"ETA three minutes!"The helicopter pilot screamed over the sound of gunfire rising from the island below. Jayce could see the chaos even from the air. Fires burning. People running. Bodies on the beach."How many hostiles?" Jayce demanded, strapping on body armor despite his broken ribs."We count at least two hundred! More coming from the water! They're coordinated! Professional!" The pilot banked hard to avoid incoming fire. "Sir, we can't land! The LZ is hot!""Then I jump!" Jayce moved to the open door."That's a forty-foot drop onto rocks! You'll die!""I'll die anyway if I don't help them!" Jayce looked at Frost's soldiers. "Who's with me?"Five of them stood, checking their gear. Ready."On three!" Jayce counted down. "One! Two! THREE!"They jumped. The fall seemed to last forever. Then Jayce hit the ground hard, rolled, came up firing. His ribs screamed but adrenaline pushed the pain away.The Evolved were exactly as Victoria had described. Human-looking but wrong. Too perfec

"Twenty-three hours until we move."Leonard coordinated the preparation from a makeshift command center. Maps covered every wall. Weapons were being distributed. People were training despite exhaustion."We're not ready," Daniel said, watching their forces practice room clearing. "Half these people have never been in combat. They'll panic the moment bullets start flying.""Then we make sure they don't panic. We train them hard. Train them fast. Train them to follow orders without thinking." Leonard pulled up the facility schematics Victoria had provided. "We enter here, through the old maintenance tunnels. They're supposed to be sealed but Evelyn knows a backdoor. We split into three teams. Team Alpha—that's you, Daniel—secures the upper levels. Team Bravo—Jason's team—takes the barracks. Team Charlie—Jayce leads this one—goes straight for the command center where Thomas keeps his prisoners.""What about the Evolved? How many will be guarding the facility?""Victoria estimates two hun

"What did you say?"Thomas leaned closer, his perfect face showing confusion. The pain in Jayce's head was getting worse, but he forced himself to focus."I said not yet." Jayce's hand moved slowly toward his belt. "You made one mistake, Thomas. Just one.""I don't make mistakes.""You let Victoria live. You kept her close. You trusted her just enough." Jayce's fingers found what he was looking for. A small injector Victoria had given him hours ago. "She gave me something. An antidote. Something to block the nanobots. Just for a few minutes. Just long enough."He jammed the injector into his neck. The liquid burned going in. But immediately, the pain in his head cleared. The nanobots stopped advancing."That's impossible! Victoria wouldn't betray me! She's my daughter!""She's your victim. And she's done with you." Jayce stood up, his weapon raised. "Everyone! The injectors! Use them now!"Around the warehouse, people who'd been falling started reaching for their belts. Victoria had p

"We need to talk about that phone call."Leonard found Jayce two hours later, still sitting with Ella. Most people had fallen asleep from exhaustion. But Jayce couldn't sleep. Too much adrenaline. Too many questions."I know. Someone out there knows we won. Knows we killed Thomas. And they're not happy about it." Jayce stood carefully, trying not to wake Ella. "Did you trace the call?""Tried. It bounced through seventeen different servers across twelve countries. Whoever made it knows how to hide their tracks." Leonard pulled up his tablet. "But I did find something interesting. The voice on the call? It wasn't human. It was computer generated. An AI.""An AI? Like Margaret?""Similar. But more advanced. More sophisticated. Margaret was seventy years old technology. This is brand new. Cutting edge. Someone's been developing it while we were fighting Thomas." Leonard showed Jayce the analysis. "The speech patterns. The word choices. The timing. All artificial. All programmed.""So The

"How far down do these tunnels go?"Daniel's voice echoed in the darkness. They'd been walking for twenty minutes. Descending deeper. Colder. Further from sunlight and safety."Another hundred feet," Victoria said. "Then we reach the main levels. Where the real facility begins. Where Santos keeps her experiments.""Experiments? Plural?" Leonard sounded nervous. "What kind of experiments?""The kind you don't want to meet. The kind that make the Evolved look friendly." Victoria stopped at a junction. "Left here. And everyone stay quiet. From this point on, we're in monitored territory. Cameras. Motion sensors. Sound detectors. Any mistake and we're caught."They moved carefully. Slowly. Each step calculated. Each breath controlled.The tunnel opened into a larger space. A service corridor. Fluorescent lights flickering overhead. The hum of machinery in the walls."We're inside," Victor whispered. "Inside Santos's facility. Inside the heart of The Collector."They followed Victoria thro