My grip tightens.
“Coordinates,” I say.
“Not over this line,” Branson snaps. “Not clean enough. You want them, you’ll have to meet a drop or you’ll have to let my tech send through a burst that could light you up like a bonfire.”
Valentine lifts his head at that, listening like a man hearing the words surveillance and exposure and tasting blood.
“How long?” I ask.
Branson exhales. “Hours. If the relay doesn’t go dark. Someone’s smothering the signal. It spikes, then gets blanketed.”
“Maybe someone else who knows what that frequency means.”
I hear Ghost’s breath hitch from the corner. Like the word frequency has teeth.
Branson continues, faster now. “One word kept repeating in the noise. Ark.”
Bones’s gaze goes razor-sharp. “Define ‘Ark’.”
“Don’t know,” Branson says. “Could be a codename, project tag, internal marker. I’m digging. Don’t move blind.”
I smile without showing teeth. “Too late.”
Branson swears. “Graves?—”
The line stutters. Static chews the edges.
“Graves,” Branson repeats, voice suddenly low and urgent. “Listen to me. If you sprint at the first breadcrumb, you’ll hit the trap and you’ll deserve it. Hold position until I?—”
The call dies.
Silence collapses back into the room.
For a heartbeat, no one moves.
Then the warehouse explodes into motion.
Honey’s shoulders come up like he’s readying for impact. Ghost pushes his palms into his temples, breathing shallow. Snow laughs once, thin and bright, like tension is a joke he’s trying to swallow. Hatchet’s eyes flick to me – one clean look, nothing else – and in that look there’s go.
Valentine stands, posture tightening. “We don’t even know what it is yet.”
“We know enough,” I say.
“You know a word,” Valentine snaps. Soft voice, steel wire under it. “You know a direction. That’s not intel. That’s bait.”
“It’s more than we had,” Honey says, and his voice is too calm for the violence under it.
Ghost swallows. “Ark,” he whispers. “That’s what they called the old holding sites. The government dumps. Where they sent the unfinished projects.” His eyes flick to Bones, then to me. “Experiments like us.”
Valentine’s jaw tightens. “Those were shut down.”
Ghost gives a small, broken laugh. “Sure they were.”
The air goes thick.
Valentine and I look at each other across it.
He wants control.
