"Welcome Agent Doover, please enter your private key-code." said the virtual voice assistant as a secret application was revealed on Colin's screen.
He didn't even install such program but it was right there on the screen. Was there already an access point on his device for VALKYRIE? Or did the Wallbreaker found and installed the VALKYRIE access program by itself? Both ideas were equally terrifying but Colin would never know the exact answer.

Colin's eyes darted from side to side, where he could find such a private key-code belonging to an Agent of this organization?
Before he could even press a single key, Wallbreaker somehow produced a private key-code and entered it in it's place. A password that could only be known by this Agent Doover, but the Wallbreaker knew it or found it. Colin had no idea how. Then it pressed enter and unlawfully penetrated into the database.
Colin watched as the cracker program he bought on the black market did all the work and probably broke several dozen laws concerning private property and information theft.

These were easily the stuff that can get you a life sentence but Colin had no choice now. He could only go forward. Would it even worth it? A part of his logic asked but he ignored it.
Sweat tricked from his brow and his hands shook over the keyboard as console screens popped up, ran their code and closed themselves into nothingness. Several icons appeared and disappeared on his desktop while the software ran. Colin had no idea what they were and what they did.
He felt useless as the Wallbreaker did all the work but there was no chance that he would be as fast as this amazing software.

Colin had this odd feeling that he wasn't alone sitting in front of his computer screen. It was as if someone was there with him, peering into the screen. He wanted to turn back and look over his shoulder but the idea was completely silly and he ignored the urge. Then everything went black.

Room was embedded in darkness. Colin only saw a black void as he kept staring to where the screen was. His screen had blinked with several windows and then entirely shut down within a second, leaving the room in darkness. What's odd was that all the lights around the room had also ceased to give light. He sat there half a minute, his mind was blank despite the unusual event. Why wasn't he afraid? Why wasn't he broke into a run and leave the room?
He broke all kinds of cyber laws and was in deep trouble just for using Wallbreaker, yet he did not felt scared. He was calm.
Something, some force compelled him to sit on his chair and stare blankly into the dark screen that he could hardly see as outlines.

His eyes burned as the screen turned on violently and showered him in bright white light. His screen was no lamp but it shone like it was. Was this device even capable of producing such light? Colin closed shut his eyelids since his hands rebelled against his commands to cover his eyes. He saw blazing red through his eyelids as light penetrated their flesh and veins.

Then the light subdued and shapes appeared on the screen. Colin was fixated on the screen as the scene enfolded before his eyes.

=I=

They moved through the village silently. Unpainted brick walls and nailed wood panels made up the houses of this village.
"Some piss-poor shit-country." thought Mark as he marched behind Sören in a half-crouched advance. He aimed his rifle at windows and other possible target points as he moved forward.

They had the over-sea issue BMCRs as their main armament. These bullpup combat rifles were more than enough to deal with any targets they were to encounter. But to make them even deadlier, they had installed illuminated red-dot sights with enhanced dusk-vision atop the tactical railing that traversed the topside of the barrel. It didn't exactly served as a full fledged night-vision, but the illuminated reticle with the enhanced sight made targets clear for shooting even at night. Bullpup Multirole Combat Rifles were of top design for operations like these, that required flexibility, mobility and tactical adaptability. BMCRs were of Singapore Technologies design and they weren't even on the market but the Annihilation Corps always got the newer stuff.
"I get the sense that they're using us to test out these things." Mark thought as a joke. He wanted to say it out loud but judged better to just shut up.

