Caught and Cornered

You catch Eli Cord in the facility's collapsed eastern corridor, cutting off his escape with a hard tackle that sends you both skidding across cracked concrete. He scrambles upright before you do, back against a rusted support beam, chest heaving. His eyes are wild — not the eyes of a guilty man, but of someone who has been running long enough to forget what safety feels like.

"Finish it, then," he spits, voice cracking. "Go ahead. Colvin wasn't enough — now they send the ghost herself." His right fist is clenched so tightly his knuckles have gone white, something small and hard pressed against his palm.

The data chip catches a sliver of light filtering through the collapsed roof. Whatever it holds, Eli Cord has kept it alive for three years at considerable personal cost. His terror is real. So is his defiance. And somewhere beneath both, you recognize something you haven't seen in a long time — a man who still believes the truth is worth dying for.