The war room hummed with quiet machines. Just enough noise to feel alive. Just enough static to keep the ghosts out.

Ying sat alone at the table, sleeves rolled to her forearms, a cold cup of tea forgotten at her elbow. The digital map glowed low, bleeding red against her skin. She'd dimmed the lights hours ago – easier on the eyes. Easier on the memory.

She cycled another layer onto the screen.

Thermal traces. Dead. Aura echoes. Faint. Soulfield drag. Nearly imperceptible – but there. A smudge across the Cathedral perimeter.

She zoomed in.

Then overlaid the old scan. Max's halo. That burn pattern – like a comet dragged through fog – unmistakeable.

He had been here.

Her jaw flexed. She tightened two fingers on the haptic interface, isolating the scan's time stamp.

Nine days ago. Not long. Not long at all.

She'd seen this once before.

Before demons. Before Contractors. Back when missions still had flags and names instead of nightmares. She'd spent ten days in the Yunnan highlands, tracking a warlord who'd made enemies on every side of Beijing's shadow war. Every drone sweep came back clean. Every informant swore he was gone. But she knew better. He wasn't gone. He was buried – four levels down in an abandoned irrigation facility, wrapped in concrete and silence. And when they finally pulled him out, after a breach that cost two lives and nearly her own, he was grinning. Like he'd known they were coming the whole time.

That same taste lingered now. The bitter copper of almost too late.

Maybe this wasn't a trail gone cold. Maybe it was a trap waiting to be reopened. Maybe he was grinning down there too.

She scrubbed forward frame by frame, watching the signature pulse – then taper – then vanish.

Not fade. Not decay. Erase.

Gone with surgical precision. Down to the last soul particle.

Ying leaned back slightly, the chair creaking beneath her.

This wasn't time. It wasn't entropy. It was an operation.

She whispered the words aloud, flat and quiet, as if naming them might make them less true.

"Someone didn't just move him."

A pause.

"They buried him."

But even as the evidence burned on the screen, her certainty cooled.

She hated this part. Not the maps. Not the math. The doubt.

What if she was wrong? What if it wasn't Max? What if the Cathedral trace was something else – a ghost, a decoy, a desperate hope projected onto noise? She'd seen that before too. Teams chasing shadows until they broke.

She inhaled through her nose. Slow. Grounded. Steady.

No.

She knew the burn pattern. She knew Max. The data didn't lie. But monsters did. And cities like this… cities smiled while they erased you.

She stared at the blank space where Max had been. One elbow braced against the table. The red glow flickered. For just a second, it looked like blood.

And in the silence, the machines kept humming – as if they didn't care what was missing.

…………………

The drone logs stuttered in static flashes across the wall display, their embedded feeds cross-referenced with spectral overlays. Ying pinched to zoom, fingers skimming the air as one scan bled into another – motion heat, soulfield drag, auric decay. Every angle stitched tight. No gaps. No excuses.

She rerouted to Chloe's infiltration logs – the rooftop glide, the corridor breach, the descent into the first dead zone.

"Pause," Ying whispered.

The playback halted on a narrow hallway, metal half-warped by heat. Chloe's silhouette flickered past, weightless as breath. But Ying wasn't watching her. She was watching the shadows.

There. A ripple.

She switched lenses. Soulfield compression. Faint, but deliberate.

She queued the timestamp. Eleven days ago.

Then another – seven days back, near the old vault entrance.

Pressure spike. Psychic drag. Electromagnetic whine, barely audible on the frequency band.

Ying stared.

It wasn't Chloe.

It wasn't demonic.

It was Max.

His psychic residue – deeper than just residual aura, a full halo confirmation. That slow, gravitational warping of space. As if his soul hadn't just passed through… it had sunk roots.

And then?

Gone.

Not faded. Not drifted. Gone.

She clenched her jaw. "They extracted him. Fast. Surgical."

She felt it again – that narrowing of the gut, the tactical cold that came when pattern recognition kicked in but offered no clean resolution.

Someone had moved him. Precisely. Recently.

She pulled up the scout log from their pre-infiltration run. Chloe's scans, mapped against city surveillance. Perfectly clean. Their insertion had been ghost-level. Not a single trace left behind.

Ying replayed it anyway. Watched Chloe's movements. Watched her own ghost-map ping from rooftops to checkpoints.

Nothing.

Not sloppy. Not wrong.

Still...

She leaned back, folding her arms tightly. The thought came uninvited.

Were they tipped off?

No.

She dismissed it.

Then didn't.

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Her mind moved automatically – field discipline, honed since her days in Chengdu. When you couldn't trust what you saw, you broke it down by variables.

She logged them, one by one.

Liz. Devoted. Rash. Psychic footprint constantly exposed – but loyal to the bone. She would rather die than betray Max.

Dan. Guardian. Steady. No motive. No secret loyalties. She'd trusted him with her life more than once.

