The safehouse was a dimly lit loft above an abandoned auto shop, the air thick with the scent of motor oil and stale coffee. Elena sat cross-legged on a moth-eaten couch, her fingers trembling as she adjusted the neural headset a prototype she'd smuggled out of the lab months ago. Marcus leaned against the rusted doorframe, arms crossed, his gaze sharp.
"You sure this thing won't fry your brain?" he asked, eyeing the tangled wires.
Elena ignored him, tightening the electrodes at her temples. "It's designed to amplify synaptic pathways. If there's anything left of my memories, this will find it."
Marcus scoffed. "Or it'll turn you into a vegetable. Your call, Doc."
She closed her eyes, the machine humming to life. Static flickered behind her eyelids, then
—A sterile lab. The flicker of a holographic screen. Dr. Blackwood's voice, strained: "They're accelerating the timeline. If we don't stop them, MORPHEUS goes live in six weeks."
Her own hands, typing frantically. "The Senator's speech tomorrow it's the trigger. They'll use his address to activate the first wave."
A shadow at the door. A syringe glinting
Elena gasped, tearing off the headset. Sweat dripped down her neck. "The Senator… they're targeting his speech. That's how they'll deploy MORPHEUS."
Marcus straightened. "Which senator?"
"I don't know. But his face it was everywhere. Campaign posters, newsfeeds…"
"Reynolds," Marcus muttered. "He's giving a keynote at the Capitol tomorrow. Security's tighter than a vault."
Before Elena could respond, a knock rattled the door. Marcus drew his sidearm, motioning her to stay back.
Dr. Chen stood in the hallway, her lab coat smudged with ash. "I've got five minutes before they track me here. Take this." She thrust a data drive into Marcus's hand. "Blackwood's logs. Coordinates for a MORPHEUS facility upstate. And Elena" Her gaze flickered. "Don't trust the neural scans. They're… incomplete."
The warning hung in the air as she vanished down the stairwell.
Marcus plugged the drive into a tablet. Blueprints flashed a subterranean lab beneath a decommissioned power plant. "We hit this tonight. If they're prepping a broadcast signal for Reynolds's speech, this is where they'll send it."
Elena hesitated. "Chen didn't mention the Senator. Why?"
"Maybe she doesn't know. Or maybe she's baiting us." He tossed her a kevlar vest. "Either way, we're out of options."
The facility was a maze of concrete tunnels, the walls vibrating with the thrum of servers. Elena hacked a security panel, her pulse roaring in her ears. "They're routing the signal through here. If we overload the mainframe, we could delay the activation"
A laser sight flashed. Marcus yanked her behind a server rack as gunfire erupted.
"Go!" he barked, returning fire. "Find the control hub!"
Elena sprinted, the headset's feedback whining in her skull. The memory fragments surged again—
Blackwood's hand on her shoulder. "You're the only one who can stop this."
A gunshot. Blood blooming across his chest
She stumbled into the control room, fingers flying over the console. Alarms blared. SYSTEM OVERRIDE: 60 SECONDS TO BROADCAST.
Marcus crashed in behind her, blood streaking his sleeve. "They're flooding the tunnels. We need to go. Now."
"Not yet!" Elena slammed a fist on the keyboard. The screens died with a shudder.
They fled through choking smoke, the facility collapsing around them. Aboveground, dawn bruised the sky. Marcus leaned against the car, breath ragged.
"You're bleeding," Elena said quietly.
"Grazed. I'll live." He caught her wrist as she reached for the first-aid kit. "Back there… you hesitated. Why?"
Her throat tightened. "Because I recognized the voice on the comms. The one giving orders."
Marcus stilled. "Who?"
"Director Morrison. My old mentor. He's not just involved he's leading this."
Before Marcus could reply, Elena's headset buzzed. A notification blinked MEMORY RECOVERY: 97% COMPLETE.
She stared at the screen, ice flooding her veins. The final fragment materialized
—Dr. Chen in a shadowed office, handing Morrison a dossier. "She's ready. The neural patterns are a perfect match."
Elena's knees buckled. Chen had been working with him all along.
Marcus gripped her shoulders. "What is it? What did you see?"
The truth lodged like a blade in her chest. "We need to go. Now."
As the car peeled away, Elena watched the facility explode in the rearview mirror. But the real detonation was in her skull the crushing realization that Chen's help, their only lead, was a trap.
And Morrison was always one step ahead.