Chapter Three
Beneath the SkyNet
Night.
The rain fell without a sound.
But I knew the air was filled with the scent of gunpowder.
After that night, KARAM did not die.
They merely changed direction—from the ground to the sky.
I stood before the tactical screen, watching the feed.
A fleet of drones from KARAM—ten in total.
Target: The Grand Victorium Hotel, Paradise Island.
To prevent any unpredictable assault, Chee Yan had, after the last battle, summoned the best hacker organization—the White Knights—for support.
Before joining the police force, he had once been employed by the White Knights, serving governments worldwide as a Cyber Digital Defense Chief Consultant.
“Ten drones, wired with explosives, heading for Paradise Island.”
His voice was cold, like a sharpened digital blade.
“Two hundred kilometers out.”
“Time?” I asked.
“Three hours.”
Three hours.
Enough time for people to live—and enough time to die.
Chee Yan’s White Knights immediately entered combat readiness.
For the first time, I saw the seven shadows behind the screens—
Codename: White Horse.
They had no names, only voices.
“Operation SkyNet, initiate,” Chee Yan said.
The screens lit up.
The seven White Knights synchronized across global nodes.
They used no keyboards—only neural interfaces.
Every breath was a line of code.
I watched their world.
A battlefield without smoke.
Code like bullets, firewalls like fortress walls.
Chee Yan commanded calmly at the central console:
“First layer interference—counter signal spectrum.
Second layer intrusion—seize control protocol.
Third layer—prepare electromagnetic echo.”
“Distance to target?”
“Fifty kilometers.”
“Thirty.”
“Twenty.”
“Ten—”
In that instant, the entire screen flashed white.
A low hum vibrated through the cabin.
“Locked,” Chee Yan said.
The White Knights released an electromagnetic pulse.
The drone formation lost navigation.
In the sky, the points of light began to fall.
I looked out toward the sea.
Ten drones crashed almost simultaneously into the water two hundred meters off Paradise Island.
The sea roared into towering waves.
Underwater explosions bloomed like blue flowers of hell.
The wind carried the smell of scorched metal.
Paradise Island was, for the moment, safe.
But fear never truly dies.
Days later, three ministers attended a reconstruction conference on the island.
I thought the shadow of war had sunk with the explosion.
I was wrong.
Ayman Adel.
KARAM’s intelligence and special operations operative.
His name appeared between every blind spot in our surveillance.
No identity.
No past.
But eyes that could see through order itself.
The first assassination occurred at the Seabreeze Pavilion—
the island’s most luxurious banquet hall.
At 8:07 p.m., as Minister Barton raised his glass, the chandelier above collapsed.
Shards sliced through his carotid artery. Chaos erupted.
Police initially ruled it an accident.
I knew it was not.
The chandelier’s structure had been sabotaged.
Bolts precisely cut by one-third—
once the temperature exceeded thirty-two degrees Celsius, they would fracture.
That evening, someone had raised the air-conditioning by two degrees.
The second assassination occurred at the Millennium Hotel.
Minister Kranz was shot in a tenth-floor suite.
The shooter had hidden for two days in a construction building opposite, using scaffolding to create a perfect angle.
The bullet pierced glass, heart, and night.
No casing was found.
It was a directional titanium round—
hot enough to vaporize itself.
Surveillance showed a shooter in a black cap and mask.
Facial recognition result: Ayman.
The third assassination took place at the harbor.
Minister Harley was about to leave the island by boat.
Ten meters after departure, his vehicle’s fuel tank exploded.
The bomb was hidden beneath the chassis—undetectable even to tracking dogs.
At the scene, we recovered a fragment of scorched metal bearing KARAM’s insignia.
Three ministers.
Three methods of death.
One architect.
Paradise Island descended into fear once again.
Meanwhile, another name moved within the shadows.
Burhanuddin Hekmatyar.
A KARAM bomb operative.
Not a killer—
an architect. One who dismantles the skeleton of cities.
