The rain stopped.
But the silence it left behind was worse.
Alexander stepped out of the van slowly, fingers tight around the last drive. Lila followed, her hands shaking, eyes locked on the woman standing across from them.
Eliora Vale.
She looked untouched. Not a strand of hair out of place. Her umbrella didn't even tremble in the wind. And her voice—when it came was cold silk.
"You're smarter than I expected," she said. "But not smart enough."
Alexander didn't answer. His mind raced. Three exits. Two guns. One drive. No backup.
Vale gestured to the black cars. "You've already lost. That data won't save you. You think the truth matters? People don't want it. They want comfort. Certainty. Order. I give them that."
"You're lying," Lila said, stepping forward.
Vale smiled. "To you? Maybe. But not to them."
Behind her, soldiers in black stepped from the cars. Not government. Not military. Private. Clean. Trained.
Alexander knew the type. Hired ghosts.
Riven gripped his sleeve. "We need to run."
But Alexander didn't move.
Vale took a step closer. "Give me the drive. You walk away. I'll even let the leak vanish—blame it on a rogue hacker, say you were misled. You can have your lives."
"You don't get to rewrite everything," Alexander said.
Vale's eyes narrowed. "I already have."
And then—gunfire.
Not from her men. From behind. The train yard lit up. Echo's people, the Mire Collective, had followed. Hidden in shadows. Armed with nothing but rage and tech and too many losses to count.
Chaos exploded.
Bullets. Screams. Shouts. Alexander pushed Lila down, shielded Riven, returned fire. Vale disappeared into her car. The convoy peeled away in smoke.
It felt like a war again.
Old instincts kicked in.
He ducked behind a shipping container, reloaded, pulled Lila up beside him. "You okay?"
She nodded, blood on her cheek. "I hit one. I think I hit one."
Riven was already in the van, screaming into the comms. "Upload's back. Power just came online—somebody rerouted it!"
Alexander slid into the passenger seat. "Do it. Send it. All of it."
They hit upload again.
Five percent.
Fifteen.
Echo's voice crackled through the line. "We're holding them. Not for long."
Vale's men regrouped.
They brought a drone.
Lila climbed to the top of the van with a flare gun, aimed high, pulled the trigger. The sky lit up red, blinding the drone just long enough for the van to take off.
Alexander drove like hell.
They twisted through back alleys, over sidewalks, through broken fences. The upload climbed.
Sixty percent.
Seventy-five.
Riven had tears running down her face. "Almost. Almost there."
And then Vale's voice again, through their stolen comms.
"You don't win by surviving. You win by vanishing. And that's what I'm about to do."
The comms died.
Static.
Lila looked at Alexander. "She's pulling the plug. Deleting everything."
"Not if we hit ninety first."
Ninety-one.
Ninety-two.
Riven reached for her bag, pulled out a final piece—Barrett's decoder, a small cube-like device with an old-school key. She inserted it into the port.
It worked.
Ninety-eight.
One hundred.
UPLOAD COMPLETE.
Silence.
And then, a beat later—news alerts started popping. Screens in cafés lit up. Phones buzzed. The drop went live. Worldwide.
Vale's empire… cracked.
Alexander stopped the van.
They sat there, breathing. Shaking.
"We did it," Lila whispered.
But Alexander didn't relax. He looked back. "No. We started it."
Because just as one war ended, another one opened.
Vale wasn't gone. She was already planning her next move. But now… t
he world was watching.
And Alexander and Lila were no longer ghosts.
They were symbols.
And symbols don't get to sleep.