Dawn was coming and the village was in deep sleep. No one would knew they were even there. Their overbulked silencers made extra sure of that.
Mark heard the spitting sound of silenced rifle-fire and a figure ahead of them dropped silently to the ground.
"Target neutralized." came in Sören heavy german accented voice to his ear-bead.
Sören was his point-man. Operatives always worked with partners. Where one failed the other was to make sure the job gets done.
"Move in." ordered Hasan, the chief-operative over the radio.
Hasan was leading the VIP with other Operatives. Mark and Sören made sure the path was clear. When the road was open the VIP could be brought forth and allowed to work.
"Work for what in this forsaken camel-land." thought Mark, more to just swear than asking a question.
Sören took the helm and marched them silently through the street. If you can even call it a 'street'. It was just single dirt road and water puddles filled with more mud than water in the middle.
This village was a small settlement that was built before the Libyan Civil War and now with the overflow of refugees from conflict zones, it had blown into a full fledged town. Mark had no idea why they were deployed here or what they were to do. Operatives always worked in the dark. They knew what their mission was and nothing else. Secrecy after all, was security.

Truthfully, it was obvious what they were to do, they were the Annihilation Corps after all. Their unit was massacre incarnate. People called Nuclear weapons or cluster based explosives as Weapons of Mass Destruction. They were wrong. Annihilation Corps was the true WMDs. Nuclear weapons sat in their silos and Cluster bombs blew some kid's legs once in a while when stepped upon. Corps however, moved through the night, killing anyone they were ordered to.
No questions asked. No logic applied. Pure, simple, easy death delivered.
"Just like UPS." joked Mark when they were back in the mess hall many times and no one laughed. For they already knew the punchline.
"Except they die."

They moved extra careful, trying not to step on those water puddles as they moved through the street. Each house was made of whatever the peasants could get their hands on and to save space they were constructed next to one another without any space in between. Not that there were any estate debates in this desert-ridden land but the close proximity had other uses than mere land. It blocked the desert wind for one thing, second, it was easier to defend the clustered houses than a spread out village.
That was how these clustered housings naturally built streets without any kind of design or planning involved. People needed to move about them so they left these gaps filled with mud as streets.
Mark wasn't sure to be grateful that they did that, or to curse them. He cursed them for good measure.
"Fucking camel-riding turban heads." he growled silently as his foot nearly landed into a puddle.
Sören had heard it but ignored as he moved on. He was way better than Mark at this sneaking thing.
There were no walkways on the streets and a small river ran in the middle of every damn street. Mark didn't want to guess why there were brown colored water pools in the middle of the road. He could guess the answer when he saw something floating within the puddle next to him.
It was a piss-poor sewer system that the natives used. They dumped their buckets of shit into the middle of the road and let the dry and hot air of Sahara turn wet shit into dried puddles of shit. They used dried faeces in their ovens as fuel or as fertilizer for crops.

There was another early-riser on their path.
"Get this one." radioed Sören.
Mark took aim and placed the red dot on the man's chest.
Shapes were vague in the morning light but the man saw them despite the poor visibility. He raised one hand towards the sky.
"Allahu akbar" he shouted towards them.
Mark froze, the first thing that came to his mind was "Bomb". His senses blared into readiness for action. He waited for something to happen but the silly peasant stood there without moving.
It felt like an eternity but nothing happened and Mark came to his senses. What the peasant wanted to accomplish, he would never know. His trigger finger squeezed in quick succession.
Mark was exceptional in his abilities with a rifle but the man's meaningless action took his mind off from his aim for a second. It was a grave mistake for a professional operative. His shot whizzed past the peasant's head and flew into distance. Fear rose in Mark's heart as he realised his horrible mistake. He knew what they did to operatives that underperformed.
It was called "Early retirement".

Two 5.56 NATO rounds silently embedded themselves into the Libyan's chest and the silhouette of the man dropped to the ground without making a sound.
Sören dropped his aim and shifted his head to check Mark with the corner of his eye. His face had the WTF-is-wrong-with-you expression.
They listened the village for an uprising but no one was getting up despite the man's shout.
"What was that?" came in Hasan's voice over the radio.
"Nothing. Some drunk peasant." lied Sören.
Then he cut the Hasan's link and talked to Mark.
"Why did you allowed him to shout?"
"It was a split second thing, let's just move. No harm done anyway." said Mark, wanting to dismiss his failure as quickly as possible.
"You owe me one." said Sören as he prowled ahead.
"I know." Mark silently growled as he followed.

