The train hissed to a stop with a mechanical groan, steam bleeding from its undercarriage as if the beast had bled out on arrival.
Berlin.
A city wrapped in neon scars and graffiti truth. Half-collapsed infrastructure clung to steel bones, while glass towers above shimmered with Edenfall's propaganda like gods staring down at mortals too stubborn to die.
Matherson stepped off the train with no bag, no name, no trace. Just a long coat that swallowed his frame, and the weight of five years carved into the angles of his face.
He looked older now. Not just in body but in silence.
Every move calculated. Every blink considered.
This was no longer the boy who fled a burning house. This was the man returning to burn something bigger.
Checkpoint Echo One Hour Later
"You're not on the list."
The Edenfall enforcer was young, half-augmented, his optic scanner clicking as he stared into Matherson's blank ID chip.
"I'm not here for your list," Matherson replied, calm, quiet.
"What are you here for then?"
Matherson leaned close.
"To pay for something your masters stole."
He moved fast two fingers to the enforcer's wrist, then a twist, then a short jab under the rib. The body crumpled quietly between two dumpsters.
Seconds later, he vanished into the back alleys of District 3 what Berlin locals called the Labyrinth.
The Key He Hunted
She was called Dahlia in the old ledger files. Real name unknown. A systems architect from the original Edenfall core team who went underground after Jayson's death.
Rumor said she survived the purge by disappearing into code living inside data clusters as a ghost.
But Ghostbyte had tracked a signal ping last week. A unique signature hidden inside a forgotten transmission hub built beneath the old Berlin Wall.
She was alive.
And she had Key Fragment #2.
Matherson slipped through tunnels long since stripped of light, the HUD in his contact lens flickering as it tried to map the decayed infrastructure. He reached the abandoned substation, its walls covered in anti-Eden graffiti and mold.
The door had no handle.
But the code was embedded in the wall old-world steganography, hidden in the shape of painted crows.
He pressed three fingers to the image, in sequence: left wing, beak, tail.
Click.
A panel slid open.
Stale air greeted him like breath from a crypt.
She Was Waiting
"Close the door behind you."
The voice was hoarse, filtered through rebreathers and something else something deeper. Synth layers to mask age, gender, tone.
He stepped inside.
Dahlia stood in the shadows, her figure mostly concealed beneath a net-cloak of digitized mirrors, flickering softly like camouflage on the edge of failure.
"You're Jayson's boy," she said without needing to ask.
Matherson nodded. "You knew him?"
"I helped build what killed him."
Silence stretched.
He didn't ask for sympathy. She didn't offer any.
"Why now?" she asked. "Why come for the key?"
"Because they murdered everyone I loved," he said. "Because the truth isn't enough anymore. I want them to bleed."
Dahlia studied him.
"You sound like him."
"No," Matherson said. "He fought for ideals. I'm fighting for the dead."
Then he stepped closer.
"I need the second fragment."
She didn't move.
"You know what that key does, don't you?" she said.
"I know it's one of five."
"It's one of four now. The fifth was never real—it was a failsafe, buried in an illusion to keep Edenfall guessing. But the second key…" She paused. "The second key unlocks the Neural Fork."
He frowned. "What's that?"
Dahlia hesitated. Then whispered:
"A simulation of your father's mind. Built before he died. Alive… and still learning."
Matherson staggered back a step.
"You're saying… my father's still?"
"No. Not alive," she said. "But not dead either. And if Edenfall gets this fork, they'll reverse-engineer it. And use it to finish Kestrel."
A long beat.
Then Dahlia handed him a small black chip, no bigger than a fingernail.
"It's incomplete," she said. "You'll need Ghostbyte to recompile it. He's the only one who knew Jayson's encryption layers."
Matherson closed his hand around it.
Then
A low tremor.
Static burst through the air.
She looked up sharply. "They're here."
"Edenfall?"
"No."
"Worse."
Suddenly the power grid died.
From the corner of the room, a screen glitched to life on its own.
A blurred face appeared.
Male. Calm. Familiar.
"Hello, Matherson," it said.
"I told you I was coming."