The road into Geneva was a ghost's path.
Ethan moved under cover of fog, the ruins of the border checkpoint crumbling behind him. The city skyline glimmered faintly beyond the hills, its towers humming with the faint blue glow of Division's control network. Every few seconds, the signal pulse rippled across the clouds — invisible to the naked eye, but sharp enough for his neural interface to buzz with interference.
> "You're walking into the core," whispered a voice in his earpiece — Mara's pre-recorded transmission, looping in his head.
"Find the safehouse. Trust no one. The walls have eyes."
He had no choice but to trust her words.
The streets of Geneva were almost silent. Drones patrolled in lazy arcs above, their rotors slicing through the mist. Ethan ducked into a ruined bookstore and watched as one passed overhead, its searchlight sliding across broken glass and torn pages. He waited until the hum faded, then slipped into the alley behind.
Every few blocks, propaganda flickered on holo-billboards:
> "Division Reborn — For Order, For Unity."
Blue-eyed citizens walked in quiet synchrony, their movements slightly offbeat, like puppets guided by invisible strings.
Ethan moved through them, hood up, every muscle tense.
He reached an old tram tunnel near the Rhône — exactly where Mara's coordinates led. The doors were sealed with rusted chains, but someone had cut a small mark into the concrete: a triangle with a single dot in the center.
Her symbol.
He climbed through, flashlight sweeping across graffiti-covered walls. The tunnel led deep underground, to a room lit by flickering monitors and the faint hum of a generator.
Then he saw her.
Mara stood near the far wall, hunched over a laptop surrounded by tangled wires and half-broken transmitters. She hadn't changed much — same sharp gaze, same calm, lethal energy. But her eyes now had faint rings of blue around the pupils.
> "You're late," she said, without looking up.
> "You're supposed to be dead."
That made her smile. "I got better."
Ethan stepped closer, studying her. "How long have you been here?"
> "Since Zurich fell. The network reached Europe faster than anyone thought. I found this place two months ago. The radiation field blocks the Division's signal — for now."
She turned, arms crossed. "You still look like you've been through hell."
> "Hell's got better lighting."
They both laughed softly — just once, just enough to remember they used to be human.
Then the silence crept back.
Ethan finally asked the question burning in his mind.
> "You said something about an anchor point."
Mara nodded toward the wall of screens. "It's real. The clones' minds — their neural links — all pass through a central frequency band. It keeps them synchronized. The anchor point is the transmitter. Destroy it, and the link collapses."
> "Where is it?"
> "Under the Palais des Nations. The UN's old headquarters. Division turned it into a data citadel."
Ethan frowned. "Heavily guarded, I assume."
> "It's not the guards that worry me." She hesitated. "It's him."
> "Who?"
> "The original Director — Voss. Division revived him. Cybernetic reconstruction. He's not human anymore, Ethan. He's the anchor's living interface."
Ethan's chest tightened. "Then we'll kill him too."
Mara shook her head. "You don't understand. He's connected to the network directly — through you. Through your genome. If you kill him the wrong way, it could trigger a global cascade. Every clone could detonate their neural links simultaneously."
> "So if I kill him, millions die."
> "If you don't, billions stay enslaved."
The weight of her words hit like a bullet.
He turned away, pacing. "You've always been good at giving impossible choices."
> "And you've always been good at finding a third option."
He stopped, meeting her eyes. "This time, I don't think there is one."
---
The next hour passed in silence as they prepared. Mara pulled up schematics of the Palais from her laptop, showing the layers of defense — automated turrets, biometric scanners, AI sentries. Ethan studied the maps carefully, committing every route to memory.
When he looked up again, she was watching him — not with suspicion, but something deeper.
> "You really thought I was dead, didn't you?" she said quietly.
> "I buried you," he replied. "Division sent me the footage. Your body. The explosion."
> "They faked it. I was taken off the grid and repurposed for surveillance. I escaped before they completed my integration."
> "Integration?"
She sighed and pushed back her hair, revealing a faint metallic line running down her neck. "They tried to connect me to the STRAY system. Half of me still listens when the network calls."
Ethan stepped forward, eyes wide. "Mara…"
> "Don't," she said softly. "It's not your fault. You saved me once. I saved myself the second time."
There was a beat of silence between them — long, fragile, electric.
> "We can still stop them," he said. "Together."
She smiled faintly. "That's what scares me."
---
They set out before dawn. Geneva's streets were colder than they remembered. The air buzzed faintly with the hum of transmission towers.
Ethan and Mara moved like ghosts through the old sewer lines until the Palais rose above them — a towering fortress of concrete and light, its surface crawling with drone patrols.
Mara knelt beside a control panel, her fingers dancing over the interface. "EMP disruptor — two minutes."
Ethan adjusted his rifle. "Once we're in, we'll have ten before the failsafes reboot."
> "Plenty of time to die," she muttered.
The EMP went off with a low pulse, and the nearest drones fell from the air like dead birds. They slipped inside through a maintenance shaft, the sound of their boots echoing softly in the corridor.
Blue light shimmered faintly from behind glass walls — endless rows of servers pulsing like veins.
> "This is it," Mara whispered. "The network core."
She plugged her device into a port, and lines of code filled the air in holographic patterns. "I can trace the anchor frequency from here."
Ethan scanned the corridor. Every sound felt magnified — the hum of energy, the flicker of power conduits, the faint vibration underfoot.
> "You trust me?" she asked suddenly.
> "If I said no, would you stop?"
> "Probably not."
He smiled faintly. "Then yes."
Her hands trembled slightly as she typed. "Ethan, there's something else. If we break the anchor point… I'll lose connection too."
> "You mean you'll die."
> "Maybe. Or maybe I'll finally be free."
The screen flashed red. "Signal locked. Target confirmed."
They both turned toward the far end of the corridor — a massive chamber where the anchor point pulsed, suspended in a magnetic field. Inside its glass core, a human silhouette floated in liquid stasis — cables extending from his body like veins into the machinery.
Director Voss.
Ethan's jaw tightened. "So that's what he's become."
The monitors around the chamber flickered, and a distorted voice echoed:
> "You can't kill what's already part of you, Agent Cross."
Mara froze. "He's awake."
Ethan lifted his weapon. "Then let's wake him properly."
But before he could fire, the floor shook violently. The holographic lights turned crimson, alarms screaming through the facility.
> "They know we're here!"
Mara grabbed her drive and yanked Ethan back toward the corridor. "We have to retreat — now!"
> "Not without ending this!"
> "You'll end everything if you shoot that core!"
The conflict flared between them again — old wounds, new fury. He wanted to trust her, but the mission burned in his veins like an addiction.
Then her eyes met his — calm, steady, defiant.
> "Ethan," she said quietly. "If you love me… trust me one last time."
He hesitated. The sound of drones grew louder, closing in.
> "Fine," he said. "One last time."
They bolted through the collapsing corridor as explosions rocked the floor beneath. Sparks rained down. Glass shattered.
At the exit, Mara slammed a detonator into his hand. "If I don't make it out, blow the core from above. Don't look back."
> "Mara—"
> "Go!"
She pushed him through the hatch and sealed it behind her.
Ethan hit the ground outside, coughing, the detonator clutched in his fist. Behind him, the Palais glowed brighter, blue light pulsing through every window like a heartbeat.
Then, silence.
No explosion. No collapse. Just the faint hum of the network stabilizing again.
He stared at the detonator, trembling.
> "Mara… what did you do?"