Lyric sat alone in her corner of the headquarters, surrounded by monitors.
The screens flickered with data streams—fragments' communications, shield network activity, financial transactions, satellite imagery. She'd been tracking the fragments' movements for weeks, her fingers never leaving the keyboard, her eyes never leaving the screens. But tonight, her attention was elsewhere.
A single file glowed on her primary monitor. A file she'd found hidden deep in the archives, buried beneath layers of encryption and misdirection. A file marked: *Project Phoenix.*
She'd been avoiding it for days. Afraid of what she might find.
Raven approached, her footsteps soft on the concrete floor. "Lyric. You've been staring at that screen for hours. What is it?"
Lyric looked up, her eyes hollow. "It's
