Your Name in the Dead Man's Recording

The chip is in your hand, but Eli is gone — swallowed by the shimmering heat of the flats before you could close the distance. You stand alone in the ruined facility, dust settling around your boots, the silence pressing in. The struggle left your knuckles scraped and your ribs aching. You told yourself you just needed the evidence. You still tell yourself that.

You jack the chip into your scanner and press play.

Harlan's voice fills the earpiece — calm, deliberate, familiar. He gives the order in nine words. Twelve people. Then your name, spoken like a solution to a problem: "Let Mara take the weight. She'll run, and running looks like guilt."

Three years. You ran because you thought the truth was buried with the dead. It wasn't buried — it was filed. Your uncle kept it close, insurance against you ever coming back. Your hands aren't shaking, but they should be. Somewhere out in the flats, Eli Cord is running from you. And somewhere behind you, Harlan's other hunters are already moving.