They were at the center of the village now. Mark had no idea why they had to sneak all this way to get this job done. There was nothing here. Just a shitty bazaar-place with tents and wooden stalls left abandoned in the morning wind. Cloth flapped as dusty wind blew slowly.
"Skull one, on point." reported Sören.
He had placed a knee on the ground and kept his rifle sideways as he crouched in the middle of the bazaar.
Three more men dressed in black camo outfit appeared and prowled towards them. Only two of them were armed with BMCRs. Unarmed man was the "VIP".
Mark had no idea what this guy's name was or what he was supposed to do. It was really daring to come into territory held by Libyan Government of National Accord without a good rifle strapped onto your chest.
"Skull one, secure the perimeter." said Hasan as he moved towards them leading the VIP.
Mark knew that the VIP's call sign was Azrael. He looked the part too. He wore a black skull cap beret despite the dry air and white unkempt hair came out from it's sides like tendrils. His face was pale and his cheeks were sunken into his face. He was supposed to be 30-something but he looked 60. However, his movement was well paced and he wasn't fatigued despite the demanding walk to the village center.

They weren't able to land a chopper into the middle of the village for it was too dangerous to risk any of the villagers having an RPG. Villages around Sawknah was close to the disputed combat line between Tobruk-led Government and Government of National Accord. Hence the villagers were armed with all manners of surplus guns. AKs and RPGs were sold even cheaper than livestock. Most didn't work after a few shots but others did and once the owner died they were used by others.
Peasants themselves didn't cared much for one fighting side or the other. They just liked shooting at those who came to their door for purposes of raping and looting.
So the Operatives had to walk all the way into the village and bring this VIP guy along with them.

Mark watched the the old looking VIP, Azrael, took position in the middle of the bazaar. Tan colored cloths and blue nylon tents flapped around him as he stood on his feet on a straight pose.
Azrael's arms spread to either side in a downward 'V', his hands looking down onto the ground with fingers apart from one another. It looked like he was trying to suppress something.
Mark knew that this man was dangerous. His spine tingled with unease and a single drop of cold sweat ran down his back. Suddenly it felt very cold. Very, very cold.
Desert nights were cold but this was simply too much for anything natural.
Mark's black hair shuffled in the wind as he stood silent, watching Azrael at work.

"We might be here for a while, make sure no one that wakes up lives a second longer." ordered Hasan and Mark broke his gaze from Azrael to check the two streets that was within his vision-arc.
"Affirmative." he radioed back.

Azrael opened his conciousness and looked into the tendrils of creation. Everything was connected. Life, death, matter, energy. And he was here to sever that connection. His mind filled with images of dissected corpses he worked on. Each muscle merging into another like a woven fabric. Bones being held by white tendons, veins taking shortcuts within the body to reach where they need to go like highways of blood.
He opened his eyes and willed that flesh he knew to rot. To dissolve as he willed it and separate from their perfect bindings. Veins would tore, muscle cells would contract and breach the bonds between them. Tendons would break their binding to the bones, flesh cells would explode open their lysosomes and release hydrolytic enzymes into themselves, committing suicide by organic dissolution.
Lungs would draw blood into themselves and suffocate the body. Heart would stop beating and poison the cells with clotted disoxygenated blood.
Life was a puzzle to Azrael. Like a hard question with an easy answer. How one would die was the hard question. So many alternatives existed. On the other hand, death was the easy answer. It was certain and simple. All things die. Once created, one was destined for an end. When? Answer to that question was on Azrael's lips.
"Now." he exhaled as his mind released this horrible wave of death upon the habitants of this village.

Mark stood there watching the streets become more lit as the hour passed. Nothing was happening. Nothing. And he was getting tense.
"What the hell are we waiting for?" he said to himself and kept his aim towards the doors for possible targets. Luckily no one was getting up yet and dawn was two hours away.
He checked Azrael with a side glance and saw him standing there just as he was an hour before. Azrael stood there like a statue as the dry wind blew around him.

