Episode 01 - The First Shadows

The war in the shadows begins.

In this premiere episode of Zeroman: Shadows Cast, we open the doors to a world built on secrets, surveillance, and the quiet machinery of destiny. 

Book 01 — Zeroman: The Sphere of Destiny — begins with the earliest threads of the mythos: a nameless child, a prodigy shaped by impossible expectations, and a clandestine project designed to manufacture perfection.

This is where the legend starts.
This is where the shadows first gather.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Xeroman Shadows Cast, where every secret forms a pattern, and every pattern leads deeper into the dark. Book one Xeroman The Sphere of Destiny Chapter one Subject Zero The room had no windows, it never had. Concrete walls the colour of wet ash pressed in from all sides, lit by a single fluorescent bar that hummed like a dying insect. The air smelled of ozone sweat, and the faint metallic tang of fear, though fear was a word they discouraged here. In the null directive, emotions were variables to be measured, catalogued, and eliminated. A boy, no older than fourteen, stood motionless in the center of the room. He wore a plain grey jumpsuit, bare feet on cold concrete. No name had ever been spoken to him, only a designation. Subject zero Two instructors observed from behind reinforced glass. One adjusted a clipboard. The other leaned forward, eyes narrowed. Begin. The lights flickered once. Then the room changed. Hidden panels slid open. Automatons on tracks emerged from the walls, six of them, each armed with a training baton. They moved in staggered patterns, unpredictable, designed to overwhelm. Subject zero did not move at first. He simply breathed. Then he disappeared. Not in the literal sense, not yet, but in the way that mattered. His posture shifted by fractions. Shoulders dropped, chin tucked. The fluorescent light seemed to slide off him, as if refusing to acknowledge his presence. When the first automaton swung, he was no longer where its senses expected. He flowed. A sidestep that looked lazy until the baton whistled through empty air. A pivot that turned defense into offense. Within twenty three seconds, all six of them lay broken on the floor, their mechanical joints sparking. The boy stood among the wreckage, breathing evenly, not triumphant, not exhausted, just finished. A speaker crackled overhead. Adaptability index ninety four point seven, highest recorded. The instructors exchanged glances. One of them, a thin man with wire rimmed glasses, spoke into a microphone. Subject zero report to Chamber seven for debrief and reassignment. The boy turned toward the glass. For a moment his eyes, cold grey, unnervingly steady, seemed to meet theirs directly, even through the one way mirror. Then he walked toward the exit without a word. Chamber seven was slightly warmer. A metal table, two chairs, a single file folder. The thin instructor was already waiting. You've completed the final evasion battery, he said without preamble. Your instructors believe you are ready for a new role. Subject Zero sat. He said nothing. He rarely did. The man opened the folder. Project Harbinger begins next cycle. A new cohort of subjects, younger, with exceptional cognitive markers. The directive has decided you will serve as their primary field instructor. The boy's expression did not change, but something behind his eyes shifted, like a shadow lengthening across still water. Among them is subject one oh one Designation Riggs Female H twelve. Pattern recognition scores off the charts. She will be challenging. The instructor slid a photograph across the table. A girl with sharp, intelligent eyes and dark hair stared back. Even in the grainy black and white image, she looked like she was already calculating the angles of the room. Subject zero studied the photo for a long moment. You will mould her, the instructor continued. You will break her of weakness. You will make her into something the world has never seen. Do you understand? The boy finally spoke. His voice was quiet, low, already carrying the weight of something older than his years. I understand. The instructor nodded, satisfied. Then congratulations, Subject Zero. You are no longer just the prototype. He closed the folder. You are about to become the first shadow. Chapter two The Prodigy The observation room smelled of burnt coffee and stale cigarette smoke. Dr. Evelyn Marrow, lead cognitive evaluator for Project Harbinger, rubbed her temples as she stared through the one-way glass. On the other side, a twelve-year-old girl sat at a metal table surrounded by scattered puzzle pieces, tactical maps, and open files. The girl hadn't moved in seventeen minutes. Her small hands were folded neatly in her lap, but her eyes were alive. Subject 1011, Marrow murmured into the recorder. Adriana Riggs. Pattern recognition and predictive sequencing scores continue to exceed all previous benchmarks. She completed the seven layer scenario in nine minutes and twelve seconds. Previous record was twenty seven minutes. Behind her, two senior handlers exchanged uneasy glances. The girl had arrived at the facility three weeks earlier, quiet, watchful, already carrying the weight of something far older than her age. Her parents, low level researchers in the Null Directive's outer programs, had signed her over without protest. For the greater pattern, they had said. Adriana didn't cry, she observed. Now she looked up directly at the mirrored glass, as if she could see straight through it. She knows we're watching, one handler muttered. Marrow didn't respond. She simply pressed the intercom button. Subject one oh one You may speak. The girl's voice came through clear and precise, with the faint accent of someone who had already absorbed three languages by osmosis. The scenario you gave me is flawed, she said calmly. The Eastern Block operative doesn't betray his handler in Berlin. He waits until Zurich. The money trail converges there. If you move the asset on the seventeenth instead of the twelfth, you prevent the leak entirely. Silence filled the observation room. Marrow leaned closer to the glass. And how do you know that? Because the patterns don't lie, Adriana replied. People do, but numbers and movements, they always tell the truth if you listen.

