The alley reeked of smoke and adrenaline. Eira's boots pounded against the pavement, slick with rain and city grime. The memory drive was tucked tight inside her jacket, still warm from the extraction. Sirens howled in the distance—some real, some drones. Every step forward felt like a countdown.
Behind her, the facility had gone up in flames.
Rowan's voice haunted her earpiece. "Go. Don't look back."
But Eira had looked back. She always did.
She rounded a corner and ducked into the shadows between two abandoned buildings. For a moment, she allowed herself to breathe. Just one second to feel her heart trying to claw out of her chest.
A whisper cracked through her comm: "Status?"
It was Dev.
"Alive. Barely," Eira answered, voice tight. "I have the core. Where's Rowan?"
A pause. Static. Then: "We lost contact five minutes ago."
Eira cursed. The silence on Rowan's end wasn't just technical—it was tactical. She was buying time, giving Eira the lead.
"Prep the safehouse. I'm bringing ghosts," she said.
Elsewhere, Rowan staggered into the ruins of the lab, coughing through the smoke. The last of the retrieval units lay scattered—some unconscious, others not so lucky. Stark was nowhere to be seen.
She found him slumped behind the terminal, blood staining his coat.
"You wiped it?" she asked, kneeling.
He nodded weakly. "All of it. Except… what she took."
"She'll make it count."
"I know."
His eyes fluttered. "They'll come for her now. Harder than ever. That drive—whoever controls it controls memory."
Rowan stood, rage and pain battling behind her eyes. "Then let's make sure they never get the chance."
By midnight, Eira reached the safehouse—an old brownstone shielded by encryption fields and dead zones. Dev opened the reinforced door just as she approached.
"You look like hell," they said.
"Feels worse." She shoved the drive into their hands. "Encrypt. Backup. Bury it six firewalls deep."
Dev stared at the drive, then at Eira. "You sure you want to keep this thing alive?"
"I don't," Eira said. "But it's not about want anymore."
She collapsed into a chair. Her hands were still shaking. Her chest still tight. She didn't know if Rowan made it out.
Dev looked up. "And if she didn't?"
Eira looked out the window, at the flicker of distant searchlights in the clouds.
"Then I burn the whole system to the ground."