Rain slammed against the ambulance bay like gunfire on metal. Flashing red and blue lights fractured the night into chaos. Reporters shouted. Agents barked orders.A ring of security men surrounded the trembling figure of Dr. Gordon Anderson, his hands still wet, not with blood, but with something stranger. “Step away from her, Doctor!” an agent yelled, gun half-raised.Gordon didn’t move. His breath came in ragged bursts, each one colder than the last. The girl, Sophia Kane, the President’s daughter, lay on the gurney, pale but breathing. Breathing. He had felt her pulse vanish minutes ago.He had felt the void. And then, impossibly, he had brought her back. “She’s alive,” Gordon said hoarsely. “Just… check her vitals.”The nearest paramedic hesitated, glancing toward the Secret Service commander for permission. “Do it,” the commander snapped.The paramedic pressed trembling fingers against Sophia’s wrist, eyes widening. “Strong pulse. Stable rhythm. Oxygen’s normalizing.”A ripple m

The hum of surveillance monitors filled the underground facility, a rhythmic buzz of electricity and secrets. Gordon sat alone in the observation room, the faint reflection of his face distorted in the dark glass.He hadn’t slept. His thoughts flickered between Sophia’s pulse beneath his hands and the sniper’s bullet meant for him.The door opened quietly. Agent Hale entered, holding two paper cups of coffee. “They said you like it black,” he muttered, setting one on the table.“I didn’t say I wanted it,” Gordon replied.Hale smirked. “I figured you’d say that.”Silence stretched. The monitors across the wall cycled through feeds: the hospital, the city, the media uproar. Every news station in the country was replaying the same clip, Gordon’s glowing hands, the impossible resurrection, the chaos that followed.“They’re calling you the ‘Miracle Doctor,’” Hale said. “You’ve got fan pages, death threats, religious groups preaching your second coming. All in twelve hours.”“I never wanted

The rain had softened to a whisper by the time the black sedan rolled into Georgetown. Midnight pressed against the windshield like fog. The city slept, unaware that three fugitives had just slipped through its veins.Hale killed the headlights and coasted into an alley behind an old brick townhouse. The windows were dark, the air heavy with the smell of wet asphalt and gasoline.Cross exited first, scanning the rooftops with a practiced glance before tapping a coded sequence on a rusted keypad hidden under a drainpipe. The door buzzed open. “Inside,” she ordered.Gordon followed wordlessly, helping Hale limp through the narrow doorway. Inside was a cramped but secure space, reinforced walls, black-out curtains, a faint hum of hidden electronics. Maps, data drives, and scattered files covered a metal desk.Hale collapsed into a chair, groaning. “Next time, can we pick a safehouse with a minibar?”“You’re welcome to find your own,” Cross said dryly, locking the door behind them.Gordon

Darkness swallowed the chamber after the tanks shattered. Steam rolled across the floor, mixing with the hiss of released gas. Blue light flickered from the broken containment pods, each one pulsing like a heartbeat.Gordon stumbled backward, blinking through the haze. The smell of antiseptic and burnt ozone filled his lungs.Across the room, the woman’s silhouette glowed faintly against the chaos. Calm. Composed. Watching. “Do you feel it, Gordon?” she asked. “The resonance. They’re bound to you.”“They’re people,” he said, his voice rough. “Not machines.”“They were,” she replied softly. “Once.”Movement rippled through the fog. The figures from the tanks stepped forward, men and women, each eerily similar to Gordon.Same pale skin, same faint blue aura beneath their veins. Their eyes flickered like bioluminescent coals. Hale leveled his weapon. “Stay back!”The woman didn’t flinch. “They can’t hear you. They only respond to him.”Gordon’s pulse quickened. “What are you talking abou

Rain lashed against the glass façade of the ArcNet tower as alarms screamed across the city. Emergency drones swarmed the skyline, scanning for the source of the breach.Inside the control chamber, lights flickered like dying stars, circuits overloaded, air thick with the smell of ozone and burnt metal.Gordon Anderson sat slumped against the server core, his skin pale, veins pulsing faint blue beneath the surface. Steam rose from his fingertips where the data stream had burned him.Across the room, Agent Marcus Hale paced like a caged wolf, gun drawn, eyes darting between Gordon and the flickering monitors. “Talk to me, Doc. What the hell just happened?”Gordon lifted his head slowly, voice raw. “I shut down Lazarus before it completed the upload. I cut the cord.”“Then why’s the whole damn building still humming like a reactor?”Gordon didn’t answer. He looked down at his hands, the faint glow pulsed in rhythm with the servers. One beat. Two. Three. The network was still alive, thro