Chapter 26 · Ghost Signal - Chapter 26: Dead Men Ping Back

The dead squad's looking at me.

Not from memory. From the screen.

Their faces load one by one, choppy feed, the kind you get when a signal's fighting through ten layers of encryption and a firewall made of spite. Xu Hao. Li Wen. Feng Qiang. All three of them, frozen mid-frame like someone hit pause on a nightmare I've been running from for two years.

I don't move. Can't. My hand's still hovering over the cable port at the back of my neck, the one that would sever Zero-Seven's link if I just yanked it. But I'm staring at Xu Hao's face, and my fingers go numb.

"Lin," Zero's voice comes through, low and careful. "Don't look at it."

Too late.

Xu Hao's lips move. The audio crackles in, distorted, like someone's dragging his voice through broken glass. "Lin Jin. You're still alive."

I'm not answering. I know better. This is bait. Has to be. Xu Hao died in the collapse. I saw the neural signature flatline. I saw the timestamp. This is a deepfake, a trap, some AI puppeteer pulling strings with my dead friend's face.

But his eyes. They track me.