The precinct felt warmer now but not in a comforting way.
More like standing too close to a fire you didn't start, watching the flames climb and not knowing if they were coming for you next.
Stones didn't speak for a long time. Just sat there, hunched beside Monroe in the low-lit cybercrimes suite, as the files bled across the screen. Every folder opened felt like a doorway that should've stayed locked. Each log was a confession no one intended to make.
"God…" Monroe whispered, dragging her hand down her face. "They didn't just vanish people. They rebuilt them."
Stones nodded slowly. "Burn the record. Rewrite the person."
The files were clean, disturbingly clinical. Subject IDs. Dates of disappearance. Pre-wipe data: jobs, families, medical records. Post-wipe data: new names, new bios, false employment histories seeded across fabricated networks.
Like someone had developed a system a machine to erase and recreate lives.
Some were volunteers. Wealthy. Vanished willingly to escape something debt, prosecution, a ruined legacy. But others… others were targeted. Patterned. Unwilling test cases. Outliers. People like Evelyn.
People like him.
"See this one?" Monroe scrolled down, pausing on a file tagged Subject 0824-Theta. "Missing persons case closed in 2022. Found 'drowned in an irrigation ditch.' No autopsy. But we have an active medical file from six months ago under a different name… in Estonia."
"That's the program," Stones muttered. "They hollow you out. Keep the body just scrape the soul."
Monroe opened the file labeled HOLLOW. Encrypted. A black screen with a single command prompt.
ENTER KEY: █
Stones reached for the flash drive's casing. Peeled back the electrical tape.
There, scrawled on the plastic in tiny, shaky handwriting, was a six-digit code: 082422.
He typed it in.
The screen blinked.
Then
ACCESS GRANTED
Monroe stiffened. "Jesus Christ…"
A new interface loaded. Stark white text on black background. Lines of data pouring like a waterfall: chemical compounds, cognitive conditioning algorithms, biometric override triggers.
At the center: PROJECT HOLLOW – Operational Timeline & Subject Index.
It wasn't a file.
It was a blueprint for turning people into ghosts.
They scrolled in silence.
The science was worse than the violence. Neural pattern redirection. Memory dislocation. Pain response modulation. Everything Stones had felt underground, strapped to that metal frame had a name here. A patent number. A recorded success rate.
"This isn't just about erasing people," Monroe said, her voice strained. "It's about controlling what's left."
Stones stared at the screen. Then leaned back, jaw clenched so tight it ached.
"They weren't trying to kill Evelyn," he said. "They were trying to break her. The fire was cleanup."
Monroe's eyes scanned the timeline. "Then she fought back. That's why they buried her."
Stones opened the Subject Index. Searched for Evelyn Trent.
Nothing.
"Try aliases," Monroe offered.
He typed: R.O.S., Jane Doe 314, Theta-class, Sanbridge.
Still nothing.
Then one more shot in the dark.
Ashmark.
One hit.
Subject 0819-Ashmark – CLASSIFIED: Expunged
Project Phase: Failed Containment
Notes: "Target demonstrated Flameback pattern resilience. Memory shell unstable. Resistance outside expected thresholds."
Status: Unresolved
Termination order issued: 14 April
"That's her," Monroe breathed. "Flameback pattern. That's what they're afraid of."
Stones was already pacing.
"She didn't just survive what they did. She pushed back. They couldn't control her. So they buried her, then buried anyone who got too close."
He stopped at the edge of the desk, fists clenched.
"Kasper got too close. Now his daughter's running. And I…"
He didn't finish. He didn't have to.
Monroe stood beside him. Her voice low.
"They tested you, Stones. And you came back."
His eyes met hers. "And now I want answers."
The Next Step
By 9:17 AM, they were in an unmarked black sedan, heading east through the Midtown corridor, traffic humming around them like a beast that never slept.
Monroe drove. Stones stared out the window, the city blurring past.
"So where's our first stop?" she asked, turning down the radio.
Stones opened the printout from the flash drive. A list of tagged field operatives and test coordinators. Most were dead, vanished, or scrubbed. But one had a residential marker that hadn't pinged since 2023 until last month.
DR. MARCUS HARROW
Former neurochemical engineer. Affiliated with NovaLab Group, later contracted by R.O.S. Disappeared two years ago.
Now, someone under that same alias had resurfaced in the outer district teaching adjunct courses in behavioral psych at a low-profile college under a false name.
"He went underground," Stones said, "but someone pulled him back out."
Monroe squinted. "If Harrow's tied to HOLLOW, he's not just a ghost. He's the one who held the scalpel."
"Exactly," Stones said. "He built the shell."
They turned off the main road. Ahead loomed the campus half-crumbling, ivy-strangled, and forgotten by time. Not many students. Not many cameras. Perfect place to disappear into.
They parked in a visitor slot. Checked their weapons. No sirens. No backup. Just two detectives chasing the edges of a conspiracy that shouldn't exist.
Inside the administration wing, they posed as government researchers something vague enough not to attract questions. A nervous assistant led them down a narrow hallway, past half-lit offices and flaking door labels, until they reached Room B-117.
"Professor Harrow?" the assistant called gently, knocking once.
A pause.
Then: "Yes?"
The door creaked open.
A man in his fifties looked up from a projector. Whiteboard scribbled with neural pathways. Balding, wire-frame glasses, calm smile but his eyes. Stones knew those eyes.
Eyes that had watched people scream and wrote it down like data.
Monroe stepped forward. "Dr. Marcus Harrow?"
He blinked slowly. "Not anymore."
Stones drew his badge. "You are now."
The Interrogation
They didn't bring him in not yet. Too risky. Too public. Instead, they requested a "private interview," citing internal research verification. Harrow agreed, oddly compliant, as if he'd been waiting for this.
They sat in the back of a nearby diner. Harrow sipped decaf like it was a ritual. He barely blinked.
"You're digging," he said after the first few minutes.
"We found your name on something called Project HOLLOW," Monroe said calmly
Harrow didn't flinch. "Then you've found the fire."
"And now we're walking through it," Stones added.
Harrow stared at him. And this time, there was recognition.
"You were a subject," he murmured. "Theta-class, I'd guess. Good pain tolerance. Memory retention higher than expected."
"You carved open people's minds," Stones said, leaning forward. "Why?"
Harrow stirred his coffee. "Because they paid me."
"And they are?"
He smiled, a grim, crooked thing.
"You think this is about names? Titles? The Circle isn't a company. It's not even a cult. It's a result. It forms wherever there's need. They didn't start the fire, Detective. They just built a home in it."
Monroe frowned. "Why Evelyn Trent? Why target her?"
Harrow hesitated. For the first time, his hand trembled.
"Because she remembered too much. The process didn't hold. She resisted conditioning… and she saw something inside the flame."
Saw what?"
Harrow's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Something older than us. Than them. Something we borrowed from. HOLLOW wasn't just a program. It was a gate." Stones exchanged a glance with Monroe. "A gate to what?" Harrow looked at him with hollowed eyes.
"To whatever burns behind the world."
No Suspense, Just Purpose
They left the diner with more questions than answers but with one truth solidifying beneath it all:
Project HOLLOW wasn't about erasure. It was about evolution.
Evelyn had resisted it Stones had survived it.
And now? Now it was time to dismantle it, Piece by piece, Face by face, Fire by fire.