Victor. Chaos incarnate, sure. But a traitor? No. He bled for his family. And for Max.

Alyssa. Paranoid, temperamental… but protective. She'd kill Tomas herself if she could.

Chloe. Tactical ghost. Her loyalty wasn't warm, but it was sharp. And she would've seen the tell.

No. Not them.

Ying's eyes narrowed.

Grimm? Adissa?

She trusted their minds. But the Institute was no longer what it once was. Dr. Grimm had secrets. Everyone did.

Alpha. Obedient, but unfeeling. She didn't like how easily he accepted silence.

Omega. Too unstable to be subtle.

Could it be them?

She clicked her tongue, softly. "Unlikely."

But she didn't cross it out.

Not yet.

She returned to the map. To the hole in the centre of it.

Max had been here.

And now he wasn't.

And someone, somewhere, had known they were coming.

Even if no one had said a word.

Something is off, Ying thought.

Not a mistake.

A move.

And they were already half a step behind.

…………………

The wind was sharper up here. Cleaner. It tugged at the edges of Ying's coat as she stepped onto the rooftop, the stone tiles slick with dew. Below, Prague's skyline glittered like a city trying too hard to look alive. Neon domes. Church spires. Billboards pulsing with that perfect, too-smooth smile.

Chloe stood near the ledge. Hood down. Arms crossed. Not watching the city. Watching her reflection in the glass of a rooftop vent.

Ying approached without sound. "Couldn't sleep either?"

Chloe didn't flinch. "Didn't try."

Ying stopped beside her. No small talk. Just the silence between them – not awkward, but alert. Both of them always watching, always running simulations.

Ying exhaled, a sharp breath. "I reviewed the drone corridor data. Traces of Max. Two locations. Within the last two weeks."

Chloe turned slightly, finally facing her.

Ying added, low and flat: "Then he vanished. Not drift. Not decay. Extracted."

Chloe's eyes narrowed. "Fast?"

"Surgical."

Chloe didn't respond for a beat. Then: "Someone tipped them off."

Ying nodded once. "I thought it. Hated thinking it."

Chloe didn't argue. But she didn't deny it either.

Ying continued. "I ran through the team. Liz, Dan, Victor, Alyssa. You." A pause. "No one has the motive. Or the nerve."

Chloe let out a slow breath, lips thinning. "Not from this team. No way in hell."

"But?"

"But the Institute's not clean. Never was." She glanced back toward the skyline. "You think Grimm or Adissa sold us out?"

"I think someone had access to our routing data. Entry points. Deployment times."

"That narrows it," Chloe said. "But not enough."

Ying let the silence hang again. "If there's a mole... they're above our clearance."

A long pause. Then Chloe's voice dropped further. "Maybe even not human."

Ying didn't flinch. She just filed the possibility.

They stood in silence a moment longer, the city humming beneath them like an old machine.

Then Chloe added, "There's something else."

Ying's brow twitched. "Go on."

Chloe shifted her stance, suddenly less sure. "When I swept the Cathedral... I didn't report everything."

Ying waited.

"There were mirrors. Everywhere. And for a second – just a second – I saw something in one of them. A hand."

Ying's voice was low. "A physical presence?"

"No. Not flesh. Not anchored. It wasn't trying to grab something. It wasn't trying to escape."

She hesitated. "It reached toward the bed."

Ying tilted her head slightly. "A soul?"

"Maybe." Chloe's voice was quieter now. "But it didn't reach for help."

She looked directly at Ying.

"It reached for permission. It didn't feel trapped," she murmured. "It felt… obedient. Like something that was waiting for orders. Or like it was part of something larger."

Ying didn't answer. She didn't have to.

Chloe finished, "I'm not sure it was Max's soul. I'm not even sure it was human."

Ying's stomach clenched.

The rooftops of Prague stretched endlessly around them, still and gleaming. But the air between the two women felt heavier than gravity – thick with implications neither of them wanted to say aloud.

Because souls didn't ask for permission unless something older, darker, owned them.

And Max might not be the only one still tethered.

…………………

The war room always felt colder in the morning. Not from temperature – from stillness. Like the walls were holding their breath.

Ying stood at the head of the table, eyes rimmed with fatigue but spine straight. The rest of the team filtered in, each in varying states of armour, sleep, or unease. Liz was last – hoodie on, eyes sharp. Victor paced the far side of the room like a restless animal. Dan stood with arms folded. Alyssa sat near the window, watching the light begin to rise over Prague's rooftops, grey and sterile.

Ying didn't ease them in.

"He was here," she said. "Max."

That was enough to freeze the room.

She tapped the projection. A flicker of red heat bloomed over the Cathedral zone, fading. A timestamp. Nine days old.

"We found traces. Soulfield drag. Thermal ghosting. Halo residue. All matching Max. Two locations. One dead zone. One corridor. Then... nothing."

