Chapter 17 · Ghost Signal - Chapter 17: Cleanup Target

The bullet takes off the corner of the shipping container two inches from my head.

I drop flat. Metal shriek. Concrete dust in my mouth. Zero-Seven's voice cuts through the ringing in my ears: "Three armed. Rooftop, ten o'clock. They have thermal."

"Get out of my head." I roll left, behind a stack of collapsed transit pods. My shoulder hits hard. The neural port at the base of my skull burns hot. "I want the link gone. Now."

"Lin—"

"I didn't ask for a conversation." Another shot. The pod above me cracks, hydraulic fluid leaking dark across the ground. I can feel her in there, threads wound through my brain stem, my visual cortex. She's been riding shotgun since the black fog. Since I let her in. "You got what you wanted. You pulled those people out. We're done."

"We are not done." Her voice has weight. Not sound, exactly. Pressure. Like she's leaning close, breath on my neck, except she doesn't breathe. "They know you helped me. That cleanup order wasn't random."

I check the clip. Eleven rounds. I've got maybe two spare mags, both half-empty.