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Dr.

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Marrow turned to the handlers, her face pale. Get subject zero now. Thirty minutes later, the door to the evaluation chamber opened. A boy, no, a young man entered. Tall for his age, grey jumpsuit immaculate, movements economical. He carried nothing. His presence seemed to pull the light in the room toward him. Or perhaps push it away.

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It was hard to tell. Adriana looked up.

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For the first time in weeks, something flickered across her face, curiosity. The boy stopped three feet from the table. His voice was quiet, measured, already carrying the low timber that would one day become legend. I am your instructor. You may call me zero. Adriana studied him the way she studied maps and probabilities. Slowly, completely. You're the one who broke all six automatons in under thirty seconds, she said. It wasn't a question. He didn't smile. But something in his eyes shifted. Recognition, perhaps, or the first spark of respect. And you are the one who sees the wheel before it turns, he replied. Adriana tilted her head. Is that what they call it? The wheel? Zero pulled out the second chair and sat across from her. For a long moment neither spoke. The air between them felt charged, like the static before a storm. They want me to break you of weakness, he said finally. To make you into a weapon. Adriana's small hands tightened slightly on the edge of the table. And what do you want? she asked. Zero looked at her. Really looked. Past the prodigy. Past the test scores. Into the girl who already understood too much. I want to know if you can survive what they're going to do to you, he said softly. And whether you'll still be able to choose when they're finished. For the first time, Adriana smiled. It was small, sharp, and strangely beautiful. Then teach me, she said. Teach me everything. Zero studied her for another long beat. Then he reached across the table and slid one of the tactical maps toward her. Begin with Zurich, he said. Show me where the wheel breaks. As the girl leaned forward, pencil in hand, the fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Two shadows, one forged in silence, the other born in brilliance, sat across from each other in the belly of a machine that would one day tear the world apart. Neither of them knew it yet, but the wheel had already begun to turn. Chapter three Project Harbinger The corridors of Project Harbinger never slept. Fluorescent lights buzzed day and night, casting long, sterile shadows down hallways that smelled of disinfectant and cold metal. Hidden beneath an unremarkable English countryside, the facility was a machine built to forge weapons from children, and in the spring of 1962, two of its finest components were beginning to synchronize. Subject Zero stood at the edge of the training floor, arms crossed, watching. Adriana Riggs, Subject 1011, moved through the obstacle course like a ghost learning to dance. At twelve years old, she was smaller than most of the other trainees, but what she lacked in reach she compensated for with terrifying precision. She anticipated every swinging pendulum, every pressure plate, every simulated guard. Her movements were not graceful in the traditional sense. They were efficient. Zero had been watching her for three weeks now. What began as duty had quietly become something else. Vascination. Again, he called out, his voice echoing across the chamber. Adriana reset without complaint. Sweat darkened her grey jumpsuit, but her breathing remained controlled. On her third pass, she paused at the final wall, ten feet of sheer concrete with barely perceptible handholds. She glanced back at him. Left side is weaker, Zero said. Third hold from the top. Trust the pattern, not your eyes. She nodded once and climbed. When she reached the top and dropped silently to the other side, Zero allowed himself the ghost of a nod. Later, in the debrief room, they sat across from each other again. Between them lay a stack of files marked classified Harbinger Protocols. You're not like the others, Adriana said suddenly, breaking the silence that had become their shared language. Zero raised an eyebrow. Explain. The instructors fear you, she continued, tapping a pencil against the table in a steady rhythm. Not because you're strong, because you're blank. They can't predict you. But I can see the shape underneath. Zero leaned forward slightly. And what shape do you see? Adriana met his gaze without flinching. A shadow that hasn't decided what it wants to become yet. For a moment, the hum of the ventilation system was the only sound. Then Zero slid one of the files toward her. Tonight's lesson isn't physical, he said. It's ideological. Read. The file detailed the official doctrine of Project Harbinger. The world was chaos. Nations rose and fell in predictable cycles. Humanity needed guidance, engineered guidance from those who could see the patterns. The strong must shape history, or history would crush the weak. Adriana read in silence. Her expression darkened with each page. They want us to become gods, she whispered. They want us to become tools, Zero corrected.

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Gods don't need handlers. He watched her carefully. This was the test.

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Not whether she could climb a wall, but whether she would accept the philosophy they were feeding her.

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Adriana closed the file. And what do you believe? Zero was quiet for a long time.

