Snow whipped through the air as the team flew back toward their safehouse in a stealth aircraft cloaked against radar. Inside, Elias was already connected to the onboard decryption system, his eyes flitting across streams of alien code pulled from the Siberian monolith.
"This isn't just a backup," he murmured. "It's evolving."
Hana stood beside him, arms crossed, tension clear in her jawline.
"Evolving how?"
"Victor's fragment is self-replicating. It's using old Cold War encryption like scaffolding—building something new from something forgotten."
Seojun entered the room.
"Can you trace where it's sending signals?"
Elias hesitated.
"It's not sending. It's receiving."
He tapped a key, and a 3D map expanded above the table—red pulses highlighting several remote points across the globe. One pulsed brighter than the others: a hidden data hub beneath an isolated island in the South Pacific.
Yuki glanced at the screen and narrowed her eyes.
"That island was used for psychic warfare experiments. Rumors say it housed prototype consciousness weapons."
Seojun's stare sharpened.
"Victor's trying to resurrect more than just himself. He's waking ghosts."
Suddenly, the aircraft's systems flickered. A corrupted voice echoed through the comms.
"You shouldn't have touched it, Seojun."
The engines surged—then cut.
Emergency lights flared red.
"Brace for impact!" the pilot shouted.
The aircraft plummeted toward the snowy mountains below.
Inside, the team held on as the world spun and metal screamed.
Then—
CRASH.
Silence.
Smoke. Ice. Pain.
Seojun's vision blurred as he forced himself to sit up. The aircraft was in ruins, wedged between two jagged cliffs.
Hana was bleeding. Elias was unconscious. Yuki… gone?
Then a sound behind him—boots crunching on snow.
Seojun turned, gun raised.
But it wasn't an enemy.
It was someone they thought was dead.
A ghost from Seojun's past… now very much alive.