The safehouse trembled like a ship in a storm.

Every monitor that still had power flared white, spewing out static and fragments of corrupted code. The floor hummed under Gray’s boots — deep, pulsing, mechanical, as though the entire building was breathing through failing circuits.

He hunched over the analog rig, sweat dripping down his face, hands moving faster than his mind could follow.

“Come on,” he muttered. “Come on, talk to me, dammit.”

On the primary display, Evelyn’s ...