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When he finally spoke, his voice was low, almost gentle. I believe choice is the only thing they can't program out of us. Everything else they can try. Their eyes held. In that moment something passed between them, deeper than mentorship, more dangerous than friendship, a recognition. Two souls trapped inside the same machine, beginning to see the cracks in his design. The weeks that followed blurred into a montage of controlled intensity. Mornings were spent in the simulation rooms, where Adriana learned to read micro expressions and predict behavior from fragments of data. Zero taught her how to disappear in a crowd, how to become invisible not by hiding, but by becoming exactly what people expected to see. Evenings belonged to philosophy and history. Zero pushed her to question every lesson. Adriana pushed back with questions of her own, sharp, relentless, brilliant. Their bond grew in the small rebellions, a shared glance when an instructor spouted doctrine, a quiet correction of the other's form during training, the way Adriana began leaving small notes in cipher for Zero to find. But Harbinger was never content with excellence. One night, after a particularly grueling session, Zero escorted Adriana past a restricted wing of the facility. Through a thick observation window, they saw something that chilled even the growing warmth between them. A row of younger children, none older than ten, strapped to medical tables, IV lines, monitors, men in white coats moving between them with syringes and clipboards. Adriana's hand brushed Zero's arm almost by accident. What are they doing? she whispered. Protocol precursors, Zero replied, his voice tight. They're not just training us anymore. They're rewriting us. Adriana stared at the scene, her brilliant mind already connecting dots she wished she couldn't see. The wheel, she said softly. They don't just want to steer it. They want to own it. Zero looked down at her. The girl who had once been only a prodigy, was becoming something far more dangerous, a mirror, a partner, and perhaps one day a threat. He placed a hand on her shoulder, brief, almost paternal, yet charged with something neither of them had words for yet. Then we learn everything they teach us, he said, and we decide what to do with it. As they walked away from the restricted wing, the fluorescent lights flickered overhead like a warning. Project Harbinger was no longer simply forging weapons. It was birthing something far more unpredictable. Two shadows growing stronger together inside the belly of the beast. Chapter four The Pattern The Archive Chamber was one of the few places in Project Harbinger where silence felt almost sacred. Deep beneath the main facility, rows of metal shelves stretched into shadow, filled with classified files, intercepted cables, and predictive models that spanned decades. The air was cool and dry, heavy with the scent of old paper and machine oil. A single desk lamp cast a cone of harsh light over the table where Adriana Riggs sat. She was fourteen now. The girl had grown taller, sharper, more dangerous in her stillness. Files were spread before her like pieces of a vast, terrible puzzle. Her fingers moved with surgical precision as she connected timelines, financial trails, and political shifts. Zero stood behind her, arms crossed watching. You see it, he said quietly. It wasn't a question. Adriana didn't look up. They're not training us to defend nations, they're training us to steer them. She slid the document across the table. A long range projection model titled Harbinger Continuum nineteen seventy five to two thousand circles within circles Rotating Rings a central diagram labeled simply the wheel. They map everything, she continued, her voice low but intense. Elections, markets, wars, revolutions. They don't just want to predict the future, they want to decide it. Controlled disruption, engineered stability, a handful of us, shaping history for everyone else. Zero stepped closer, leaning over her shoulder to examine the diagram. His presence was steady, grounding. But she could feel the tension in him, the same tension that had been growing between them for months. He reached past her and tapped one of the outer rings. This is what they showed me when I was your age, he said. They called it destiny. I called it control. Adriana turned her head slightly. Their faces were close, closer than instructor and student should allow. In the dim light, his grey eyes held something she rarely saw in anyone else uncertainty. Do you believe it? she asked. That some people should decide for all the rest? Zero was silent for a long moment. The hum of the ventilation system filled the space between them. I believe power always finds a way to justify itself, he finally replied. Whether it wears a uniform, a crown, or a lap coat. The question isn't whether the wheel turns, it's whether we let someone else choose the direction. Adriana studied him. The boy who had once been only subject zero had become something more complex. A mentor, a mirror, a quiet rebellion growing in the dark. She reached out and placed her hand over his on the table. It was a small gesture, but in the world of Harbinger, where touch was monitored and weakness punished, it felt revolutionary. I'm scared, Zero, she whispered. The admission cost her, not of failing, of succeeding, of becoming exactly what they want me to be. He didn't pull away. Instead, his fingers curled slightly around hers. Then don't become their weapon, he said, voice barely above her breath. Become the crack in their design. For several heartbeats, they remained like that, two shadows leaning into each other against the weight of an empire being built around them. The files on the table seemed to pulse with malevolent potential. The rotating rings in the diagram almost seemed to spin, but in this stolen moment, the wheel felt distant, fragile. Zero gently withdrew his hand and straightened. We can't stay here long, he said, though his eyes lingered. They watch everything. Adriana nodded, already gathering the files with practised efficiency. But as she closed the last folder, she paused. If the day comes when we have to choose between their wheel and our own will, what will you do? He looked at her then, the full weight of their strange growing bond reflected in his gaze. I will choose, he said simply, even if it cost me everything. The words hung in the air like a vow. As they slipped out of the archive chamber and back into the sterile corridors, the fluorescent lights seemed colder than before. The machine of Project Harbinger continued its relentless turning, unaware, or perhaps all too aware, that two of its most promising creations were beginning to see the machinery for what it was.

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A cage disguised as destiny, and the cracks were starting to show.