Chapter 15 Jackson
FIFTEEN
Jackson
RECALIbrATING
I roll out. The sedan blends better—no shine, no story. We take a back street, then another. City blocks slide past in muted colors. The noose loosens. That’s the trick with nets—you don’t fight them head-on; you let them move, and you slip between the knots.
Two turns later, the sirens thin. The air opens.
I let out a breath. Talia does the same. Our exhale syncs, and something in my chest goes strange and fierce.
“You okay?” I ask, not taking my eyes off the road.
A beat. “Better when you’re touching me,” she says, so quiet I almost miss it.
My hand tightens on the wheel. I don’t answer. Can’t. I reach anyway, find her waist, anchor her there, thumb brushing the edge of her borrowed shirt. She leans a fraction into it—small, deliberate, a decision with teeth.
Vargas clears his throat in the back. “Don’t get comfortable. Phoenix recalculates. Always.”
“Yeah,” I say. “So do I.”
We slide through a corridor of sleeping brick and glass. The city pretends it doesn’t see us. I let it. Three more turns and we’re a ghost version of ourselves—same occupants, new skin.
“Next move?” Talia asks, steady again, eyes on the dark ahead as if she can will it to make room.
“Nexus,” I say. “But not directly. Gear, med supplies, new plates.” I check the mirror. Clean. “We hit them when they expect us least.”
Vargas shifts, the lead-lined pouch thumping softly against his chest.
“And we give your ‘Root Seed’ a chance to matter,” I add.
“It’ll matter,” he says. “Or we die busy.”
“Not on my list,” I tell him.
I take the next corner—and freeze—the motion a millimeter from completion. Instinct. A shadow on the roofline. Not movement—absence. A space too still in a city that always twitches.
“Hold,” I whisper.
Talia’s fingers tighten around my forearm. She doesn’t ask. She feels it too.
We sit in the hush. Three heartbeats. Four.
A red dot blooms and slides across the sedan’s hood like a lazy firefly deciding where to land.
Talia’s breath stutters. Vargas swears under his.
“Laser designator.” His voice is rough.
The dot crawls toward the windshield.
“Down,” I breathe.
We drop. The dot pauses, searching.
A heartbeat passes. Two. The red eye hovers on the dashboard, patient as death.
“Vargas.” My voice barely disturbs the air. “Tell me you have another EMP.”
“Last one. Shorter range.”
“Range to that rooftop?”
“Pushing it. Maybe forty meters effective.”
The dot slides left, probing the driver’s seat headrest. Whoever’s behind that scope has discipline—no rush, no wasted motion. Professional.
“On three,” I say. “You pop the charge, I floor it. We’ve got maybe two seconds before they recalibrate.”
“That’s not—”
“It’s what we’ve got.”
Talia’s hand finds mine in the dark. Her pulse hammers against my palm—rapid but steady. Fear she refuses to let win.
“One.”
Vargas eases the EMP from his pack, thumb finding the activation switch.
“Two.”
The dot settles on the windshield, center mass. Whoever’s up there just made their decision.
“Three.”
He snaps his arm up, hurling the charge through the cracked rear window. I slam the accelerator before it clears the frame.
The sedan lurches forward. Tires scream against asphalt.
White light flashes behind us—not the clean crack of the first EMP but something rawer, more desperate. The charge didn’t reach optimal altitude. Doesn’t matter. For one stuttering second, every electronic system within thirty meters goes blind.
Including the laser designator.
I cut hard right, threading between two shipping containers. The sedan’s frame groans. Talia braces against the dash. Vargas slams into the rear seat partition.
Behind us, nothing. No shot. No pursuit vehicle. Just the hum of a city that doesn’t know how close three people just came to dying.
I don’t slow down.
Four blocks. Five. The industrial district gives way to residential row houses with dark windows, parked cars covered in morning dew.
Normal. Safe.
The kind of neighborhood that doesn’t know what stalks its streets.
“We’re clear,” I finally say. “For now.”
I ease off the accelerator. My arm throbs where the wound pulled during our escape. Blood seeps through the bandage—warmth spreading.
Doesn’t matter. I’ll deal with it later.
Vargas leans forward between the seats. “My secondary site. Industrial district, South Side. Bought it through shell companies years ago—three different layers of corporate bullshit. Phoenix doesn’t know it exists.”
“Lead the way.”
The secondary safe house is grim—a concrete box buried beneath a defunct bakery. MREs stack in the corner alongside dusty cots, a single lightbulb hanging from a wire, and a secure comms terminal on a metal desk. It’s cold, damp, and smells of yeast and old dust.
But it’s fortified.
Vargas collapses onto a crate, groaning as he rubs his knee. “I’m done, Fuse. The leg’s shot. I can build the bomb, but I can’t carry it. I’m not the operator I used to be.”
I check the door. Three deadbolts. Reinforced steel frame. Secure.
I holster my weapon and turn to Talia.
