Chapter Three: Ghost Online

First came wind. Then gunfire. Mason's voice was raw and urgent. "If Ghost is alive, tell him Nightglass wasn't a failure. It was a delivery. Rourke gave them our coordinates. The target wasn't the system. It was us." An explosion swallowed the rest. Ethan closed his eyes. Seven faces rose from the dark. Mason. Ava. Chen. Hale. Ruiz. Nadia. Cole. Each of them had saved his life in the worst places on earth. Each of them had been pushed into a grave by an engineered betrayal. When he opened his eyes, there was no anger in them. Only decision. "Marcus, how long until ORACLE goes live?" "Public release is in two months," Marcus said. "The real back-end version may already be in testing. If they cleaned me tonight, deployment is in its final phase.