Chapter 8 THE MAN ON THE SCREEN

Rain followed Cairos across the city like something alive. By the time he stopped running, Blackwater had already begun shifting toward morning. Neon advertisements flickered weakly above flooded streets while early transit workers moved through the sidewalks with exhausted faces and lowered eyes. Nobody noticed him, or maybe they did and simply chose not to look too closely.

Cairos leaned against the wall beneath an abandoned tram platform while trying to steady his breathing. His clothes were soaked again with rainwater dripping steadily from his sleeves onto the concrete below. One of his hands still shook slightly as Darren's face kept returning in fragments,it was not the stabbing itself, but the confusion afterward. "Cairos..." he had said, and the way he said it

Cairos pressed both hands against his forehead hard enough to hurt. His thoughts felt slippery now, difficult to hold for too long before panic started pushing through them again. He needed to think properly and somewhere quiet and safe but every place in Blackwater suddenly felt temporary.

A train roared overhead somewhere in the darkness while distant sirens echoed through nearby streets. Cairos forced himself away from the wall and continued walking. The city slowly woke around him, street vendors rolled open rusted shutters, corporate buses moved through flooded intersections, and massive digital screens flickered between advertisements and government broadcasts overhead. Somewhere nearby, an old radio played muffled music through static.

Normal life continued, but that was not for him, his life has been disorganized from the beginning. Blackwater Heights had turned into a war zone hours ago and the city simply kept moving. Cairos eventually slipped into a small twenty four hour diner wedged beneath an old apartment block near District Nine. The place smelled like burnt oil and cheap coffee, only three people sat inside and neither of them looked up when he entered. Good, he thought.

He chose the farthest booth from the entrance and lowered himself into the seat slowly. His entire body ached now, exhaustion sat behind his eyes like pressure. A waitress approached without interest. "You ordering something?" she asked. "Coffee," Cairos said quietly. She nodded once and walked away. A television mounted near the ceiling played silently above the counter. Corporate news footage rolled across the screen between weather reports and traffic updates, and Cairos ignored it at first. Suddenly, he saw his name appear on the screen and his body locked instantly.

The waitress returned with coffee just as the volume rose slightly throughout the diner. "Authorities have identified twenty nine year old maintenance worker Cairos Reed as the primary suspect connected to last night's violent incidents at Blackwater Heights," the anchor said. Cairos stared upward without moving. A photograph of him appeared beside the report, employee ID picture, Blackwater Maintenance Services. The image looked wrong now, smaller somehow, like it belonged to somebody else but it was his.

"Residents reported multiple disturbances shortly before a containment operation began inside the apartment complex," the anchor continued. Containment operation, not raid or armed assault, but containment, they had a funny way of presenting things.

The report continued calmly.."Authorities also confirmed the death of elderly resident Alina Kart, found deceased inside her room during the incident which he was discovered in her room and he escaped," the anchor said. Miss Alina's photograph appeared beside his own.

"Cairos Reed is considered armed and psychologically unstable," the anchor added. Psychologically unstable, the words settled heavily inside his chest. Nobody in the diner reacted much, a few people glanced toward the screen briefly before returning to their food. Blackwater was used to violence.

Then the report changed again, and a new image appeared of Darren in the hospital in critical condition. "A second victim, identified as Darren Cole, remains hospitalized following a stabbing connected to the suspect," the anchor said. Second victim, Cairos looked down at the untouched coffee in front of him and his stomach turned slowly.

The waitress behind the counter shook her head quietly. "City's getting worse every week," she muttered but Cairos said nothing. Then the screen changed again, and a security footage appeared. Immediately, Cairos stopped breathing.

The footage showed him, not a photograph, but video. Dark corridor footage from somewhere inside Blackwater, timestamped three weeks earlier. Cairos watched himself move across the screen wearing dark clothes he did not recognize with a calm and focused presence holding a handgun. Three other men appeared in the corridor ahead of him.

The footage had no audio, he saw himself raised the weapon and pulled the trigger, muzzle flashes erupted silently, and one of the men collapsed instantly. Another stumbled backward against the wall. The footage cut sharply before the rest could be seen. Cairos felt coldness spread slowly through his arms. No, no, he would remember that, wouldn't he?

The news anchor continued speaking calmly over the footage. "Recovered surveillance records suggest Reed may be connected to several ongoing investigations tied to extremist activity within Blackwater City," the anchor said. They were recovered surveillance records, not verified, but recovered. Careful choice of word. The footage replayed again, and Cairos kept staring at the screen.

The man moved like him, stood like him, and even the way he held the gun felt natural enough to make something twist painfully inside his chest but he did not remember it. A sudden sharp ringing burst briefly through his skull and he grabbed the edge of the table immediately. For half a second, in his mind, there was a corridor, a red emergency lighting, someone screaming, a gun in his hand then everything cleared and they vanished.

The sensation vanished instantly, Cairos inhaled sharply and looked around the diner, thank God nobody noticed. The television continued quietly overhead. "Citizens are advised not to approach the suspect under any circumstances," the anchor said. His coffee had gone untouched, and the rain continued tapping softly against the diner windows while Blackwater carried on outside like nothing had changed.

Cairos slowly reached into his pocket and pulled out the burner phone beneath the table. His thumb hovered over the recording again. For several seconds he hesitated, then pressed play. Static crackled softly through the speaker against his ear with and uneven breathing that followed, then his own voice spoke quietly. "If you're seeing something you do not understand now, don't trust it completely," the voice said.

Cairos felt chills down his spin, the recording continued. "Some of it is real," the voice said. Silence filled the space afterward except for static, then the voice added quietly, "That's the problem." Across the diner, the television replayed the footage again but this time, Cairos noticed the man on the screen glance directly toward the camera, like he knew it was there.