"Too much, too much people." Azrael's brow was filled with sweat as life around him suppressed his imagination of death. If Hasan realised that he wasn't making any progress it would not be good for him.
Annihilation Corps was not a forgiving organization concerning Operatives that fail their jobs. Worse, he was in no position to hide his failure. Once the miserable peasants of this village woke up alive, Azrael would invite a bullet into his skull.
"Die." he growled to the essence of life around him, wind and flapping nylon sounds drowning out his words.

Another hour passed but he wasn't making progress. He could not fail, he just could not. Dawn was upon them and rays of light glow like a crown atop a desert hill. Sun was coming up. And people started to wake up.
"What is wrong?" came in Hasan's voice over the radio.
Hasan was keeping radio silence until now to let Azrael work, but things were getting out of hand.
"Nothing. Everything is fine. Give me a minute." replied Azrael.
"You had three. Do this now or we abort." said Hasan.
Azrael growled a reply and focused on his vision.

"Contacts." reported Sören as he spotted Lybian peasants leaving their homes and looking around as they spot Azrael in the middle of the plaza. They had no idea what was going on but Operatives would take no chance.
"Open fire." ordered Hasan.
Tapping sounds of silenced gunfire filled the plaza as the Operatives fired. Azrael still stood there, trying to salvage the situation but it was clear that things look grim.
Mark spotted a women and a kid leaving their semi-tent home and took aim. He switched off the glowing red-dot sight for it was already bright enough.
He shot the women through the chest and she dropped silently. His rifle only made a whizzing noise as it delivered death. Kid was dazed by the sudden collapse of the woman. Mark took his chance to deliver the same treatment to the child.
Shooting them was quite easy, however once all the people woke up there would be dozens of angry, armed peasants against the five of them.
Mark didn't liked those odds.
"We should leave before more wake up." he radioed to Hasan, but got no reply.
"Focus at the work at hand." said Sören as his rifle spent two more cartridges.
Mark checked his ammo and made sure none of the magazines had anything problematic on them. Things were about to get hot and he was damn ready.
He head-shot a man as he left the house. Lybian dropped to the side without making a single noise.

What the other Operatives did not know was that Azrael was holding back. He was limiting his own control so that he could defend them from his wave of rot. But now that his own life was at stake, Azrael didn't care anymore. He wasn't going to hold back. He focused on one thing.
"Kill them all."
Death roared around him as he started to assert his own will onto the creation.
People waking up found their own arms rotting as they still lived. Children had their faces dissolved into their skull as they laid on their beds, dead. A woman tried to rise up from her bead and her tits fell onto the ground as they become blacked with corruption.
Organs squirmed and died. Noses, fingers, penises, breasts fell off from the body as they lost their cellular connection. Just like the statues of ancient Egypt, any external organs were the first to fall prey to gravity as they died.
Some people were struck by immense pain and died of heart failure.
"More! More death!" screamed Azrael as he was releasing a power no technology can surpass.

His rifle fell from Mark's hands as he felt a numbness grip his arm. He used his other hand to grab the rifle and fire at a nearby peasant. He managed to shot him in the gut and the peasant collapsed. He was still alive but was in no shape to scream. Peasant sat there clutching the bullet wound with one hand, unable to rise the other. Mark clearly saw that half the peasant face was black with gangrene. His teeth were hanging loosely in his mouth and his ear dripped flesh like a melting wax.
Mark was no stranger to death. But whatever this was, it was unnatural. No bullet, no explosive, no knife could do such a harm. It was simply impossible.

