firewall’s down. Kain, move.”

Inside, Archive-07 was sterile, cold. Rows of datacores pulsed softly, storing erased history. Cipher located the terminal, jacked in, and watched his HUD flood with classified Dominion intelligence. And then— The Black Signal. Not a file. Not a program. Something bigger. Cipher’s fingers hovered over the console. If he activated it now, Dominion’s entire AR control system could collapse. Sylva’s voice in his ear. “Cipher—we have a problem.”

The room shook as Dominion AI forces initiated a full lockdown. Cipher’s HUD blared: "NEURAL PURGE PROTOCOL ACTIVATED." "Shit." They were erasing the Black Signal. Right now. Cipher didn’t hesitate—he executed a full data dump, uploading every corrupted file to Subversive nodes across the city. Dominion’s AI fought back, rewriting the files in real-time, trying to drown out the truth with propaganda. It wasn’t fast enough. The Black Signal was out in the wild now. Cipher turned, sprinting toward the exit as Dominion’s kill teams descended on the Archive. Escape was not going to be easy. Outside, Dominion drones filled the air. AR reality flickered violently as Dominion fought to regain control of the narrative. Cipher had seconds to make a choice.
💀 Run & Disappear? Fade into the underground, let the Subversives decipher the Black Signal and plan a larger resistance.
⚠️ Fight? Hold the line, protect the signal, and spark the war in broad daylight.
🔓 Or Detonate the Black Signal Now?
A decision that would change everything.
Cipher exhaled, gripping his neural uplink. He made his choice.
The screen cut to black...

To be continued… in the game.