Behind the bar stood a woman with ethereal markings that rippled like liquid starlight across her skin—similar to Aria's own engineered radiance. The bartender moved with an elegant grace, her lithe frame and delicate features belying her professional competence. Her presence commanded attention not through physical intimidation, but through an almost otherworldly beauty that drew eyes from across the room.
Aria slid onto a barstool, her tactical suit's color-shifting fabric adapting to the bar's ambient lighting. Her mercury eyes scanned the room while appearing to focus solely on the bartender. Three of her targets worked in a satellite office within a two-kilometer radius—she could feel the proximity like an itch under her skin.
"What's your poison?" the bartender asked, her voice carrying a hint of genuine interest. Aria's enhanced senses detected elevated pheromone levels—attraction. Useful.
"Something that won't kill my enhanced metabolism," Aria responded, letting a small smile play across her lips. She'd studied human flirtation extensively—the subtle cues, the micro expressions, the perfect balance between interest and mystery. "Though I suppose that depends on what you're offering."
The bartender's phosphorescent patterns shifted to warmer hues—another tell. "I might have something special for someone who can appreciate it." She produced a crystal decanter filled with iridescent liquid. "Synthesized on Titan. Designed specifically for enhanced nervous systems."
Aria leaned forward slightly, allowing her own engineered luminosity to catch the light. "Impressive. You seem to know your clientele well." Her fingers brushed against the bartender's as she accepted the glass—calculated contact, precise pressure, perfect timing. Years of observation had taught her the exact duration of touch that suggested interest without desperation.
"Part of the job," the bartender responded, mirroring Aria's posture. Her slender frame moved with natural fluidity as she worked, light dancing across her skin in mesmerizing patterns. "Though some clients are more interesting than others." Her pulse had quickened—another data point in Aria's ongoing collection.
"I imagine you hear all sorts of interesting things," Aria said, taking a measured sip. The liquid adapted to her body temperature, creating a pleasant warmth that her enhanced system processed without impairment. "Working in a place like this, in this particular sector."
The bartender's eyes flickered toward the back of the bar—a microsecond tell that confirmed Aria's intel about the satellite office's location. "People talk," she agreed, her voice lowering. "Especially about the new research complex they're building up in the clouds."
Aria's neural pathways lit up with interest, though her expression remained casually engaged. "Research complex? Sounds fascinating." She let her fingers trail along the edge of her glass, drawing the bartender's attention. "Though I imagine the really interesting work happens in the smaller offices. The ones people don't talk about."
"You seem to know a lot about such things," the bartender observed, leaning closer. Her shimmering patterns had shifted to a deep purple—intrigue mixed with caution.
"I know about many things," Aria responded, allowing a predatory edge to color her smile. "Including how to keep secrets." She tapped her glass for a refill, using the moment to scan the bar again. Two security officers had entered—their posture and concealed weapons marking them as private contractors, likely from her target facility.
The bartender's hands lingered as she poured another drink. "Secrets are vitally important currency around here."
"Indeed they are," Aria agreed, her enhanced vision capturing the reflection of a hidden door in the bartender's cybernetic eye implant. "Though I find the truth can be equally valuable, in the right company."
The flirtation continued, each exchange a calculated move in Aria's intelligence-gathering operation. Every laugh, every "accidental" touch, every shared glance was precisely engineered to extract information while appearing entirely natural. She was a weapon performing an intimate dance of deception, and the bartender was both audience and unwitting informant.
By the time Aria left the bar three hours later, she had confirmed the satellite office's location, identified its security patterns, and mapped potential entry points—all without asking a single direct question. The bartender had even given her personal contact information, believing she'd made a genuine connection.
Later that night, in the bartender's high-rise apartment overlooking the city lights, their bodies met in a dance of shadow and desire. Moonlight painted silver trails across bare skin, catching the delicate sheen of sweat that made their bodies glisten. The bartender's fingers traced paths along Aria's skin with trembling fascination, each touch igniting sparks of pleasure that made her breath catch.
The dim light caught their movements, casting intimate shadows that danced across the walls like secret witnesses to their passion. When their lips met, the kiss was primal, desperate—a hunger that spoke of needs deeper than words could capture. Their bodies entwined with growing urgency, skin sliding against skin in a rhythm as old as desire itself.
Aria felt everything with perfect clarity—the soft sighs, the heated skin, the thundering heartbeats that seemed to echo through the darkness. The bartender's body burned hot beneath her hands, her skin tasting of salt and sweetness. Where others might fumble, Aria moved with liquid grace, knowing exactly where to touch, how to kiss, precisely how much pressure would draw out those desperate, pleading sounds.
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
They lost themselves in each other for hours, though Aria remained in perfect control. Between frenzied kisses and desperate caresses, secrets spilled from the bartender's lips in breathless whispers, her inhibitions melting away beneath Aria's skilled touch. Each gasp, each moan, each shuddered breath was a symphony of surrender.
Aria knew exactly how to touch, where to kiss, precisely what would drive her partner wild with need. Each move was designed to keep her hovering on the edge of ecstasy, drawing out pleasure until the bartender could barely remember her own name. Their passionate dance continued until she finally collapsed in exhaustion, spent and satisfied, completely unaware of how thoroughly she'd been conquered.
