The air in the office was a manufactured fiction, scrubbed of dust and scent, chilled to a precise temperature that discouraged perspiration. Dr. Thaddeus Vole watched the security feed on a wall of seamless black glass. The footage was grainy, pulled from a derelict warehouse’s ancient system, but the two figures moving through the dim aisles were clear enough. An intrusion. A contamination of a closed system. It was an annoyance, like a rounding error in a critical calculation.
He isolated the figures, running facial recognition against a series of private and public databases. The first result was expected: Sabine Weil. A rogue memeticist, a ghost who peddled cognitive anarchy. A known bug in the ecosystem. He dismissed her file with a flick of his fingers across the console’s ceramic surface. The second result, however, made him lean forward. The image resolved, cross-referencing with a restricted file from the Cognitive Immunology Division. Asset: Croft, Julian. Designation: Hybrid.
Vole’s placid expression did not change, but a new stillness settled over him. A CI-Div asset, and their most unstable one, was sniffing around a forgotten Panacea Protocols facility. This was no longer a simple trespass. It was a complication. He brought up Croft’s full profile, his pale blue eyes scanning the data with an unnerving lack of affect. He noted the dual infection, the erratic field reports, the handler’s notes filled with cautious euphemisms. An anomaly.
Then he saw it: a cross-linked file, buried deep in the operational history, referencing the Eudaimonia+ Collapse. The entry made the entire situation cohere into a new, sharper pattern.
The memory was not emotional, merely a data point associated with a negative career outcome. He recalled the public humiliation, the cascading market failure when his meticulously designed wellness meme, Eudaimonia+, had mutated into a plague of narcissistic apathy. He had been outmaneuvered, his models undone by a chaotic element he hadn't foreseen. An element traced back to intelligence provided by a then-unknown CI-Div analyst. Dr. Julian Croft. This wasn't a random intrusion. This was the ghost of a past failure, a walking data corruption, appearing in his system once again. The problem was no longer professional. It had become personal.
On his screen, a schematic of a perfect, idealized brain glowed softly, its neural pathways color-coded for optimal emotional response. It was a clean, logical map, the kind of mind Panacea Protocols sought to build. The kind of mind Croft’s very existence mocked. Vole swiped it away, replacing it with a live tactical feed. The clean theory was irrelevant now.
He opened a secure channel, the face of his security chief appearing on a secondary screen. The man’s expression was tense, awaiting instruction.
— We have two unauthorized biologicals in the Gamma-7 warehouse, — Vole said, his voice a calm, even baritone. — The rogue, Weil, and a CI-Div asset. A Hybrid.
— A Division agent, sir? — the chief asked, his brow furrowed. — Does this change the protocol?
— It clarifies it, — Vole corrected him gently. — The asset is compromised. He is operating outside his jurisdiction with a known cyber-terrorist. He is, for all intents and purposes, a defective product.
Vole steepled his long, thin fingers. He let the silence hang for a moment, a tool he used to assert control. The security chief waited, his unease palpable even through the filtered feed.
— Your orders are to acquire the rogue and the asset. Retrieve any and all data they have accessed. And sterilize the location. This is a product recall, not an investigation.
The chief’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Sterilize” was a clean word for a dirty process. It meant no witnesses. No loose ends. No survivors.
— Understood, sir, — the chief said, his voice now flat. The question of protocol was answered.
Vole closed the channel. The security chief’s face vanished, leaving only Vole’s own faint reflection in the black glass. He turned his attention to another console, his movements economical and precise. He pulled the raw data on the agent Sabine and Croft had just identified. The Hush Meme. A failed product, yes. A commercial write-off. But Vole did not see failure. He saw a tool of breathtaking efficiency. A meme that didn't implant belief, but erased the capacity for it. A biological agent that induced perfect, placid compliance.
He created a new project file, his fingers moving silently across the console. The title was simple, elegant. ‘Hush Meme - Compliance Applications’. He was already designing the marketing campaign. A world without argument. A workforce without dissent. The profit models began to form in his mind, clean and beautiful.
He brought the tactical feed back to the main screen. The ‘Acquisition’ team, ten figures clad in non-reflective black tactical gear, was moving into position. Their movements were a study in brutal efficiency, a stark contrast to the lumbering, protocol-bound agents of the CI-Div. His team was a scalpel. Hasek’s were a club.
He leaned back in his chair, the cool, sterile fabric a familiar comfort. He took a sip of purified water from a simple glass beaker. It had no taste. The situation was contained. The anomaly, Croft, would be erased. The rogue, Weil, would be deleted. The research, which his intelligence suggested was the true prize, would be acquired. His confidence in a clean, efficient resolution was absolute. A 98% probability of success.
The past would be scrubbed clean. The future would be profitable.
This was not about anger or revenge. Such things were messy, inefficient variables. This was about restoring order to a system. It was about debugging a program. Croft was a persistent error, a line of chaotic code that kept appearing in his work. And the only logical, efficient solution for such an error was to delete it. Permanently.
He watched the tactical icons converge on the heat signatures of the two intruders.
This was not a hunt. It was sanitation.
