(24's Perspective)
It started with a signal.
A faint pulse buried in the static of an old transceiver — rhythmic, repeating, coded. No civilian would've noticed. But I did. The frequency was EGI-grade encryption, the kind we used for covert ops before the fall.
At first, I thought it was a ghost from the past. Then I decoded it.
It wasn't a memory. It was a transmission.
EGI was still alive.
The Awakening
I spent years hiding from their eyes — now I knew where to look. Their signal originated from the northern sectors, near what used to be Chicago. They'd rebuilt one of the old control hubs.
They were gathering soldiers again.
They were rebuilding the Division.
Something inside me snapped — not anger, not fear. Purpose.
I packed what little I had: a half-charged blade core, three jump cartridges, a rusted field medkit. My jacket still carried the burn marks from a dozen teleport fractures. I looked at the reflection of my neck in a cracked mirror — the number 24, branded deep.
"Let's finish what you started."
The First Strike
The EGI recon convoy rolled through the dead zone at dusk — four armored transports, drones circling above like vultures.
They didn't see me.
The trick was timing. Teleport just before the motion sensors sweep, reappear behind their formation, and make the first cut silent.
The blade went through the first soldier's neck cleanly. His body dropped before the others heard the sound. I took his comm, his rifle, his fear.
When the drones picked me up, I was already inside their convoy.
Teleport.
Slash.
EMP burst.
Their systems went dark. One by one, their helmets blinked out, their screams echoing inside steel walls. When it was done, I stood over the wreckage — blood, metal, silence.
And I smiled for the first time in years.
Not out of joy. Out of clarity.
Message in Blood
I left one alive — their comm tech. Scared kid, couldn't have been more than twenty. He tried to crawl away.
I crouched beside him, pressed the edge of my blade to his throat.
"Tell them 24's still out here," I whispered.
"Tell them I remember everything."
Then I vanished.
The message spread faster than any transmission. Rumors in scavenger camps, whispers in old EGI channels:
The Ghost is back.
24 hunts again.
The War Begins
In the weeks that followed, I hit their supply chains. Outposts. Drone relays. Every strike was faster, cleaner, deadlier.
They tried to track me — thermal scans, satellites, even bait squads.
None of it worked.
Every time they sent men, they didn't come back.
But EGI adapted. They always did. They rebuilt their androids, reactivated the Specter Program. I could feel his hand in the tactics — calculated traps, silent ambushes, precision strikes.
Specter.
He knew I was coming.
Shadows of War
One night, I found an abandoned safehouse in the ruins. On the wall, written in blood, was a single phrase:
"We were never free."
Underneath, a broken EGI insignia — scratched out. Someone had beaten me to the strike. Someone else was fighting back.
That's when I realized I wasn't alone anymore.
There were others — ghosts like me. Former operatives, rebels, maybe even civilians who'd learned how to kill.
The world was still burning, but in the ashes, something new was forming — resistance.
And I would lead it.
End Scene
The last light of the day caught on my blade as I looked toward the horizon — the direction of Chicago, where EGI's heart still beat.
"You wanted control," I whispered.
"Now you'll get chaos."
I activated the teleport core. The air shimmered around me.
A pulse. A flash.
Then nothing but the scent of ozone and war.