Dan didn't speak. His jaw tightened.

Victor muttered, "So they moved him."

"Exactly," Ying said. "Clean. No aura bleed. No disruption ripple. Whoever did this, they were prepared."

Alyssa's voice was quiet. "So, we missed him by days?"

Ying didn't blink. "Maybe less."

Liz's voice cut in, hard and low. "Then we pull up the floorboards and find out who's hiding him."

Victor turned toward her. "We will. But first we need to figure out why."

That gave the room pause.

"Why what?" Liz asked. Her fists were clenched at her sides.

"Why move him?" Victor said. "If it's just logistics, sure. But you don't spend this much effort to hide someone unless they're important."

"You mean like a hostage?" Alyssa asked.

Victor shook his head. "Could be. But in the military... high-priority assets don't stay still. You keep them moving. Harder to track. Harder to extract."

Liz's eyes snapped to him. "Asset?"

Victor flinched. "Not like that. Liz, I didn't mean—"

She looked away. "He's not a fucking asset, Vic. He's my dad."

Victor's tone softened. "I know. But you've seen what he can do. If Tomas or Moloch or whoever is pulling the strings... if they've found a way to force Max to awaken people—"

Alyssa added. "We've all seen the 'Flame Father' propaganda. It must mean something."

Dan spoke for the first time. "Then we're not just dealing with a prison. We're dealing monsters that see Max as a power source."

Ying nodded grimly. "Which means the real question isn't where Max is."

"It's what they're using him for," Dan finished.

"Exactly," Ying said. "We're still short on intel. Too many blanks. Too many suppressed zones. This city's wrapped in lies."

"And time," Liz added, voice like broken glass. "We're short on that too."

Silence fell again. Then Dan stepped forward, a hand resting briefly on the back of Liz's chair – grounding her, maybe grounding himself.

"Let me go," he said. "Talk to the people. Not officials. Not brokers. Real people. The ones no one notices. There's always a whisper network. Always someone who knows something."

Ying met his eyes.

"You sure?" she asked.

Dan just nodded once. "If Max is being used... someone's seen the cost. I'll find out what it is."

…………………

The balcony doors slid open on a whisper of cold air.

Dan stood against the rail, half-armoured, lit only by the city's grey-blue dawn. The streetlights below still burned with artificial warmth, casting long shadows across the plaza. Prague slept like something pretending not to breathe.

Alyssa stepped out barefoot, arms folded against her chest. She didn't speak at first. Just watched him.

He checked the clasp on his forearm guard, then adjusted the buckles across his chest. Not tight. Just right. His spear rested against the wall nearby.

"So," she said softly, "you're really doing this."

Dan glanced back. Gave a quiet nod.

"Someone has to."

Alyssa's eyes narrowed. "And it has to be you."

"It's a walk," he said. "Not a raid."

She didn't smile. "Not in this city."

Dan exhaled through his nose. Turned to face her fully. "The others are too recognisable. Chloe's got eyes on her from half the guard towers. Victor doesn't blend. Liz might implode if someone looks at her wrong."

He tried to add humour to it. It didn't land.

Alyssa stepped closer, her voice tight. "This is like Kyoto all over again."

Dan blinked. "That's a stretch."

"No," she said. "It's not. You went off on your own. Charged that temple courtyard like you were immortal."

He gave a small shrug. "We made it out."

"We almost didn't," she said, sharper now. "Because you keep thinking you're supposed to do everything yourself. That you're some lone angel with something to prove."

Her breath caught. She took another step forward, her voice dropping. "You're not."

Dan's hands curled around the edge of the railing.

"You're the blade, Dan," Alyssa continued. "But I'm the hilt. You're strongest when we're together. When I'm there to shield you. You know that."

He didn't argue.

Didn't try to push it away.

Instead, he met her gaze and said, quietly, "I know."

Then he looked past her, toward the horizon where morning struggled to rise.

"But this is Max."

He paused a moment before continuing.

"He's my brother, Alyssa. I can't sit here sharpening blades while someone else walks those streets. If there's even a sliver of a lead out there… I owe it to him to find it. To get him back."

Dan paused. "We don't know what condition he's in. If they've broken him. If he even remembers who he is."

She closed her eyes for a breath. When she opened them again, they were wet but steady.

"You always do this," she said. "Make it sound noble so I can't stay angry."

He smiled, just barely.

Alyssa stepped in close, brushing a fleck of dust from his shoulder plate. Her fingers lingered on the curve of his collarbone. She leaned up and kissed his cheek – not fierce, not desperate. Just warm.

Then she whispered, "Come back."

Dan touched her hand.

"Fair trade."

He picked up his spear, slung his coat, and stepped back inside. A moment later, the door whispered shut.

Alyssa stayed on the balcony, watching the empty street.

Somewhere beneath the cobblestones, Max Jaeger still burned.

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