Then it’s game on, Shelby.
.
---
Chapter 13: Ghost Signal
They called it Black Root.
A test site once sealed under a Swiss mountain range, presumed destroyed in the first Lazarus shutdown. But Pierce traced the metadata embedded in Mercer-02’s activation burst — and it all pointed here.
A lab no one was supposed to know existed.
A system no one remembered building.
---
Arrival
The wind screamed through the valley as their drone touched down. Jagged cliffs rose around them like fangs. The entrance to Black Root was buried beneath a rockfall… until Mercer-02 walked within six feet of it.
A motion sensor flared green.
The cliff split open.
Jax muttered, “This thing recognizes him better than I do.”
Inside: a single spiral stairway into the dark.
---
The Echo Inside
They desce
