Release #1 - 100

ARMISTICE #1 — “Quiet Hours (3:33)” Chapter Synopsis At 3:31 A.M., our operative slips into St. Miriam Hospital under blackout drizzle and buzzing exit signs. The rules follow her like ghosts: 1 SHOT EACH. WITNESS REQUIRED. NO COLLATERAL. She scouts the empty halls, syncing to heart-monitors and CCTV rhythms. A gurney rattles. The “cost clock” starts ticking toward a forced blackout. To keep the system from auto-muting the mission, she flags a janitor as her required witness and deploys two custodial drones—reprogrammed to pass as housekeeping. Chalk marks appear on the tiles: move on my word, not before. ICU corridor. The target isn’t a person to kill—it’s a failing signal. One shot must land clean. She and a second operator split tasks: stabilize a patient’s line with a single precise med dose (one shot), then ghost the floor toward “Compiler”—the network core rumored to live in the sub-basement. Drones hum, doors whisper NETWORK AUTHORIZED ONLY, and red target halos keep finding her. Down on B-Level the op wobbles. Cameras tag her: TARGET LOCKED. Another figure confronts her—accusing her of stealing “Caliban,” a tool or program the system won’t forgive. Deployment fails. Alarms evolve. Security units boot up with stun-red optics. Cornered in the sub-basement at 3:40 A.M., she flips the last switch she’s not supposed to have: ARMISTICE PROTOCOL—ENGAGED. The issue closes on the trigger pull of a rule—because in this world you don’t break the rules, you weaponize them. Tone & Themes: neon-noir pressure cooker; precision over brutality; accountability through witnesses; the cost of keeping bystanders safe when the system would rather you didn’t.