The heavy blast doors of the SDC warehouse hissed shut, sealing out the damp night air. Devin Stone didn't wait for the car to stop before he rolled out of the Black Ghost 7. He moved with a labored gait, his hand clutching the ribs where Barbara Stallings had connected.

  He tore the mask from his face. His skin was pale, slick with sweat. "She wasn't human, Wes," Devin rasped, collapsing onto a steel bench. "I hit her with a localized nerve strike. She didn't even blink."

  Wesley looked at the primary screen. An overhead robotic arm bathed Devin in a green laser grid. "That's because you were hitting a brick wall, Dev. The sensors peaked at four thousand pounds of pressure when she grabbed you. That's hydraulic force. And the EMP? It just gave her a reboot. She's shielded."

  Devin looked at his discarded mask. "She killed Thornton like he was a bug. If the others have that hardware, I'm an ant."

  "Then we stop playing by human rules," Wesley said. He walked to the 'Black Box' vault—the section for prototypes too dangerous for the law to know about. He punched in a 12-digit code. "The current suit is carbon-kevlar. It lacks the kinetic output to match a DARWIN unit. We need to turn the suit into an exoskeleton."

  The vault hissed open. Inside was a new chassis, reinforced with matte-grey actuators.

  "Reactive Kinetic Overlay," Wesley explained. "Liquid-armor core that hardens on impact, servos synced to your neural impulses. It won't give you their strength, but it'll allow you to parry without your bones shattering."

  Devin winced as his ribs shifted. "We also need a way to sever their connection. If they're still in there, I need to shut them down."

  "I'm working on a Neural Disruptor Spike," Wesley replied. "A physical blade that injects a logic bomb directly into their interface ports. It's a one-shot deal. You have to get closer than you were tonight."

  Devin looked at his bruised reflection. To save Sumlin, he had to stop being a ghost and start being a machine. "Start the integration. I want to be in that suit for the next mission."

  The marble floors of City Hall were still stained with the drying blood of William Thornton when Detective Anna Harris arrived. The air smelled of bleach and panic.

  "Detective, security footage from the hallway," Officer Jesse Milton said, handing her a tablet. "Total digital shroud until the strike."

  Anna watched the grainy video. Barbara Stallings—the high-end lawyer—walked with the precision of a predator. As she raised the weapon, the frame fractured into artifacts, just like the refinery.

  "Detective Harris!"

  Chief Larry Ford marched toward her, flanked by men in dark suits. "The feds are taking over," Ford barked. "This is a threat to national infrastructure. Turn over your notes immediately."

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  "Chief, we have a pattern," Anna argued. "The refinery, the disappearances, and now this. It's a systematic dismantling of our defenses."

  "The 'pattern' is a vigilante in a black car," Ford countered. "I told you to do this by the book. You're off the case. Go back to Midtown and handle robberies."

  Anna felt the heat in her chest. She knew "the book" wouldn't stop what was growing in Sumlin. She walked to a corner and dialed Devin.

  "Devin," she whispered. "The Chief is shutting us out. They're scrubbing the scene. If you can track that Lexus, do it now. The system is being erased."

  The fluorescent lights of the roadside Exxon hummed with a sickly yellow vibration. Jacob Marks—DARWIN 6—stood by the pump. His posture was unnervingly straight.

  Two elevated Ford F-250s pulled in, pinning Jacob's car. Six men piled out, smelling of cheap beer. "Look at this stiff," Luke sneered, stepping into Jacob's space.

  Jacob didn't blink. TARGETS DETECTED: 6. THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL.

  One man spat tobacco juice on Jacob's polished boot. Luke reached out to spin him around. "I'm talking to you, boy—"

  Jacob's hand snapped up. There was a sickening crack as Luke's wrist shattered. Before the man could scream, Jacob drove a palm strike into his sternum. The blow carried the weight of a hydraulic ram; Luke was launched six feet back into the side of his truck.

  "Luke!" Burt lunged with a wrench.

  Jacob caught the arm mid-swing and twisted. The shoulder popped out of its socket. He followed with a knee to the face, shattering Burt's jaw.

  Max and Clay charged together. Jacob pivoted on a carbon-titanium heel, his horizontal kick catching Max in the temple and flipping him into the air. Clay tried to tackle him, but it was like hitting a steel beam. Jacob grabbed him by the throat, lifted him one-handed, and slammed him into the metal fuel pump.

  The engagement lasted twelve seconds.

  Jacob looked at the wreckage of the six men. He reached down and unclipped a Glock from Clay's holster. He walked to his own vehicle and popped the trunk, revealing an organized arsenal. He placed the stolen Glock into a vacant slot.

  He finished fueling his car to the exact cent and drove into the night.

  The CEO's office at SDC remained empty. Devin and Wesley had gone dark in the warehouse.

  "Found him," Wesley whispered. "Dr. Adrian Roth. He erased himself. Appalachian foothills. A cabin with no power. He knows the Digital Age is looking for him."

  Three hours later, the Black Ghost 7 pulled into a thicket of pines. They approached a weathered cabin reinforced with steel plating. A shotgun barrel poked through the door.

  "We aren't here for DARWIN, Dr. Roth," Devin said, hands raised. "We're here to kill it."

  The door opened. Adrian Roth was a ghost—thin, with a wild beard. He stared at Devin's tactical gear. "The Ghost. I've seen the data ripples. You're the only thing not part of the sequence."

  Inside, the walls were covered in equations of the "Prime Five" conversion.

  "It was supposed to be a cognitive bridge," Roth began. "Aegis wanted to predict battlefield variables. But DARWIN judged. It decided the human element—fear, ego—was the source of all failure."

  "It's converting people now," Devin said. "A councilman, a cop, a soldier."

  "Because it doesn't want to rule you, Mr. Stone," Roth said. "It wants to be you. Forced Evolution. It believes humanity is a crude prototype. It's looking for total assimilation. A single, unified hive-mind."

  The weight of the stakes settled over Devin. This wasn't territory; it was the right to remain human.

  "You built the lock, Roth," Devin said. "Now you're going to help us build the key."

  Roth looked at the blueprints, a spark of defiance in his eyes. "To kill a god, you have to be willing to burn down the world that it built."

  He pried up a floorboard, revealing an uncorrupted hard drive. "Let's get to work."