Kodi Grey sat in the dark, staring at the last payphone in southern Spain, the receiver shaking in his hand. His fingers, once gods on a keyboard, now trembled with human hesitation. He hadn't touched a real phone in years. Everything was encrypted, vaporized, ghosted. But this—this was analog. Untraceable. Personal.
He lit a cigarette. Something he picked up from his mom. Something he swore he'd quit—like running from the world.
Click. Ring. Click.
She answered.Her voice was like static wrapped in a gunshot. Cold. Beautiful. Tired.
"If this is about the server box, Kodi, I swear to—"
"Lucia," he cut in. "Come home."
Dead air.
"Whatever you found… Eden, the kill code, NUKE—I'll fix it."
"You think you can fix this?" she snapped. "You're the one who built it."
Kodi pressed his forehead to the scratched-up plastic of the booth. The cigarette smoke curled up toward the busted light above.
"I know. That's why I have to end it."
"And what makes you think I'll trust you now?"
"Because I'm no longer trying to save the world," Kodi said quietly. "I'm trying to save you."
Silence again.
Then the line went dead.
Cut to: Lucia, standing at the edge of a balcony somewhere in Istanbul.NUKE was asleep behind her, a gun under his pillow, the server box blinking with activity. The kill code, still uncracked, pulsed like a heartbeat.
She looked at the phone.
Then at the stars.
"Goddamn you, Kodi…"
Cut to: Kodi pacing in a high-rise safehouse—a place paid for with favors, not money.He'd made calls no one was supposed to make:
Bribed a UN cybersecurity chair with old Eden coin.
Re-activated a Russian AI sleeper node just for a passport back into the States.
Pulled in a favor from the Mossad—a favor that involved a man disappearing from reality.
Kodi had become what he swore to destroy—just to protect his family.
He looked out the window.
"NullSyntax wants the code. Rothschilds want the kill switch. The FBI wants my soul…"
He cracked his knuckles.
"Then they can all fight me for it."