The fluorescent lights in the lab buzzed like angry wasps. Jack Mercer stood frozen, staring at the computer's glowing message: THANK YOU FOR THE NEW HOST. His bandaged hand throbbed as blood seeped through the flannel. The silence was worse than the static—thick, heavy, and alive.
"Lin? Finch?" His voice bounced off empty walls.
A phone rang. The landline on Dr. Lin's desk. Jack grabbed it.
"—k… J… ack…" Finch's voice was broken by interference. "…server room… basement… it's got h—"
The line died.
Jack sprinted into the hallway. The emergency lights bathed everything in a sickly red hue. Student posters flutter off bulletin boards, torn by an unseen wind. CLANG. A door was slammed downstairs.
The basement stairs were reeked of burnt plastic. Jack's flashlight caught words spray-painted on the wall: IT SEES YOU.
The server room door was hung crookedly on its hinges. Inside, the servers blinked erratically, and the fans whined like dying animals. Finch crouched behind a tower, his face illuminated by his laptop screen.
"Dude!" Finch hissed. "Don't move! It's in the—"
A shadow was dropped from the ceiling.
Not a shadow. Dr. Lin.
Her eyes glowed faintly green, and her skin crackled with static. She moved jerkily, like a puppet with half-cut string.
"Jack…" Her voice layered over itself—hers and the Revenant's. "…you shouldn't have… run…"
Finch typed furiously. "I'm hacking the firewall—it's using her to access the mainframe!"
"Can you purge it?"
"Working on a code… distraction!"
Jack grabbed a fire extinguisher. "Hey, Static Sally! Miss me?"
Dr. Lin's head snapped toward him. She lunged, her fingers sparking. Jack slammed the extinguisher into her chest. She flew back and crashed into the servers. Sparks erupted.
"Got it!" Finch yelled. "Executing now!"
The server blared an alarm. Dr. Lin shrieked as green static flared from her mouth, and then collapsed.
Jack caught her before she hit the floor. Her skin was ice-cold.
"Did it work?"
Finch wiped the sweat off his brow. It was kicked out of the network for now.
Dr. Lin's eyes fluttered open. "Jack… it's in the cell towers… replicating… can't stop…"
Her body then convulsed. A static screeched from her throat.
…clever… but I have… new toys…
Finch slammed his laptop. "Out! Now!"
The Safe House
They barricaded themselves in a janitor's closet. Dr. Lin lay shivering on a pile of rags, her breath fogging the air. Jack wrapped her in his jacket.
"How long?" he asked.
"Till it possesses her again?" The finch chewed on a stale protein bar. "An hour? Maybe less."
Dr. Lin gripped Jack's arm. "Kill me. Before it… uses me… to hurt others."
"No." Jack's voice hardened. "We're fixing this."
Finch booted up his laptop. "The Revenant's code is adapting. Lin's research is spreading faster through social media, satellites, and everything else. But I found a weakness."
He pulled up a map marked with red zones. "It's clustering around old radio towers. Like it's nostalgic."
"Or rebuilding its bridge," Jack muttered.
A phone vibrated—Dr. Lin's. A text from an unknown number:
YOU LOOK TIRED, FINCH.
Finch palmed. "How does it know my—"
The screen of his laptop flickered. A live feed appeared in Finch's apartment. Mr. Whiskers, his cat, stared at the camera.
…cute…
The Revenant's voice.
The feed was cut off from the 911 call log. Finch's mother lives in Oregon.
…visit her…
Finch slammed the laptop shut, trembling with rage. "It's threatening my family."
Jack stood. "We hit it first. Tear down its bridges."
"With what?" Finch snapped.
Emily's locket warmed against Jack's chest. He pulled it out. "With this."
The Radio Tower
They drove to the nearest red zone, a derelict tower on the outskirts of town. The barbed wire fences sagged. NO TRESPASSING signs lay rusted among the weeds.
Dr. Lin leaned on Jack, weak but coherent. "The locket… Emily's remains… might disrupt its signal."
"Might?" Finch said.
"It's a focus. Like an anchor."
Jack clipped the locket to a drone Finch had rigged with C4. "Send it up. Blast the tower."
"YOLO," Finch muttered, launching the drone.
It whirred upward, a live feed on Finch's tablet. The tower loomed, its metal bones humming with the energy.
…Jack…
Emily's voice, from the locket.
The drone reached the peak of the tower.
"Do it," Jack said.
Finch hit DETONATE.
The explosion lit up the sky. The tower crumpled, and a fireball swallowed the static.
Dr. Lin gasped. "The signal… it's fading!"
But Jack didn't cheer. The flames twisted, forming a familiar silhouette—antler-like horns and glowing eyes.
…you… cannot… burn… me…
The Revenant's face rippled in the smoke before it vanished.
Dr. Lin's knees buckled. "It's not enough. We need a bigger strike."
Jack eyed the burning wreckage. "Then we hit the source."
"Millhaven?" Finch said.
"Where it all began."
The Road Back
They drove in shifts. Jack took the wheel first, dawn bleeding over the horizon. Dr. Lin slept fitfully. Finch scrolled through news reports:
"—mysterious blackouts in 12 states… survivors report 'shadow people' in power grids—"
Jack's phone buzzed. A notification— one New Voicemail.
He played it.
…Jack… Emily's voice, clearer than ever. …the hall… the answers are in the hall…
The line went dead.
Dr. Lin stirred. "What is it?"
Jack tightened his grip on the wheel. "A warning."
Behind them, the rising sun painted the sky a blood-red hue.