She has slumped against the far wall, sliding down until she hits the concrete floor. Her knees are pulled to her chest, arms wrapped tight around her shins. Shivering. The adrenaline crash hits her hard.
I cross the room in three strides and crouch in front of her.
“Talia.”
She looks up. Her eyes are wide, glassy. “We’re trapped. They have too many resources. The probability of escape is—”
“Hey.” I reach out, cupping her face with my good hand. Her skin is ice cold. “Look at me.”
Her gaze locks onto mine.
“We’re safe here. For now.”
“For now isn’t a strategy.” Her teeth chatter. “It’s a delay.”
I move closer, settling onto the floor beside her.
I pull her into me, tucking her against my side, wrapping my good arm around her shoulders.
She stays stiff for a second, vibrating with tension, and then she collapses.
All the fight goes out of her at once. She buries her face in my neck, her hands clutching the front of my vest.
“I’m cold.”
“I’ve got you.” I rub her arm, generating friction, sharing heat. “I’ve got you.”
She smells of dust and ozone and vanilla. Even here, covered in the grime of the underground, she smells like something worth saving.
“My arm,” I murmur, shifting slightly so the wound doesn’t press against her.
She pulls back instantly, eyes dropping to the blood-soaked bandage. “You’re bleeding again. I need to check it. I need to—”
“It’s functional.” The word slips out, automatic. My shield.
She freezes. Her eyes search mine, reading the lie. “No. You use that word when you don’t want anyone to know you’re hurt. You use it when you’re trying to turn yourself into a machine.” Her fingers ghost over the bandage. “You’re not a machine, Jackson. You’re bleeding.”
“I’ll survive.”
“That’s not the standard.” She leans her forehead against my shoulder. “Surviving isn’t the same as living.”
She’s right. She’s always right.
I rest my chin on top of her head, closing my eyes for a second. The weight of her against me grounds the room. It stops the spinning.
“Vargas is right.”
“About what?”
“The math. It doesn’t work. Two people against an army.”
She pulls back enough to look at me. “So what do we do? The kill switch is useless if we can’t get it to the server.”
“We change the equation.”
I gently untangle myself from her and stand. The loss of her warmth is immediate, a physical ache. I walk to the metal desk and reach into my tactical vest, pulling out the satellite phone.
“Who are you calling?” Talia wraps her arms around herself, the shivering returning.
I power on the phone. The screen glows green as it searches for a satellite lock in the concrete bunker. One bar. Two.
“Family.”
I punch in the number. It rings once. Twice.
A click.
Then a voice, deep, calm, and familiar as my own heartbeat.
“Report.” The single word carries a demand for everything—health, location, and status of the package.
The sound of Ghost’s voice settles my pulse instantly. The tension in my shoulders drops an inch.
“Compromised.” I look at Talia, then back at the phone. “I need the pack.”
Silence on the line.
“Explain.”
“Talia found something. It’s not corporate corruption.” I look at her. She watches me, eyes sharp, listening. “It’s Phoenix.”
A pause. Long and heavy. Ghost knows Phoenix. We all do. We’ve been hunting it. Or it’s been hunting us.
“Copy that.” Ghost’s voice drops an octave.
“Talia’s source verified it, and we’ve since connected it to a conglomerate called Nexus Holdings. It’s protecting Phoenix.”
“What’s your status?”
“I’m with Vargas.”
“Vargas?” Ghost recognizes the name. “I thought he retired to a cabin in Montana.”
“He didn’t. He’s here. He has hardware. A Root Seed from the original build. It’s a kill switch. We can burn the program down.”
“If you can deliver it.”
“I can’t.” I admit the weakness. It tastes bitter, but it’s the truth. “Not alone. I’m wounded. Vargas is combat ineffective. We’re cornered in a bolt-hole in Pilsen. They have numbers, tech, and they’re scrubbing the board.”
“Are you safe?”
“For the moment.”
“Hold position. We were monitoring chatter. We knew something blew in Chicago. We’re already wheels up.”
“ETA?”
“Soon. Torque is flying like a maniac. Send your location and keep your head down.”
“Roger that.”
The line goes dead.
I lower the phone. The green light fades.
“Was that Ghost?” Vargas watches me from his crate, a shark-like grin spreading across his dusty face.
“Yeah.”
“Good.” He stands, testing his weight on his bad leg. “Because I’m too old to die in a basement.”
I turn back to Talia. She’s standing now, the fear in her eyes replaced by calculation. She understands what I’ve just done. I’ve brought my world into hers.
“Your team?” she asks.
“My team.” I move back to her, my hand finding the back of her neck again. “We’re done running. Now we hunt.”
She takes a breath, steadying herself. “What do I need to do?”
“Get your data ready. Because when they get here, we’re going to plan a war.”
She nods. She doesn’t ask if they are good. She doesn’t ask if they can win. She just trusts me.
“Okay.” She wipes a smudge of dirt from her cheek. “Let’s burn it down.”