Flames licked the steel walls of the underground vault as the shockwave from Lara's pod sent Nam tumbling back. Debris rained around him, smoke choking the narrow chamber. Through the haze, he heard Hana's voice—panicked, distorted.
"Nam! Do you copy?!"
"I'm here!" he coughed, dragging himself toward the exit. "Alina?!"
Silence.
Only the crackle of fire and distant gunshots replied.
Nam pushed through the chaos, heart pounding. The data chip in his pocket pulsed with heat—like it knew it carried something dangerous. He turned a corner—and froze.
Alina stood amid the wreckage, one arm bloodied, gun smoking. Around her, the remains of three exo-units sparked and fizzled.
"About time," she muttered, wincing. "I bought you your sixty."
Nam reached to steady her. "Let's get out of here."
But the way back was no longer an option. A section of the tunnel had collapsed, and overhead, the vault's failsafe was beginning to trigger—self-destruct protocol.
Hana's voice crackled in again. "I've got an emergency tunnel east of your position. Thirty meters. Move now or you won't move at all!"
They ran.
Every breath felt like fire. Every step shook beneath them as the old structure began to die.
They burst into the side tunnel, just as the main chamber collapsed behind them in a fiery roar. For a moment, everything went still—only their ragged breathing echoed in the dark.
Hana met them at the surface, snow swirling in the night. A transport drone hovered nearby, blades already spinning.
"Is the chip intact?" she asked, eyes wide.
Nam handed it over. "She knew we'd come. This wasn't an archive—it was bait."
Hana plugged the chip into her scanner. What came up made her blood run cold: a data map of active mind-clone networks—spanning cities, corporations... even governments.
"She's not gone," Hana whispered. "She's everywhere."
Alina clenched her jaw. "Then we fight her everywhere."
Nam looked toward the burning skyline, the wind howling like a warning.
"We started this as hunters," he said. "Now we're the hunted."
And so the game changed again.
But they weren't running.
They were regrouping.
Because ghosts don't vanish.
They haunt.