We holed up in an abandoned motel off I-5.
Rain hammered the roof.
The SUV idled outside, engine warm.
Rhea sat on the bed, arm exposed.
The scar glowed faintly under UV light.
“Carrier,” I said.
“Stable but infectious.”
She nodded.
“AVG tested me six months ago.
Said I was immune.
Then the outbreak hit, and they wanted me extracted.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I didn’t want to be a weapon.” She pulled her sleeve down.
“I’m a nurse, Kael.
I save lives.
I don’t spread death.”
I sat beside her.
“You’re not a weapon.
You’re a person.”
“AVG doesn’t see it that way.”
“I’m not AVG.”
She looked at me.
“Aren’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
Ije stood by the door, silent.
“Tell me about the vector,” I said to her.
She hesitated.
Then: “It’s not just a virus.
It’s a delivery system.
Gene therapy wrapped in a pathogen.
It rewrites neural pathways.
Makes people… suggestible.”
“Suggestible to what?”
“Orders,” Ije said. New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
“AVG can broadcast commands.
Safe Points aren’t just extraction zones.
They’re control nodes.”
I remembered the radio voice.
The promotion.
The badge.
“They’re building an army,” I said.
“Not an army,” Ije corrected.
“A network.
Carriers like Rhea are the nodes.
Infected are the soldiers.
Safe Points are the servers.”
Rhea stood.
“Then we destroy the servers.”
“We try,” I said.
“But Harlan’s not stupid.
He’ll have backups.”
“Then we kill him.”
I looked at Ije.
“Where is he?”
“Zurich,” she said.
“Global HQ.
But he’s not the top.
There’s a board.
A council.
They pull the strings.”
“Names,” I said.
She gave me three.
I wrote them in the Ledger.
Then I looked at Rhea.
“What choice do I have?”
“We find a cure.”
Ije laughed.
“There is no cure.”
“There’s a kill-switch,” I said.
“Lin mentioned it.
A global timer.”
Ije’s smile faded.
“You know about that?”
“I do.” I stood.
“And I’m going to use it.”
Rhea grabbed my arm.
“Kael, be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
I walked to the door.
“Where are you going?” Ije asked.
“To flip another asset,” I said.
“Lin owes me a favor.”
Ije didn’t stop me.
She just watched me leave.
And I walked into the rain.
Toward the next move.
Toward the next body.
Toward the endgame.
As Kael reaches his car, his phone buzzes.
A message from Dr.
Lin: “They found me.
Coming for you next.
Trust no one.”
Then a second message, from an unknown number: “We know where Rhea is.
Surrender the carrier, or she dies.”
The hunt has begun.