The footsteps echoed like a countdown.
Maya raised her weapon, pulse thrumming. The flickering light overhead gave just enough visibility to catch the silhouette turning the corner.
She aimed.
"Don't shoot," came the voice.
Riker stepped into view, hands up.
Callen lowered his gun, exhaling hard. "You almost got yourself killed."
"I figured the lights would go out after what Leena pulled," Riker muttered. "I came with backups."
He tossed a small flashlight to Maya and held up a tablet in his other hand. Its screen glowed with a hastily patched interface.
"Did you trace the signal?" Maya asked, eyes flicking to the darkness behind them.
Riker nodded. "Sort of. It bounced through three international proxies and a hidden satellite loop, but I caught a relay point—it led to a facility in the Northern Zone."
Callen's brow furrowed. "That's a ghost sector. No government oversight. No maps."
"Which makes it the perfect place to hide a server that shouldn't exist," Maya muttered.
"There's more," Riker said, voice tight. "Before the power went out, a second data packet pinged off that same relay. Smaller. Encrypted."
Maya's eyes narrowed. "So someone else sent something... after Leena?"
"Or with her," Callen added grimly. "She may not have been alone."
Maya clenched her jaw. "We have to move. We let this trail go cold, we lose everything."
Riker hesitated. "The drop zone is outside our jurisdiction. If we go in, it's rogue."
"We've been rogue since Leena turned on us," Callen said. "This isn't about jurisdiction anymore. It's survival."
Maya checked her weapon. "We go tonight."
They took a silent chopper over the mountains, flying low through gusts of wind that clawed at the blades like angry ghosts. Maya sat still, eyes trained on the digital map glowing dimly beside her.
Every second mattered.
"Once we land," Callen said over the comms, "we split. Maya and I will breach the comm tower. Riker, you sweep the underground grid and look for the relay unit."
Riker nodded, voice tense. "Copy that."
The chopper touched down on a gravel clearing bordered by skeletal trees and thick mist. The facility in the distance looked abandoned. Windows shattered. Fence rusted. No lights.
But Maya didn't trust it for a second.
As they approached, the silence grew unnerving. Not a bird. Not a breeze. Just the crunch of boots on gravel and the whisper of their breath in the cold.
The front doors opened without resistance.
Inside, the place was gutted—hollow hallways, flickering lights, scattered debris. But the infrastructure was too intact for a real ghost facility. The wires still hummed. The systems still blinked.
"This was staged," Maya said, sweeping her flashlight across the walls. "They want us to think it's abandoned."
"Which means someone's still here," Callen added, checking his corners.
They found the control room behind a false wall. Riker split off while Maya and Callen entered the server bay. The hum of machines greeted them—alive, running.
Maya approached a terminal. "It's active. Whoever sent the transmission used this node."
She connected her tablet and began pulling logs. The screen filled with code, rerouting history, ghost pings.
"Here," she said. "The Protocol files were mirrored here three hours ago. But the node also shows a third user."
"Third?" Callen frowned. "Who?"
Before she could answer, her screen flickered—then died.
"What the—"
A high-pitched tone pierced the room, making her flinch. The speakers overhead crackled.
Then a voice echoed.
"Well done, Maya. You found it."
Maya froze.
"Who is that?" Callen asked, backing toward her.
She didn't answer. Her heart had stopped. She knew that voice.
Too well.
It was Blake.
The man who trained her.
The man who died five years ago.
She'd watched him die.
"This must be a trick," Callen said, scanning the room for speakers.
The voice continued.
"You were always the best. But the best don't always survive. I'm glad you made it. It means you're ready."
The message cut off.
Maya's mind reeled. "That's impossible."
"You told me he was dead," Callen said, turning to her.
"I saw him die!" she shouted. "There was blood. A crater. I buried the chip myself!"
"Then how is he here?" Callen asked.
A low beep cut through their confusion.
Riker's voice burst through the comms. "I found the transmitter—it's live! Someone's still here!"
Gunfire crackled in the background.
"Riker?" Maya yelled. "Riker!"
Static.
She and Callen bolted from the room, racing down the stairwell into the lower levels.
They found Riker in a dark corridor, one arm bleeding, crouched behind a pillar.
"Sniper in the east wing," he gasped. "Came out of nowhere."
Maya grabbed his collar and pulled him into cover. Callen returned fire blindly toward the source of the shot.
"We need to disable that transmitter," Maya said.
"It's in the lower lab," Riker pointed, "but they've locked the main gate."
"Then we force it open."
Maya moved fast, sprinting down the hallway as shots rang out behind her. She ducked through an open duct vent and slid into the lower corridor. The lab door was ahead—thick steel, biometric lock.
She stepped up to the scanner.
Nothing happened.
Then a small green light blinked.
"Welcome back, Agent Blake," the terminal said.
The door slid open.
She stepped inside.
The lab was cold. Dim. At the center stood a terminal connected to the transmitter. Its screen displayed one name:
Blake A.
She approached cautiously. The screen blinked and a live feed opened.
A man sat at a console across the world.
Alive.
Gray hair. Sharp eyes. The same scar across his cheek she remembered from her training days.
"Hello, Maya," Blake said.
She couldn't speak.
"You're not the only one who can fake a death," he said softly.
The screen glitched—then showed her own face from five years ago. Her recruitment file. Her combat tests. Her mission logs.
"I chose you," he said. "And now it's time to finish what we started."
Her fists trembled.
"Why?" she asked.
"Because the world needs correction. And the Protocol is how we do it."
The screen went black.
Behind her, the door slammed shut.
Maya turned, weapon raised.
But it wasn't Blake who stepped out of the shadows.
It was someone else.
And they were wearing her face.