Two days later, Ethan stood in the middle of Zürich Hauptbahnhof, one of Europe's busiest transport hubs. The vast iron-and-glass canopy loomed above him, its intricate latticework catching the pale morning light that filtered in from the snow-heavy sky.
The air was crisp with Alpine cold, sharp enough to sting the lungs, and the scent of roasted chestnuts from a nearby vendor added an odd sense of normalcy amidst the hum of arrivals and departures. Announcements echoed across the vaulted hall in German, French, and English—just enough noise to make anyone anonymous.
He wore a charcoal-gray coat, the collar turned up against the chill, and blended easily with the crowd of commuters and tourists. No one paid him any mind, just another face passing through. His breath misted as he exhaled slowly, eyes scanning every movement around him, every reflection in glass, every sudden shift in body language. Paranoia had become second nature.
Cassian hadn't joined him this time. Trust was thin, and the stakes had shifted. Ethan moved alone—armed with only the data drive, a burner phone, and a hastily memorized list of coordinates. Every item felt heavier than its weight suggested, each a thread tying him deeper into a web his father had spun years ago.
The map had led him here—to Zurich. But it didn't end at the surface.
Moving with purpose, he threaded his way through the station's arteries, past bakeries, kiosks, and hurried passengers towing sleek suitcases. At the far end of the terminal, behind a construction barrier that had long since lost its warning signs, Ethan found a forgotten stairwell. Faded signage had been removed, the steps descending into a concrete throat shadowed by flickering emergency lights.
He paused at the threshold. The faint scent of mildew drifted up from below, tinged with oil and rust. His fingers brushed the cold steel railing as he stepped down. His boots echoed with each deliberate step, a hollow rhythm swallowed by layers of stone and time.
The corridor was narrow, lined with peeling paint and industrial pipes. He passed dormant junction boxes, their labels faded into obscurity. The temperature dropped noticeably. The air grew thinner, denser, as if carrying the weight of the city above.
Then he found it: a biometric scanner embedded into a rusted panel, half-concealed by a faux-utility door. Identical to the one in the vault back in Vienna. He wiped the glass with the sleeve of his coat and placed his hand against it.
A pause.
Then a mechanical click reverberated from within the wall. Gears shifted.
The concrete slid sideways with a low groan, revealing a narrow passage bathed in sterile, dim light. Ethan stepped inside without hesitation. The door hissed shut behind him, cutting off all sound from the world above.
The hidden tunnel stretched ahead—industrial and stark. Pipes snaked along the ceiling like arteries, some dripping condensation. The air was dry, tinged with the faint ozone hum of dormant machines. The floor sloped gradually downward, pulling him deeper beneath the city.
Half a kilometer in, the tunnel widened into a chamber. A low hum permeated the space, the ambient sound of systems alive but sleeping.
This one wasn't empty.
Three men stood around a steel table illuminated by a single overhead lamp. Their silhouettes were sharp in the low light. Each wore a tailored suit, conservative in cut, colorless in tone. They looked up the moment Ethan entered, expressions unreadable.
The man in the middle stepped forward. Mid-forties, calm posture, thin wire-rimmed glasses that caught the light. His voice, when he spoke, was smooth—measured with the precision of someone used to dealing in secrets.
"Mr. Alden," he said. "Welcome to the Zurich node. We've been expecting you."
Ethan didn't flinch. His jaw set. "You know who I am. Then you know I'm not here to make friends."
The man offered a faint, courteous smile. "Of course not. This isn't about alliances. It's about consequences. You've activated something your father sealed for years. That has... implications."
The other two remained silent, watching, assessing.
Ethan stepped closer, the distance between them shrinking. The room felt heavier somehow, like stepping into the eye of a storm.
"Tell me about Project ECHO," he said.
The man didn't hesitate. He nodded to one of his associates, who turned to a recessed terminal embedded in the wall. Fingers danced across the interface. The screen came alive—lines of Cold War-era documents in grayscale, overlaid with modern intercepts pulsing in red. Dossiers, wireframes, asset trees.
"It started as a failsafe," the man said. "A distributed intelligence network. Predictive. Adaptive. And fully deniable. Marcus Alden helped fund it. Then tried to shut it down."
"Why?"
The man's gaze lingered on Ethan for a moment before replying. "Because it began predicting the fall of the Alden dynasty."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Ethan's voice dropped, quiet but razor-edged. "What happens if I take control of it?"
The man didn't blink. "Then the world you know ends. And another begins."
A silence settled between them—pregnant, electric. Ethan studied the faces in the room. None familiar, yet each bore that same calm menace he'd learned to recognize in his father's enemies. Men who operated in the margins, who didn't need titles or offices to shape the world.
"I'm not here to resurrect dynasties," Ethan said. "I'm here to finish what Marcus started."
The man tilted his head slightly, intrigued. His fingers steepled in thought. "Then you'll need to move quickly. Others know you've accessed the node. Zurich won't stay quiet for long."
Ethan nodded once. "Then show me the terminal."
The associate entered a new string of commands, and the screen shifted to a command prompt.
USER: ALDEN_HEIR
STATUS: AUTHORIZATION GRANTED.
A grid of encrypted archives emerged—footage, financial records, internal memos, surveillance logs. Layers of corruption spanning continents. Blackmail material. Political leverage. Names Ethan recognized. Some he didn't. Some he wished he didn't.
His jaw tightened. A muscle flickered in his cheek.
"We're not just sitting on a server farm," he muttered. "This is a weapon."
Outside, unnoticed by the world above, snow began to fall over Zurich. Flakes swirled in lazy spirals past the glass of the upper station, blanketing the city in quiet absolution. But down here, the past had awakened—and the future was already shifting.
Ethan made his choice.
"Start decrypting ECHO."
And the screen responded:
ECHO PROTOCOL INITIATED.
The chamber pulsed with quiet power. Lines of code began to stream across the interface—slow at first, then accelerating, as if the network had been waiting for years for this very command. For the heir.
And Ethan stood alone in the cold heart of Zurich, at the edge of something vast.
The clock had started ticking.