The storm returned the next morning. Rain hissed down the broken streets of Milwaukee, washing over the wreckage of another power surge. The city looked haunted, dark towers blinking weakly against the gray sky, the rivers glowing faint blue where energy still leaked from the grid.Claire stood on a rooftop, her coat whipping in the wind. She watched the horizon flicker with faint electrical light, the aftermath of The Ghost War.Her comm link crackled. “Agent Claire Monroe,” said a voice, calm and official. “This is Special Director Hale of the Federal Task Force. We’d like a word.”She didn’t answer at first. She stared at the storm clouds curling above the lake. Then she said, “You’ve been trying to track me for days. You found me, didn’t you?”“We didn’t find you,” the voice said smoothly. “You came to us.”The meeting took place in an old government safehouse, the kind that pretended to be a medical clinic. White walls. Dim lights. Smell of disinfectant.Two agents stood at the

The night sky above Milwaukee looked bruised, dark purple clouds pressed low over the city, streaked by the sharp white beams from sirens and aircraft. The wind carried the metallic smell of storm and smoke. Every skyscraper shimmered with warning lights, and at the center of it all stood Data Heights.A cluster of towering glass buildings that housed some of the largest data cores in the Midwest. Those towers hummed like giants preparing for war.Landon stood on the rooftop of an abandoned parking structure across the river, watching as the first alarms lit up the sky. His coat whipped behind him, scorched at the edges from their last battle. His breathing was steady.But his hands were trembling, not from fear, but from the weight of what he sensed inside the network. Harrow was here. And he wasn’t hiding anymore.Claire ran up beside him, a portable rig strapped to her back. Sweat clung to her hairline. “The Echo Cell breached the outer firewall,” she said breathlessly. “Satellit

The night split in half. Reality and the system overlapped, tangled like two cracked mirrors forced to reflect each other. One moment the world looked normal, walls, wires, steel beams shaking under stress. The next, everything shimmered into a rippling ocean of code, blue and silver symbols falling like rain.Landon stood between both worlds, his vision flickering, one eye seeing metal, the other seeing pure data.Claire grabbed his arm. “Landon! Stay with me. Your pulse is dropping, ” He didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. Because inside him, something massive was unfolding.System Integration Reached 100%.Assimilation Protocol: ACTIVE.Landon gasped as a cold, electric force shot through his spine. For a moment, he couldn’t tell whether he was breathing or drowning. His thoughts twisted, multiplying, one voice becoming two, two becoming a storm. Claire watched in fear. “Fight it! Landon, don’t let the system swallow you!”He staggered back, holding his head. “Claire, it’s happening

The world woke up in pieces. Lights flickered back to life across nations like scattered stars being reignited after a long night. Screens blinked, machines rebooted, and silent rooms filled with soft mechanical hums. Power grids coughed awake. Satellites stabilized. Hospitals sighed as equipment came back online.Everywhere, people looked around in confusion, awe, and fear, because the sky itself had flashed white, and every device on Earth had displayed the same symbol:A single, glowing blue triangle. Landon’s mark. Claire slowly opened her eyes to a strong antiseptic smell and blinding fluorescent lights. Her throat felt dry, her bones heavy, and her mind foggy. For a moment, she didn’t remember who she was, then, like a wave, everything came crashing back.The digital world. The collapse. Landon’s hand slipping away. His last smile. His final words. Her heart clenched painfully. “Landon,” she whispered.Machines around her flickered at the sound of his name. A monitor beeped fa

One full year passed. A year of rebuilding. A year of rumors. A year of blue lights moving through cities like silent guardians.People called it the Echo Age now. A time shaped by the ghost of a man who had saved them all.Claire lived inside the Reconstruction Authority’s main research tower, Data Haven One. It rose above the new city skyline, white and smooth like a promise of a better future. Inside, she worked day and night with the remaining Echo Cell and new engineers who believed in Landon’s legacy.But only Claire knew the truth. Landon wasn’t gone. He was waiting, and tonight, the waiting ended.Claire stood inside the deepest lab, the Core Chamber. It was quiet, cold, and lit only by blue strips along the walls. In the center of the room sat a large containment pod made of white alloy, humming softly.Inside it, a human shape rested in a cradle of cables and light. A body she and her team had built over months. Strong, healthy, identical to Landon’s original form, but c