The descent into the high, volatile peaks of the Hindu Kush was a journey into a different kind of silence—not the profound, ontological void of the Decoupler bunker, but a harsh, atmospheric silence broken only by the whistling wind and the crunch of snow underfoot. Sophia and Ethan, armed with Anya's coordinates and technical data, found themselves operating far outside the predictable geometry of corporate espionage and federal procedure.
They landed a highly specialized, unmarked transport plane in a remote, temporary airstrip managed by a contact Ethan had cultivated over years—a shadow operative who understood that some missions require absolute deniability. The uplink base, labeled on Anya's drive as Ascendant Comms Ground Station Beta, was concealed in an ancient, repurposed military facility carved directly into the rock face.
