The silence held.
Not the kind that meant danger was near.
But the kind that meant—for now—they'd survived.
Then—
a noise.
Faint. Mechanical.
A soft click from the radio.
Aiko sat up straight, eyes wide. The red light had stopped blinking.
Now it was solid.
She stared at it. "Ryoji…"
He turned. Fast.
Across the room, Miura's hand was already on her sidearm. Her stance shifted, calm but coiled.
The speaker hissed. A burst of static. Then—
a voice.
"Ryoji. If you're hearing this... they're coming."
The voice was distorted. Masked.
Masculine. Strained. Maybe wounded.
"They activated Protocol Revenant. This isn't a retrieval op. This is erasure. Ghost was Phase One."
More static. The transmission cracked, broken, like it was barely punching through.
"You need to move. Anyone who's made contact with the girl is compromised. They're not sending agents anymore—"
Another pause. Sharper now.
"They're sending Revenants."
The signal died.
The red light went out.
Silence.
Miura spoke first. "What the hell was that?"
Ryoji stared at the radio. "A warning."
"From who?"
"Doesn't matter. He's dead now."
Miura crossed the room. "Protocol Revenant. You knew it."
He didn't answer right away.
Miura stepped in front of him. "Ryoji."
He finally met her eyes. "It was a contingency."
Aiko stood. "What kind?"
Ryoji exhaled. Quiet. Controlled.
"A kill switch."
The room seemed colder.
"They built it years ago. Took the ones who failed conditioning. Agents too damaged to follow orders, but too valuable to discard. Reprogrammed them. Fused them with wetware and steel. Made them into shadows that don't stop."
Aiko looked pale. "Like the Crimson Ghost?"
He shook his head. "No. The Ghost still thought. Revenants don't."
Miura tightened her grip on the pistol. "How many?"
"Enough."
"They're really sending them for us?"
"No," Ryoji said. "For her."
Aiko flinched.
"They think you're infected with something. Maybe they're right. Maybe they're scared. Either way—Revenants don't ask questions."
He moved to the hatch. Punched the code. It hissed open.
Miura checked her rifle. "What's the plan?"
"Evade. Disrupt. Survive. If we can find out who sent the warning, maybe we can learn how deep this goes."
"And if we can't?" Aiko asked.
Ryoji looked at her.
"Then we run until they stop breathing."
Aiko nodded, slow but steady.
Miura paused by a rusted console and popped it open. Old wiring. Dust. She plugged in a cable from her wristpad.
"I'm patching into the grid. Pulling old layouts."
"Hurry," Ryoji said.
"Always do."
A faint buzz filled the air. Electricity crawling through long-dead systems.
As the map began to load, Aiko turned to Ryoji.
"Can I ask something?"
He glanced over. "You just did."
She frowned. "Why'd you really leave Division Zero?"
He hesitated. For the first time, something behind his eyes shifted—softened.
"Because I stopped believing the mission mattered more than the people we stepped over to complete it."
Miura said nothing, but she heard it.
Ryoji turned back to the door. "We move in three."
As Aiko moved to help Miura, the radio flickered again. No voice this time.
Just one word. Mechanical. Whispered like a breath through static:
"Run."
Then darkness.
To be continued in Chapter 27...