Two days had passed since the transmission. The team was holed up in a safehouse carved into the mountains of Northern Georgia—an abandoned radio tower repurposed by outlaws and ghost operatives over the years. Reyes had scrubbed the uplink clean, masking the source. Still, they knew Helix would come.
Grimm stood at the window, staring through the cracked glass. The forest below was calm, almost beautiful. But beneath the peace, he felt the churn of war moving silently forward.
Behind him, Tanya reassembled her rifle on a battered table. "No news from the outside?"
Grimm shook his head. "No news. No response. No damn reaction at all."
Reyes stepped into the room, fatigue etched into his features. "I tracked the data flow—dozens of servers picked it up, including three media outlets. But it's been buried. Discredited as fake. Flagged as AI-generated disinformation."
"Phantom's still active," Tanya said bitterly.
"Active," Grimm repeated. "And adapting."
Bull grunted from the corner, shirt off as he taped gauze across his ribs. "Then we hit 'em again. Harder. Can't let that bastard think we're done."
Grimm turned. "We're not. But we can't run in blind anymore. We need leverage. And I know where to find it."
The room went quiet.
Grimm walked over to an old footlocker and opened it. Inside lay a file—yellowed, burned at the corners, marked with an obsolete CIA stamp.
"Before the team was wiped," he said, "I started digging. There was a name. An asset deep in the Phantom program—someone embedded before it went dark. Operated under the call sign: SIGMA."
Tanya raised an eyebrow. "Never heard of him."
"You weren't meant to," Grimm replied. "He was buried under six layers of ghost protocols. Only Kessler and the core architects knew he existed. He's the chain we can break."
Reyes took the file and skimmed it. "Says here he was last stationed in Prague. Disappeared after Phantom went private."
"I have a contact there," Tanya said. "She used to run intel routes through the East Bloc. If SIGMA's alive, she might know where he went."
Grimm nodded. "We find him—we unravel what's left of Phantom. The algorithms, the predictive nodes, the fallback servers. All of it."
Bull cracked his knuckles. "And then we burn it to the ground."
But Reyes hesitated. "Even if we find him... what if SIGMA isn't on our side? What if Phantom's got him too?"
Grimm's stare was steel. "Then we remind him who the hell we are."
Later that night, Grimm stepped outside the safehouse, alone. The cold bit at his skin through his jacket, but he didn't care. He needed air. Space to think.
He lit a cigarette, something he'd quit years ago. But tonight, it grounded him.
A voice behind him cut the silence.
"You still carry their tags?"
Grimm turned to see Tanya leaning against the doorway. Her tone was soft, not accusatory—curious.
He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small chain with five dog tags. Weathered. Scorched.
"My team," he said simply. "They didn't get justice. They didn't even get names."
Tanya nodded, eyes drifting to the horizon. "We all carry ghosts. Just some louder than others."
They stood in silence for a moment. The kind only soldiers understood.
"You think SIGMA's the key?" she asked finally.
"He has to be. If we don't get ahead of Phantom now, it'll adapt faster than we can track. They already buried the leak. Next time, it won't just be us they scrub."
Tanya's jaw clenched. "Then let's make Prague our next move."
Grimm flicked the cigarette into the darkness.
"No turning back now."
At Helix HQ, Director Adrian Kessler stared at the report in silence.
The data leak had reached over a dozen intelligence networks before being contained. A few watchdog groups were whispering, some Reddit threads bubbling with conspiracy. But it wouldn't last.
"Spin team has it under control," his aide reported. "AI discredit protocols engaged. Most platforms have already shadow-banned the source node."
"And Mercer?" Kessler asked without turning.
"Unconfirmed. Last known signal was routed through a satellite relay in Georgia. Could be a decoy."
Kessler stood from his desk and walked to the massive screen on the far wall—Project Phantom's interface. Lines of data flowed like rivers. Risk scores. Predictions. Targets. Potential unrest zones.
"He's not trying to hide," Kessler said finally. "He's hunting."
The aide swallowed hard. "Do you want WRAITH redeployed?"
Kessler shook his head. "No. Let Mercer move. Let him think he's winning."
He tapped the screen, zooming in on an anomaly flagged in Eastern Europe.
"Set a Phantom trace on SIGMA's last known node. And deploy Operative Nyx."
The aide blinked. "Sir, she hasn't been activated in two years—"
"She's the contingency."
Kessler's eyes narrowed.
"Mercer wants to break the chain? Let him try."