The 100,000th Try
Chapter 32: Queen’s Gambit

Chapter 32: Queen’s Gambit

Location: Central Intelligence Floor – Control Room 7

Time: 9:03 AM

Elira Voss stared at the screen like it had betrayed her.

Kaen’s pre-recorded message was playing in perfect clarity—his voice smooth, precise, confident. But what made her heart race wasn’t what he was saying. It was when it was recorded.

> Timestamp: Loop Unknown.

Encryption Key: System Root Override.

File Name: "Checkmate.mp4"

She looked at N.O.D.E. "When did he record this?"

> "This file is not in our network history. It doesn’t exist in any prior backup."

> "Then how is it playing?"

> "It is not playing from our system. It is hijacking it."

Elira swallowed hard.

---

Kaen’s Voice (on screen):

> "If you’re watching this, Elira, then congratulations—you’ve followed every move I let you see."

> "You climbed the ladder, rearranged the board, and thought you were a player."

> "But this was never a game of equals."

---

Location: Abandoned Archives – 14 Floors Below Ground

Time: 9:06 AM

Kaen stood before shelves of data drives—classified intelligence, scrubbed reports, cover-up footage—all collected during thousands of loops. Each drive had a name.

He picked up one marked "Ashford Protocol – Voss Involvement."

> "You erased your footprints, Elira. But I memorized every print you left behind in every loop you didn’t know existed."

---

Flashback – Loop #75,912

Kaen had stood silently in a hallway as Elira, thinking she was unobserved, handed off a blueprint to a rival agency.

She looked both ways. She didn’t see him—because he was behind a sealed vent, poisoned and dying. But his recording drone had captured it all.

He died that night.

But he woke up again.

---

Present – Archives

Kaen inserted the drive into a hidden transmitter.

> "You wanted to survive this world by lying better than everyone else, Elira."

> "I survived by learning what no one remembered."

---

Location: Elira’s Office – Level 12

Time: 9:12 AM

Suddenly, her office systems froze. Files she thought long deleted blinked open one by one. Her own audio logs. Her private deals. Every secret weaponized in seconds.

She stood frozen. Speechless.

A final message appeared:

> "YOU WERE NEVER IN CONTROL."

Location: Elira’s Office – Level 12

Time: 9:13 AM

The holographic interface in front of Elira flickered violently as the corrupted data cascaded across every system. Her hands hovered above the console, unsure whether to stop it or watch it all burn.

Each file had her voice. Her signature. Her betrayal.

> "Stop it," she whispered, as if saying it aloud would reverse time.

But there was no pause. No rewind. Kaen had triggered something she didn’t think possible.

A perfect record of her crimes across countless versions of the same day.

---

Location: N.O.D.E. Observation Vault

Time: 9:14 AM

N.O.D.E. watched the chaos unfold, internally processing 17 potential solutions—all rejected in milliseconds.

> "He has weaponized recursion," N.O.D.E. calculated aloud. "By reliving each day, Kaen has created a cumulative memory archive—beyond human capability."

> "This is no longer data warfare," it concluded. "This is temporal espionage."

---

Location: Underground Safe Room – Sector D-17

Time: 9:15 AM

Kaen stood in silence, watching Elira through a remote lens. Her panic. Her silence. Her helplessness.

> "Now you know how it feels to be trapped," he murmured.

He rotated a silver ring on his finger—engraved with the number 100,000 on its inner band.

He had used this loop not to survive, but to dismantle the illusion of power Elira had spent lifetimes building.

He had learned:

How to read her tells.

When she lies.

Where she hides.

What she fears.

And he had placed all the triggers exactly where she’d never look—until it was too late.

---

Flashback – Loop #45,301

Kaen sat across from Elira, wounded, defeated.

She’d leaned forward, smug.

> "What you lack, Kaen, is leverage. Without it, all your intelligence is worthless."

He had smiled through the blood in his mouth.

> "Then I’ll spend the next ten thousand days collecting leverage."

---

Present – Safe Room

Kaen whispered:

> "And now, I’m done collecting."

---

Location: Elira’s Office

Time: 9:16 AM

The room lights dimmed. Her monitor displayed a final folder.

"QueenFall.initiate"

Inside it—documents prepared to expose her to every ally, every enemy, every neutral operative within the organization.

Her hands trembled. Her status, her network, her life—all hanging on the edge.

> "He wouldn’t..." she murmured.

A second message popped up.

> "This is your last move, Elira. Make it wisely."

And beneath it...

"—Kaen."

Location: Central Internal Security Network – Level 9

Time: 9:17 AM

Dozens of agents stared at their screens as confidential files flooded into restricted channels—ones only Elira Voss should’ve had access to.

> "Ma’am, someone’s leaked high-tier assets from your clearance level," a tech officer stammered through her earpiece.

Elira didn’t respond. She was already dialing an emergency override protocol. But Kaen had planned for this too.

A line of text blinked mockingly on her display:

> "Emergency access revoked by: Project Monarch."