Azrael had things getting out of control. But the more he killed the less burden he needed to deal with. Time was precious and he had to be quick. His care for the other Operatives was none existant at this point. He wasn't going to die, that was the only thing that mattered now. And he could always come up with an excuse for their deaths later.
However, the damned Operatives were just people and they had witnessed the effects of his work. This complicated things. Their mere witnessing cause the universe to lurch in protest. Their disbelief fuelling the anger of the creation. He fought against the onslaught of power, pushing his will against the laws of the universe.
It was like screaming at your parents to get something you wanted as a child. The authority was always powerful and you were weak, but there was always a chance that you can win. You just needed to keep screaming. And keep willing.
"I command death. You will bow to my will." he gritted his teeth, trying to sound in control.
After a moment of terrible conflict, the tendrils of creation subdued against his will. Finally he was so close into completing the circle. Death shall reign.

A grey mist blew in a circle from where Azrael was standing. It traversed the village and disappeared into thin air when it reached the edges. More than a hundred people died by the wave of death. Their flesh rotting as they yet lived.
Mark had lost the left side of his sight as his left eye died. Cells that transmit light into nerve signals died out behind his eye. His retina dissolved like milk into his eyeball as it's chemical make-up came loose.
He screamed in pain. When he opened his jaw to shout, his weakened cheek flesh tore apart. Cheeks were punctured by several holes as he screamed in terror and pain. He had already lost his rifle, he was too much in pain to know where it was. His ears were also dying but he could still hear the screams of other Operatives on his ear-bead.
His arm grabbed a piece of wooden stake nearby and he tried to rise himself but only managed to lean on it. He was losing muscle control fast and his energy left him just as quickly.
A peasant that still lived ran into the street with an AK-47 in hand. His entire right arm had dropped off and only a rotted piece of stump was all that's left. He tried to fire but his finger broke when he pressed it against the trigger. He fell on his knees and bent backwards from immense pain. His face turned black as cells died and flesh melted downwards, revealing the grinning skull beneath. Peasant was dead but his body remained in the horrid pose with a grinning skull instead of a face.

"What is happening?" wanted to shout Mark but he fell face first into the muddy water and moved no more.
Azrael looked around the carnage. He had killed more than a hundred people within several hours and exhausted himself to the limit. But his ruthless nature made him impartial to the demise of these worthless people.
"All things die." he said to himself. Standing there alone at the center of a massacred village. He even had killed his own men and didn't care for their demise one bit.
He still needed to haul their equipment somehow. After a moments thinking he decided to call in the helicopter but another solution presented itself as several car lamps revealed towards the village, coming from the hills.

Several military vehicles with desert camo painting came inside the village and stopped when they spotted Azrael sitting there. Vehicles were three RG-31 Nyalas and carried United Nation markings.
"Identify yourself." shouted the gunner at the front vehicle as he pointed the machine gun at Azrael.
Azrael got up and presented his hands in the air.
"United Nations Reconnaissance Division." said Azrael.
"Which unit?" asked the gunner.
Azrael didn't know the answer to that, he was lying so that they won't arrest or shoot him.
"Which unit?" repeated the gunner.
"Who is your commanding officer, soldier?" asked Azrael standing upright and lowering his hands.
"Why are you lying?" accused the gunner.
"There is something your officer need to see. Then we can talk." said Azrael staring at the gunner.

