The last shimmer of Adrian’s holographic signal faded into the static hum of the bunker’s walls. Ethan stood motionless, watching the ghostly afterimage of his father dissolve into air. The scent of ozone still hung heavy, a metallic tang that clung to the skin.
Dr. Taylor killed the generator with a flick of her wrist. The room sank into silence—broken only by the steady drip of water from the corroded ceiling. The faint light of emergency diodes cast blue arcs across their faces, painting them in fractured shades of exhaustion.
“Signal trace lasted nine seconds,” Hannah murmured, running diagnostics on the wrist console. “Whoever’s scanning the neural bands just found us. We need to move.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened. “We can’t just run. That transmission was him. The coordinates—”
“—were