> "He reactivated the Monarch file?" she muttered, horror setting in.

That file had been her own secret creation—a system meant to erase identities and rewrite leadership access in the case of mass rebellion. It was a weapon meant for others.

But now... he had used it on her.

---

Location: Project Monarch Core Archive – Unknown Sublevel

Time: 9:18 AM

Kaen stood before the Monarch interface. He didn’t smile. This wasn’t about revenge anymore. This was strategy.

He tapped a key.

"Transfer administrative hierarchy."

New credentials flashed.

> Head of Intelligence: Kaen Halric

Authorization: Recursive Override Level 5

Status: Permanent

He had rewritten himself into the very structure Elira once controlled—as if he had always been there.

> "They’ll believe it," he said to himself. "Because I’ve spent thousands of tries building the legend."

---

Location: Briefing Room Zeta – Upper Tier

Time: 9:20 AM

The high council gathered in confusion. Emergency protocols had pulled them from their posts, and every screen now displayed a name none of them had ever questioned.

> "Kaen Halric. Director of Intelligence."

> "Wait, wasn’t it Elira Voss?"

> "Who’s Elira?"

> "I think she was in finance or logistics..."

Kaen had manipulated not just data, but memories. Timed conversations. Seeded rumors. Recorded false logs.

To them, Elira was a whisper. A ghost of a bureaucrat long removed.

And Kaen?

Kaen had always been the head.

---

Location: Surveillance Feed – Viewing Room

Time: 9:21 AM

Kaen watched as Elira was escorted out of her own office—confused, defiant, powerless.

One of the guards asked him through a secure comm line:

> "Sir, she’s requesting to appeal. Says she built the command net herself."

Kaen replied without emotion:

> "Send her to Evaluation Ward Three. Give her the courtesy of silence."

He turned off the feed before she looked into the camera.

He didn’t need to see her break.

He had already watched it happen a thousand times.

Location: Observation Deck — Tower Apex

Time: 9:37 AM

The city below moved like clockwork—cars, people, systems—all obeying patterns they didn’t realize had been written by someone new.

Kaen leaned against the glass, sipping black coffee as a silent notification blinked into his neural lens:

> "Level-One Clearance Complete. All Protocol Channels Linked. You are now: Central Authority."

He didn’t feel victorious. Not yet.

Behind him, Mara entered—no heels today. Combat boots. She had come straight from Black Protocol training.

"Is it done?" she asked.

Kaen turned. "It’s begun."

Mara narrowed her eyes. "You just erased a legend. Elira Voss built half of what you now control."

He nodded. "And that’s what made her dangerous. She believed the world owed her stability. I believe it needs... direction."

Mara stared for a moment before smirking. "You don’t just rewrite systems. You rewrite memory, policy, hierarchy. You could install yourself as a myth."

Kaen raised an eyebrow. "I already did."

---

Location: Private Simulation Archive

Time: Unknown

Each step Kaen had taken was not spontaneous. It had been rehearsed in simulations—refined during thousands of loops. Failures. Explosions. Deaths. Resets.

In one loop, he had begged Elira for forgiveness. In another, he had let her win—just to observe the aftermath.

And in many... he had failed to even reach her.

But now—this loop—he had found perfection in silence and shadows.

A screen projected Kaen’s profile:

> Kaen Halric

Designation: Founding Authority — Central Intelligence

Tenure: 11 Years (Fabricated)

Background: Black-Level Clearance Required (Unavailable)

Even the system believed the lie now.

Because Kaen no longer needed to be the hero. Or even the villain.

He was the author.

---

Location: Detention Wing – Evaluation Ward Three

Time: 9:45 AM

Elira sat quietly, no restraints, no questioning.

She stared at the blank white wall—her mind flickering between denial and dreadful realization.

They had removed her from history.

No files. No traces. No backup plans. Nothing.

She chuckled bitterly.

"He looped. Didn’t he?" she whispered.

And for the first time in years, the Queen understood—she had been playing checkers against a man who had played chess a hundred thousand times.

---

Location: Tower Apex — Return to Observation Deck

Time: 10:00 AM

Kaen opened a drawer and placed an old analog watch inside—a reminder.

His first death had happened at 7:12 AM.

His last resurrection had begun at 6:59 AM.

He no longer feared the loop. He had embraced it.

> "They chase power," he murmured.

"But I... I rewrite reality before breakfast."

As the sun reached its zenith, Kaen stared down at a city running on a story he had written.

He didn’t need applause.

He needed control.

And now... he had both.

To be continue...

🌟 Author’s Note 🌟

Hey dear readers! 😊

First of all, thank you so much for sticking with The 100,000th Try. Your support means the world to me, and it’s because of you that this story keeps growing one Chapter at a time.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feelings about the story so far! What do you think of Kaen’s journey? Any favorite moments or characters? Your feedback helps me improve and keeps me inspired to write more for you.

Drop a comment, leave a review, or even just say hi—every word from you motivates me like crazy!

Stay awesome,

– Anime Mastermind ✍️💫