Soldier could pump rounds into Azrael's body right then and there but the soldier faced a more horrible fate. Before him stood a man who had just murdered an entire village including his comrades in cold blood. Gunner didn't know that and had no idea what he was up against. Still, he stood boldly against this solitary man they just found in the middle of a village.
Before things get more tense, second Nyalas's door opened and several armed soldiers descended along with their officer in charge.
"You got something for me?" he asked as his men circled the plaza and kept Azrael at gun point.
"I do." said Azrael and produced a piece of paper in plastic sheet.
He handed the paper to the officer and waited for him to read.
Officer's eyebrows rose in wonder as he kept on reading. When he was done he handed it back to Azrael.
"This says that you are under direct jurisdiction of both the United States Department of Defense and United Nations Department of Peacekeeping."
Soldiers around them turned to look at this men with this much authority. In layman's terms he held the military jurisdiction that enabled him to operate in any western involved country. Without borders or boundaries. And this was the public jurisdiction he got. No one could guess what was his jurisdiction involving black operations.
These soldiers didn't know that this was a black operation and not just a simple recon or something else.
"And you?" asked Azrael as he tucked the paper into his combat vest.
"US Army International Peacekeepers Division, UN branch. George Walker, second security patrol, sir." said the officer slapping a salute to Azrael.
"At ease. You may call me Azrael."
"Az-?" asked the officer confused by the nickname.
"-rael." finished Azrael.
"Yes, sir. What happened here?" asked officer George.
"That..." began Azrael looking at his rank "...Sergeant Walker, is none of your concern. I lost several Operatives here and I need you to carry their equipment back to your base for a pick up. And me of course."
"Sir, there are bodies all around these buildings." came back one of the Infantry hurriedly.
"Same here, sir." said another.
A third reported the same findings.
"Carry my men into the vehicles, now!" said Azrael, losing his patience.
Walker motioned his soldiers to obey with a hand signal.
"If I know what happened here, sir Azrael. Then I can provide you with better support." said Walker.
"They died. All of them died. That is all you need to know." said Azrael.
Walker looked puzzled "The entire village? But there are no active combat reports by any of the nearby recon stations."
"Even if someone slipped past the patrols, how can a small team can kill an entire village without alerting anyone?" he added.
"Maybe they did, maybe they didn't." said Azrael with an uncaring attitude.
"Did you engage them? How did you lose your men?" asked Walker.
Azrael looked at the US infantrymen as they carried the corpses of the Operatives and load them into their vehicles.
He sighed "Look, sergeant. I am dead tired and can barely stand up. You can read the after-action report when I filed it. But right now, we leave. It's an order." he said.
"Yes, sir." said Walker, suspicious but obedient.

A few weeks later, Sergeant Walker would look into the investigation and try to find this report that he was promised. But there never was such a report, nor any investigation to follow up on.

=I=

Colin watched in horror as the helmet-recorder of one of the Operatives showed him the cruel details of every death. When the Operative died the camera fell into the mud so he couldn't watch no more. But he could still hear the screams and the howling wind. His speakers protested in this barrage of noise.

Then the screams become silent and the wind was omnipresent. He wasn't able to see or hear but he could discern the mumblings that was unintelligible speech. He waited several minutes before someone picked up the dead Operative and carried it somewhere. Camera was mired in mud and didn't show anything except a brown stain. The feed turned off after several minutes of engine noises and Colin's screen turned back to normal.

"This is horrible." he said, still in shock. He wasn't even aware he said it out loud.
He wasn't looking for this. Was he? All he wanted was to learn more about the Overlords and this was not what he expected to get involved in. Everything was out of control now. He had lost control when he made the decision to bargain with an anonymous hacker, paid for his software and ran it on his computer. A long chain of mistakes led his to this moment.
"I should have just stopped." he told himself with a voice filled with regret.
In contrast with his horrible mood his room was back to normal. Lights were lit as they were before. His screen sported his usual desktop with an anime girl wallpaper on the background. Everything was just like the way he entered the room. Cloths and chips packaging laid on his carpet. And a blue stain of GodPunch on his glass table.
His coat hanger was still dead, lying without moving on the floor.
Everything was back to normal.

"Just one stupid video. Not like I haven't seen worse things on the internet." Colin said to himself, forcing a laugh to ease his nerves.
It was nothing after all. He didn't seen anything of importance.
Just some gruesome black operation.
"Like, people didn't know there was this kind of thing happening all the time. People know about the secret budges and secret agencies the governments had after all." Colin reasoned it as common knowledge.
And this video was no big deal. Nobody would spent the time to track him down because of one stupid video he watched.
Sure he penetrated into a database that he wasn't supposed to but he didn't do anything else. He didn't copy any information, he didn't manipulated the database in any way.
Or did he? Was he even hundred percent sure that the cracker program didn't do any alteration or data theft?
Colin was so scared of the implications that he dismissed such a notion.
"I'm not in trouble." he said to the empty room with a nervous smile.
Right? His mind echoed back.