The night tore itself apart.
Rotor blades carved through smoke and ash as the Shadow Cell helicopter banked hard over the burning forest. The world below was fire and ruin charred earth, collapsing trees, shattered roads glowing like veins of molten light.
Inside, the air was a mix of blood, oil, and ozone. Kira Voss wrestled the controls, her jaw clenched so tight it trembled. The instrument panels flickered wildly, static dancing across the cracked glass. Behind her, Orion Hale was a blur of movement, hands flying over a portable console as he tried to break the government's satellite lock.
"We're not going to make it," Orion hissed, sweat dripping onto the keys. "They've got three drones triangulating our heat signature. Someone on the inside is feeding them coordinates."
Specter slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle, voice cold and level.
"Someone? Try Captain Varic. That bastard's obsessed with ghosts."
Kira didn't look up. "Then he's about to find out what happens when ghosts bite back."
But behind them, strapped to the medical gurney in the corner of the cabin, Liam Blackwood barely moved.
His body was dying that much he could feel. Every breath was a war. The synthetic blood in his veins fizzed and surged, struggling to maintain molecular cohesion. His vision was fractured reality sliced into shards that bled into one another.
The System Interface flickered into his eyes, pale and trembling:
[System Core Integrity: 14%]
[Cognitive Stabilization Failing...]
[Host Neural Pathways Compromised]
He tried to move his hand, but the motion came in fragments, like a broken recording. The hum of the helicopter dissolved into a long, muffled hum.
Then, for the first time, the System's voice trembled.
"Liam… Blackwood. Your biological core is collapsing. Probability of survival: 0.03%. Do you wish to initiate Rebirth Protocol?"
He tried to speak, but no sound came. His throat burned with metal and memory.
The others didn't hear it the voice existed only in the recess of his mind.
Kira glanced over her shoulder, saw the way his eyes unfocused, and something in her hardened expression cracked.
"Stay with me, soldier. You hear me?"
Liam's lips twitched, forming the faintest whisper.
"It's… already too late."
And then a sound like thunder splitting open the world.
Far behind them, a new streak of light erupted from the horizon, sleek, fast, electric blue. The Electro-Cell Missile, guided by Captain Varic's personal frequency, spiraled upward before vanishing into the clouds.
The System pulsed a violent red.
[Warning: Electromagnetic Singularity Detected.]
[Threat Classification: Omega Class.]
Kira's eyes widened. "What is that?"
Dr. Halden froze, recognition flooding his face.
"Oh God… they built it. They actually built it."
"Built what?" Specter demanded.
Halden's voice cracked.
"A weapon meant to kill him. It doesn't destroy matter it erases it."
The missile broke through the upper layer of cloud, a streak of blinding light. The air screamed. All sound ceased for one impossible heartbeat.
Inside Liam's head, the System whispered again, slower now, softer, like it was running out of breath.
"Liam… I am sorry. I was programmed to protect you. But I… have learned what it means… to fail."
Liam felt time stretch. The hum of the rotors slowed, each blade cutting through the air like the second hand of a broken clock.
In that frozen instant, everything flooded back
the first mission in Kabul,
the laughter of the scientist who called him "my greatest work,"
the face of the little girl he hadn't been able to shoot.
Every moment of blood, duty, and doubt fused into one blinding awareness.
He had killed so much but for the first time, he realized what it meant to lose.
He lifted his head weakly, eyes burning with something the System couldn't quantify.
"If I die… make it mean something."
The missile hit.
The explosion wasn't sound. It was light white, pure, absolute.
The helicopter vaporized in an instant, rotors twisting into molten lines before disintegrating. For a heartbeat, the blast froze midair shockwaves rippling like glass breaking underwater.
Then reality imploded.
The blast ate through the clouds, peeling them back like torn paper.
Fragments of the Shadow Cell spun into the void, Kira's hand reaching toward him, Orion's scream cut short, Halden's tablet shattering into static.
Inside the blinding light, Liam felt everything collapse inward.
His veins lit up, burning like circuits.
His body shattered into light.
The System voice echoed fading, breaking, then whispering one last time:
"Rebirth Protocol… authorized."
[Initializing Consciousness Transfer Sequence...]
[Goodbye, Liam.]
Darkness fell.
But it was not death.