Landon woke to darkness. Not soft darkness. Not the calm kind that comes when a person sleeps too long. This darkness felt thick. Heavy. Almost alive. It pressed against his skin like a cold hand.He opened his eyes again, slower this time. A dim red light blinked on the ceiling. Machines hummed around him. Warm air touched his face. He felt a blanket pressed over his legs, its weight strange and almost foreign. A sharp ache crawled up his spine, as if his own bones were not sure they belonged to him.He tried to sit up. Pain hit him fast. Deep pain. Real pain. He dropped back down with a quiet gasp.A voice spoke from the corner. “Do not sit yet.”The voice was calm. Soft. Worn down by long hours. Landon turned his head. The motion made the room tilt for a second. When it settled, he saw Priya standing near a shadowed wall. Her hair was tied back in a messy knot. Her eyes looked tired, almost bruised, but focused. Her hands held a tablet, but her attention stayed locked on him.

Snow drifted across the city as Landon and Priya walked toward the campus of the Strategic Cognition Institute. The tall buildings around them glowed with soft yellow lights. Students hurried between classes with their heads down, jackets tight around their shoulders, unaware of the storm rising beneath their feet.Landon kept his hood up. Priya stayed close beside him. Neither spoke. Both felt the weight of the creature that had stood in the ruins. Both felt the echo of its broken voice.Harrow wakes. The words clung to Landon like cold fingers. They reached the main entrance of the institute. The building rose tall with smooth glass walls. A giant star map shimmered across the front in shifting silver constellations. The air inside felt warm when the doors opened, but the warmth did nothing to calm the tight pressure in Landon’s chest.Priya led the way through the halls. Students walked past them, laughing or whispering or tapping on tablets. They looked peaceful. Safe. Landon

The city was quiet at night. Fog rolled off the Milwaukee River, hiding streets and alleys in gray mist. Streetlights flickered, and the occasional siren echoed in the distance. But Landon did not notice the quiet. He only noticed the traces, small, faint anomalies in the network traffic, breadcrumbs left by someone clever. Someone fast. Someone hiding.Jin! He had been gone for weeks. Hunted by the authorities. Hunted by Syndicate remnants. Hunted by everyone who feared what he could do with a keyboard and a virus. But Landon had found him.He stood on the rooftop of a crumbling apartment building, looking down at the neon glow of the laundromat below. The building had been abandoned for years. Paint peeled from the walls. The windows were cracked. A forgotten sign swung gently in the wind.Priya crouched beside him, her tablet glowing softly. “This is it,” she said. “All anomalous traffic points here. Basement access confirmed. No cameras outside the perimeter. Very little monit

The night was quiet over Milwaukee, but the stillness felt heavy. The city’s lights glimmered against the dark river, reflecting in pools along cracked asphalt. Somewhere, a distant siren wailed, fading into the fog.Landon walked through the Vanguard’s hidden operations hub beneath the derelict warehouse. The faint hum of servers filled the air. Screens glowed blue. Holographic maps displayed Milwaukee’s streets, gang territories, Syndicate activity, and Harrow’s fragment movements.He rubbed the back of his neck, tension coiling through him. Each day brought new threats, new puzzles, and new dangers. He had survived death, ascended through the system, and returned to the physical world. Yet nothing tested him more than the people around him. Allies. Friends. And sometimes, family.A metallic clank echoed from the stairwell. Landon’s hand dropped to his side, instinctively reaching for his concealed pistol. “Who’s there?” he called, voice low but firm.A shadow emerged. Broad shoulde

The city slept, but the streets of Milwaukee were never truly quiet. Neon signs flickered, streetlamps hummed, and somewhere in the alleys, the faint buzz of illegal tech carried on the wind. Landon stood on the roof of the derelict warehouse that now served as the Vanguard’s hidden hub. Mist rose from the river below, curling around the nearby bridges. The air smelled of wet asphalt and iron.Priya stepped beside him, tablet in hand. Her face was lit by the glow of the screen. “I have something,” she said. “A lead.”Landon turned to her, his expression calm but sharp. “Show me.”She tapped a few icons, and a network of glowing points appeared over the city streets. “City council officials, corporate executives, and tech startup owners. Half of them are laundering Syndicate money. They’re funneling biotech weapons and experimental serum into street gangs. Small shipments, night moves. But consistent.”Landon’s brow furrowed. “How deep?”“Deep enough that if we hit one node, another