The coffee shop, which had been the sterile command center for my illegal digital intrusion, now felt like a cage. The chatter of other patrons, the hiss of the espresso machine, the cheerful indie-pop music playing overhead—it was all part of a world I was no longer fully in. I was straddling a line between two realities. In one, I was just a guy with a laptop. In the other, I was a man holding the digital soul of a murderer in my hands, with a ghost tethered to my own soul and a supernatural app on a black phone telling me I had five new points to spend.
My hand closed around the phone in my pocket. The notification of my reward, the +5 MP, glowed with a faint, golden light. It was a pittance. A cosmic tip for a job well done. But it was also everything. It was the key. It was the price of the one tool that might make this impossible situation slightly less impossible: Ectoplasmic Empathy.
I quickly navigated back to the Rewards Catalog. The screen felt warmer now, less menacing. It was no longer a catalogue of impossible dreams but a functional store. I found the item—Ectoplasmic Empathy (Level 1)—and tapped the Purchase button. A confirmation window popped up.
[Are you sure you want to spend 5 Merit Points on this item? This transaction is final.]
I hesitated for only a second. My entire strategy, my life, depended on this. I confirmed the purchase. The five points vanished from my balance, and a new icon appeared on the app's home screen, a simple design of a stylized soundwave emanating from a human silhouette.
[Ectoplasmic Empathy (Level 1) has been successfully installed into your neural interface. To activate, focus on the target entity and establish intent to connect.]
Neural interface. The phrase was clinical and terrifying. The app hadn't just been installed on a phone; it had been installed on me. The phone was just the remote control. The true hardware was my own body, my own mind, now running software from the afterlife.
I packed up my new, clean laptop and the encrypted USB drive that held Harold Finch's downfall. I left the coffee shop and began walking, with no particular destination in mind. I needed to try this new skill, and I couldn't do it surrounded by people. I found a small, forgotten park, little more than a patch of grass with a few lonely benches, and sat down, the sounds of Chicago's traffic a distant roar.
"Okay," I whispered to myself, my breath misting in the cool air. "Let's see what I just bought."
I closed my eyes. I focused inward, on the cold spot in my chest that had been my constant companion for two days. It was a familiar sensation now, a dull, permanent ache. I established my intent, focusing my thoughts like a laser pointer. Connect. I want to connect. Jessica, I want to understand.
The world didn't just change. It shattered.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a vision. It was a sudden, overwhelming flood of pure, unfiltered emotion that crashed into my consciousness. Before, the cold was just a physical sensation. Now, it had texture, color, a voice of its own. It was a tidal wave of feeling, and I was drowning in it.
The primary emotion was rage. But it wasn't the simple, hot anger I had imagined. It was a complex, layered thing. It was the cold, sharp fury of betrayal, the humiliation of being undermined and belittled by a man she had respected. It was the hot, screaming rage of injustice, of having her life's work stolen. And beneath that was the volcanic, explosive rage of her final moments—the terror of the brakes failing, the screech of metal, the blinding flash of pain, and then the sudden, shocking nothingness. I felt it all as if it were happening to me. My own hands clenched into fists, my teeth grinding together.
Then came the sorrow. It was a vast, gray ocean of grief. I felt her weeping for the life she had lost, the future that had been erased. I felt her sorrow for her family, for the pain her death would cause them. I felt the simple, profound sadness of a 25-year-old woman who had just wanted to live, to succeed, to love, and to be happy, and had had it all torn away by a petty, insecure man. Tears, cold and sharp, began to stream down my own face, but they weren't my tears. They were hers.
And finally, under all the rage and all the sorrow, there was confusion. A disoriented, fragmented sense of self. A ghostly consciousness trying to make sense of its own non-existence, tethered to the world only by the anchor of its own trauma. She was lost, adrift in a sea of her own pain, and the cold I felt was the chill of that endless, lonely ocean.
I gasped, pulling back, breaking the connection. The wave of emotion receded, leaving me shaken, trembling, and utterly drained on the park bench. My face was wet, and my chest ached with a phantom grief. This new "empathy" was a brutal, punishing tool. It was like mainlining a soul.
But it was also a confirmation. The proof on the USB drive was cold, hard data. This emotional flood was the human truth behind it. The crime was real. Her pain was real. My mission was real.
I took a few deep breaths, centering myself. Now that I knew what to expect, I tried again, more cautiously this time. I didn't dive in. I just dipped a toe, so to speak. I focused my intent, not to feel everything, but to ask a question.
I have it, Jessica, I thought, directing the idea towards the emotional presence inside me. I have the proof. The emails. The search history. I have it all.
The maelstrom of rage and sorrow quieted for a moment, replaced by a new, powerful surge of a different emotion. It was hope. A fierce, desperate, brilliant hope, so intense it was almost as painful as the rage. It was the feeling of a prisoner seeing a sliver of daylight for the first time in years. And with it came a wave of something else directed at me: gratitude. A deep, profound thankfulness that was both humbling and terrifying in its intensity.
What now? The question wasn't in words, but in a feeling of expectant, anxious energy. What do we do now?
This was the critical question. My original, half-baked plan was to anonymously dump the files on the police and the media and run. But now, that felt clumsy. Harold Finch was a director at a major corporation. He would have access to lawyers, PR firms, and crisis management teams. An anonymous data dump could be dismissed as a corporate smear campaign, a hack job by a competitor. They would muddy the waters, create doubt, and drag the investigation out for months. Finch might even slip away. Justice wasn't just about sending him to jail; for Jessica, it was about everyone knowing what he did. Her name had been erased from her own project. Her legacy had been stolen. She needed the truth to be undeniable.
I couldn't just drop a bomb. I had to orchestrate its detonation.
A new plan began to form in my mind, bolder and more dangerous than the last. I wouldn't just leak the information. I would create a narrative. I would become a ghost in his machine, a phantom saboteur.
Phase one was complete: I had the weapon.
Phase two would be psychological warfare. I would start small. I would use the information I had to create cracks in his professional life. I would send anonymous, cryptic tips to his colleagues, to his bosses, to the board of directors at Innovate Solutions. Not the full proof, just enough to plant seeds of doubt. "Ask Harold Finch about Project Nightingale." "Did Jessica Miller's project get the credit it deserved?" I would make his peers look at him differently, make his superiors question him. I would turn his corporate paradise into a paranoid, whispering hell.
Phase three would be the public reveal. After sowing chaos from within, I would release the full, undeniable proof to a carefully selected investigative journalist, someone with a reputation for taking down powerful men. By the time the story broke, Innovate Solutions would already be in damage control mode, and Finch would be isolated and under suspicion from all sides. He wouldn't just be facing the police; he'd be facing the court of public opinion, armed with his own damning words.
It was a terrifying, complex plan that could go wrong in a thousand different ways. It would require me to live a double life, to operate in the shadows, to constantly watch my back. I would be taking on a powerful, wealthy man who had already proven he was willing to kill.
But as I sat there on that lonely park bench, feeling the desperate hope of the soul intertwined with mine, I knew I didn't have a choice. This was my job now. My penance. My purpose. The app on my phone called me a "Probationary Field Agent." It was time I started acting like one.
I stood up, the USB drive in my pocket feeling like a sacred relic. I was no longer just Alex Carter, data-entry clerk. I was a whistleblower. An avenger. I was Jessica Miller's last, best hope for justice. And our war against Harold Finch was about to begin.