Disguised as a maintenance worker, he infiltrated major buildings—
hotels, casinos, halls, even police stations.
In his hand, only a tablet.
That was his weapon.
He used ultrasound to scan wall structures,
infrared to record wiring layouts,
and covert programs to steal security system passwords.
From decommissioned police surveillance systems, he extracted every blueprint.
Each file transmitted via satellite channel back to Mohammed.
In the intelligence room, I stared at those blueprints.
Every pipe, every exit, every fire barrier.
It wasn’t a map.
It was a manual for slaughter.
“They’re preparing to bomb again,” Chee Yan said.
“And this time, they won’t give us time.”
I remained silent.
I knew—this wasn’t just terrorism.
It was revenge.
Mohammed intended to erase Paradise Island from the map.
The island government convened an emergency meeting.
They requested support from the UAS government.
Operation codename: OmniSight
Chee Yan and the White Knights mobilized again.
Eagle Eye, Raptor Special Force, and MCS entered full combat readiness.
Wai Hing and Mun Tseng returned to duty.
This was the first—and possibly last—time we would deploy together as a full unit.
Operation OmniSight commenced.
In the command cabin, I watched red dots on the map.
KARAM signal sources.
Their base lay at the edge of the desert.
Above, UAS fighter jets and bombers stood ready.
The Air Command controlled every flight path.
On the ground, Raptor and MCS advanced in two flanks.
I spoke softly into the headset.
“Roll out!”
The first clash erupted at the desert’s edge.
Artillery turned the night into daylight.
Saeed ambushed on the left flank—his marksmanship as ruthless as ever.
Two officers fell before he vanished into dust.
I pursued with Man Man and Wai Hing.
The wind carried the smell of blood.
I aimed and fired.
The bullet grazed his arm. He retaliated with a flashbang.
Blinding light.
I heard Man Man shout, “Tin Kay, watch out!”
Raptor breached the central compound.
Eagle Eye stormed the core building and shot down the enemy signal tower.
The explosion shattered walls.
I burst through debris and saw Chee Yan’s feed flicker.
“Interference successful. Signal cut.”
“White Knights uploading counter-virus.”
The entire base’s defense systems collapsed.
Chee Meng’s program infiltrated their central host.
“Target locked—”
Boom.
A massive explosion.
The underground ammunition depot detonated in chain reaction.
Flames rose to the sky.
In that moment, the Sky Eye truly opened.
A final missile from the bomber fell.
The base was consumed by fire.
When the dust settled, the world was silent.
I felt no victory.
Because I knew—they would not die so easily.
Mohammed.
Saeed.
Mossad.
Three names like shadows.
Amid the chaos, they escaped.
Justice was still on its way.
Weeks later, intelligence reported Mohammed was recruiting aggressively.
A new KARAM was forming.
This time, he intended to launch simultaneous attacks in the United States, Kalsora, and New City.
A transnational act of revenge.
He wanted the world to pay for his hatred.
We were preparing as well.
MCS fully reassembled.
Wai Hing’s combat instinct.
Mun Tseng’s intelligence network.
Chee Yan’s digital warfare.
Man Man’s calm judgment.
Zongfu’s explosive expertise.
And me.
Hung Zong Fu tested a new generation of counter-terror drones at the training ground.
They were our defense—
and our conviction.
I told the team, “Paradise won’t wait anymore.”
Minmin nodded gently.
There was fire in her eyes—and fatigue.
Night.
I stood alone by the window.
The sea wind struck the glass.
In the distance, lights flickered across the water.
Fishing boats.
Or perhaps—not.
I remembered something Mohammed once said:
“Paradise has always been our illusion.”
I smiled.
Yes.
But sometimes illusions are worth protecting more than truth.
Tomorrow, we will see blood again.
But tonight, I only want to watch the sea in silence.
The wind rises.
The waves surge.
The Sky Eye has closed.
But the real war
has only just begun.