She watched the woman sleep peacefully for a while before getting dressed quietly in the pre-dawn darkness. As she slipped out into the night, Aria reflected that humans always seemed to crave emotional connection. It was a weakness she knew how to use to her advantage, even if sometimes, in quiet moments like this, she wondered if there wasn't more to it than that.
She pushed the thought aside. She had work to do. Three new targets to eliminate, and now she knew exactly where to find them.
As Aria slipped away, a cold smile played across her lips. The bartender had been more than just an information source—she was Dr. Chen's daughter, though she didn't know it yet. Those ethereal markings that rippled across her skin weren't the random genetic art she believed them to be, but telltale signs of her father's early, crude enhancement protocols. Her movements, while graceful, betrayed the limitations of first-generation modifications—a pale shadow of what Aria had become. Where the bartender's engineered beauty was obvious, almost garish in its display, Aria's enhancements were seamlessly integrated, a perfect fusion of form and lethal function.
The woman's enhanced reflexes, her subtle strength, even her ability to process complex information—all were primitive compared to Aria's capabilities. Chen had experimented on his own daughter with early versions of Project Nexus protocols, creating something beautiful but fundamentally flawed. She was living proof that Project Nexus's reach extended beyond the facility, touching lives in ways its victims couldn't comprehend, but also evidence of how far the science had evolved by the time they created Aria.
The bartender would remember only a night of passion, unaware she'd been another piece in Aria's intricate game of revenge. Some weapons, Aria mused, were best wielded through seduction rather than violence. Her enhanced memory recalled Chen's last words about becoming something beyond their calculations. He had no idea how right he was—his own daughter's limited enhancements were nothing compared to what Aria had become. Every target eliminated brought her closer to Dr. Reyes, and now, thanks to the bartender's unwitting assistance, three more would fall.
Where the bartender moved with enhanced grace, Aria moved with deadly precision. Where the woman processed information quickly, Aria's mind worked at speeds that made quantum computers seem sluggish. The difference between them was the difference between a prototype and a masterpiece—between Dr. Chen's early experiments and Project Nexus's ultimate achievement.
Her enhanced memory recalled Chen's last words about becoming something beyond their calculations. He had no idea how right he was. Every target eliminated brought her closer to Dr. Reyes, and now, thanks to the bartender's unknowing assistance, three more would fall.
Perched in the skeletal remains of an abandoned construction site across from the office complex, Aria waited with predatory patience. The half-finished building provided perfect cover—its exposed beams and empty floors creating a web of shadows where she could observe undetected. For five hours, she studied the targets' movements through her enhanced vision, watching them work late into the night. The first target, Dr. Yuki Tanaka, hadn't left her desk in hours, absorbed in complex genetic sequencing data that flickered across her holoscreen. The second, Dr. Mark Webb, paced nervously between workstations, his augmented eyes casting an eerie blue glow as he reviewed security protocols. The third, Dr. Sierra Chen—another of Chen's children, though this one knew her heritage—methodically archived research data, unaware that her father's death wasn't the accident she believed it to be.
A chilling smile touched Aria's lips as she watched them work, their movements as predictable as lab rats in a maze. They believed their security measures made them untouchable—retinal scanners, quantum-locked doors, AI surveillance systems. But they had forgotten the most fundamental rule of survival: no system was perfect. No defense could account for every variable. Especially not when that variable was engineered to be the perfect predator.
As she approached the satellite office's location, her enhanced vision pierced the early morning darkness. The small office space occupied the northwest corner of the thirty-seventh floor—a supposedly secure location that now felt like an exposed nerve waiting to be severed. Through the reinforced windows, she could see her three targets working late, their faces illuminated by holographic displays. They had no idea that their careful security measures had been compromised by a bartender's whispered secrets. No idea that death wore tactical armor and moved like shadow given form. A smile, as sharp and cold as a honed blade, played across Aria's lips.
For the three targets in the satellite office, Aria would need to orchestrate deaths that appear entirely unconnected and natural. Her enhanced capabilities and access to their security systems through the bartender's information would allow for precise execution:
Dr. Yuki Tanaka
-
Hack environmental controls to gradually increase CO2 levels in her private office space
-
The slow buildup would appear as ventilation system malfunction
-
Her focused work habits mean she likely wouldn't notice until too late
-
Medical report would show apparent heart failure from oxygen deprivation
-
Common enough occurrence in high-altitude facilities to avoid suspicion
Dr. Mark Webb
-
His nervous pacing and augmented eyes provide opportunity
-
Manipulate his eye augmentation's neural interface to trigger a seemingly natural seizure
-
The medical record would show standard augmentation rejection syndrome
-
Common enough among early-generation augments to avoid investigation
Dr. Sierra Chen
-
Her methodical data archiving provides perfect cover
-
Introduce a subtle computer virus that generates a powerful electromagnetic pulse when accessing specific files
-
The pulse would trigger her neural implants to misfire
-
Would appear as standard neural interface failure
-
Family history of her father's "accident" would make another technology-related death seem sadly coincidental
Each death would be separated by weeks, occurring in different ways, with different apparent causes. The pattern would only become clear much later, when Project Nexus personnel finally realized they were being hunted.
TARGETS ELIMINATED: 4/1200