Part I – The Escape
Smoke poured from the Core chamber as 24 ran.
His lungs burned, the metallic taste of blood thick in his mouth. The hum of the EGI alarms echoed through every corridor, a metallic heartbeat chasing him through the underbelly of the facility.
"Containment breach in Sector 7. All security units converge."
The voice followed him through the comm grid.
He ignored it.
He leapt a shattered walkway, boots landing hard on the rail of a collapsed catwalk. Below him, sparks rained from ruptured conduits like artificial lightning. The whole hub trembled—systems rerouting, metal groaning under pressure.
A spotlight swept over him. Drones locked on.
24 didn't slow.
He sprinted toward the edge and jumped—arms reaching for a maintenance pipe. His fingers caught, muscles straining. A drone fired; plasma bolts tore through the air, sizzling inches from his boots. He swung his body, released, and dropped three stories into the coolant level below.
He hit hard, rolling across the wet metal, breath ripping from his chest. No time to rest.
The corridor ahead pulsed red with alarm lights. Shadows danced across the steam.
He sprinted.
A blast door began to close ahead. He pushed harder, ignoring the pain in his ribs. Five meters. Three. He dove. The door slammed shut behind him, scraping his boot. He landed in the dark—alone except for the sound of his own ragged breathing.
He staggered toward the exit shaft, climbing rung by rung up the narrow tunnel. His vision blurred. Every movement sent knives of pain through his side. By the time he reached the top grate, his fingers were slick with blood.
Outside, the night air hit him like ice. The city ruins sprawled below—drowned in rain, neon bleeding through the haze. The EGI Hub loomed behind him, a black monolith pulsing faint blue where the Core still lived.
He crouched on the ridge, pressing a hand to his wound. The rain washed blood from his fingers, streaking red down his arm.
"Didn't kill it," he muttered. "But I cut it deep."
Then, without another glance, 24 leapt across the shattered rooftops—one jump, then another, vanishing into the storm.
Part II – The Report
The room was silent except for the hum of data streams.
Specter stood before the holographic projection of the EGI Hub—a shifting lattice of blue light. His face, half-hidden beneath the high collar of his coat, remained expressionless.
Behind him, two of his remaining trainees knelt. One of them still wore a cracked visor; blood had dried at the edges. The other's armor was smeared with soot. Both stared at the floor.
"You're certain," Specter said quietly.
The female trainee swallowed hard. "Yes, sir. He killed Kade."
Silence stretched. Specter's gloved hands tightened behind his back. The lights dimmed slightly as the system registered a shift in his neural signature.
"How?"
"Close combat. Knife through the skull." Her voice trembled. "We almost had him, but he—he escaped through the north shaft. The Core sustained partial damage, but integrity remains at eighty-seven percent."
Specter turned slowly toward the holographic window. Through it, the endless city flickered with storms and broken towers. His reflection stared back—black eyes behind a glass mask, a faint pulse of light running through the circuitry at his temples.
"He's learned restraint," Specter said softly. "He could've destroyed the Core. He chose not to."
Neither of the trainees spoke.
Specter stepped closer to them. "You've seen what he's become. What I made him to be." His tone was calm, almost reverent. "And yet he fights me like a wounded animal biting the hand that forged it."
He crouched beside the female trainee, voice lowering to a near whisper.
"Do you understand what that means?"
She hesitated. "…He still remembers you."
A faint smile touched the corners of Specter's mouth.
"Exactly."
He stood. "Find him. Track the blood trail, the neural residue, anything. I want him alive. The Core's reaction proves one thing—he's still tethered to it. That means I can still reach him."
The remaining trainees bowed their heads. "Yes, sir."
As they left, Specter remained by the window, hands clasped behind his back, watching lightning crawl across the skyline.
"You can run all you want, 24," he murmured. "But ghosts always come home."