Chapter 16 · Ghost Signal - Chapter 16: Dead Men Still Breathe

The screaming started before we cleared the warehouse door.

Not human screaming. Worse. Neural feedback looped through cheap implants, the kind that fry your cortex if the signal spikes wrong. I knew that sound. I'd made it once, back when my first jack got hacked during a border sweep.

"Lin." Zero-Seven's voice cut through my inner ear, sharp. "Twelve people. Basement level. Someone locked them in and triggered a black fog protocol."

Black fog. Shit.

Qin was still bleeding against the container behind me, one hand pressed to his side where the armor-piercer clipped him. The chip we'd pulled from Old Yuan's safe sat in my pocket, still warm. Kill list. His whole squad. Already dead.

Except Qin wasn't dead.

And now twelve more people were about to flatline if I didn't move.

"How long?" I asked.

Zero-Seven didn't sugarcoat it. "Four minutes. Maybe five. The fog's eating through their firewalls. When it hits raw neural tissue—"

"I know what it does."

I'd seen black fog victims. They didn't die fast.

Qin coughed, tried to push himself up. "Don't. It's a trap. They're bait."

"Yeah." I checked my pistol. Still had half a mag. "Probably."

"Lin—"

"Stay here.