Rain drummed against the cracked windows of Ethan's safehouse, the rhythm matching the pulse in his temples. The room smelled faintly of old dust, gun oil, and something metallic — like forgotten blood.
On the table before him sat the Archivist's drive — an obsidian rectangle with no visible ports, humming faintly, like it was breathing. When Ethan connected it to his decrypted rig, the screen didn't flash with code. It flickered once, then began broadcasting a soft static hiss.
At first, he thought it was white noise.
Then, beneath the static, he heard it — a woman's voice whispering something too soft to make out. A pattern. A pulse. A frequency.
> "Phantom channel active," murmured his AI decoder.
"Source: undetermined. Transmission strength: increasing."
Ethan leaned closer. "Translate the modulation."
The computer hesitated — almost afraid. Then came the words:
> "Come home, STRAY."
Ethan's blood froze.
No one was supposed to know that name. Not outside Division 7. Not outside Project STRAY.
The Archivist had said the truth was buried in the frequencies. Ethan hadn't understood what that meant — until now. Someone was transmitting directly to him.
He grabbed his earpiece and connected the data line. The voice whispered again — clearer this time.
> "You left us, Ethan. But we never left you."
A new signal appeared — coordinates, flashing rapidly. 47.512°N, 19.045°E.
Budapest.
He exhaled slowly. "Of course it's Budapest…"
The last time he was there, he'd buried an entire team.
---
Two days later, Ethan stood in the middle of the Budapest radio tower ruins, a skeletal monument of twisted steel and silence. The city skyline shimmered in the distance, drenched in the orange glow of sunset.
He slipped on his comm-link and whispered, "Specter, do you read?"
> "Loud and clear," replied a voice — a man's tone smooth, but sharp as glass.
"You sure about this? The signal's not just a transmission. It's a beacon. Someone wants you here."
Ethan's eyes narrowed. "Then let them find me."
He climbed through the remains of a collapsed broadcast room. The walls were scorched, the air thick with the memory of fire. But somewhere deep below, something was still alive — an active pulse echoing through his gear.
He followed it down a shattered stairwell into a sublevel filled with old communication racks. Most were dead. One wasn't.
A single red light blinked steadily at the end of the hall.
He approached cautiously, pistol drawn. When he reached it, the blinking stopped — replaced by a faint hum from the speakers.
Then the voice returned.
> "Ethan, do you remember the frequency of your heartbeat?"
The sound sent a chill through him. It wasn't just anyone's voice. It was his mother's — soft, soothing, and impossible.
> "That's not possible," Ethan muttered, backing away.
"My mother's dead."
> "Division 7 remembers everything," the voice replied. "Even the parts you buried."
Static exploded across the speakers, and suddenly the lights flickered to life, revealing an entire chamber lined with computers. On every monitor — the same symbol: a white mask, fractured across the middle.
The Veil Syndicate.
They had found him first.
---
A figure stepped from the shadows, cloaked in black tactical armor. Their voice was filtered through a modulator.
> "You should have stayed hidden, STRAY."
Ethan fired first — a clean double-tap to the chest. The figure staggered but didn't fall. Reinforced armor.
He dove for cover as return fire ripped through the consoles, sparks lighting the darkness. The smell of ozone filled the room. Ethan rolled, grabbed a metal pipe, and slammed it into the figure's arm, dislodging their weapon.
The mask cracked.
Behind it — a familiar face.
"Marcel…" Ethan whispered.
His former partner. The man who'd died in Cairo.
> "We don't die, Ethan," Marcel said coldly. "We're reprogrammed. Phase II made sure of it."
Ethan's stomach tightened. "They turned you into one of them."
> "They turned us into what we were always meant to be."
Marcel lunged. Ethan blocked the knife, twisting his wrist until the blade clattered away. He drove his elbow into Marcel's throat, but his old friend didn't even flinch — only smiled.
"Still fighting ghosts," Marcel rasped, before detonating a flash charge and disappearing into the smoke.
When the haze cleared, Ethan found only a single drive left behind on the floor — marked with a simple logo:
"S-3 / STRAY-III."
Another phase. Another lie.
---
He returned to his car, drenched in rain, knuckles bruised. His hands trembled as he inserted the new drive into his laptop.
The files decrypted automatically.
Inside — surveillance logs. Not of the Syndicate. Not of Division 7.
Of him.
Footage from Berlin. Istanbul. Vienna. Even inside this car — from angles that shouldn't exist.
They'd been watching him through the same frequencies he'd been chasing.
Then he found a file labeled "Prototype - Memory Loop."
He opened it.
On-screen appeared a recording of himself — seated in a sterile white room, eyes blank, wires attached to his temples.
> "Test subject Ethan Cross — stability compromised," said a voice off-camera. "Begin reconditioning protocol."
The Ethan in the video looked directly at the camera.
And then — he spoke.
> "If you're watching this, you're not free. None of this is real."
The real Ethan felt his chest tighten.
The message continued:
> "They'll send you signals — voices from your past — to guide you back into the loop. The only way out… is to stop listening."
The recording ended.
Ethan stared at the dark screen, his mind unraveling. The whispers in his ear, the voices, the frequencies — had they all been part of the loop?
He tore the earpiece out and crushed it under his boot, but the radio on his dashboard flickered on by itself.
> "You can't destroy what's in your head, Ethan," said his mother's voice again.
"The signal is you."
The transmission bled into static.
Ethan sat there for a long time, breathing hard, knuckles white on the steering wheel. Then, with a trembling hand, he started the engine.
"Fine," he muttered. "If the signal wants me—"
He slammed the accelerator, the car roaring into the storm.
"—then I'll answer it myself."
As the car vanished into the night, the radio tower behind him flickered with a new broadcast — a ghost signal looping endlessly on a forgotten frequency.
> "Phase III: Initiated."