Location: Seattle Transit Center Parking Garage | Time: 2:13 AM
Rain slashed diagonally through the garage's flickering lights, turning concrete into a mirrored labyrinth. Elena pressed her back against a support column, the stolen USB drive digging into her palm like a shard of guilt. She'd risked everything to retrieve it from Blackwood's lab, but now—
Click.
The safety of a Glock disengaging.
She froze.
"Don't move." The voice behind her was gravel wrapped in velvet. Marcus Kane.
Elena's throat tightened. Last time they'd been this close, he'd been buttoning his shirt in her bedroom while she pretended to sleep. Now his breath warmed her neck, his arm a steel bar across her collarbone.
"You're making this harder than it needs to be, Doc."
"Says the man pointing a gun at me."
He stiffened. "It's not loaded."
"Prove it."
A beat. Then his grip loosened just enough.
Elena drove her elbow backward. Felt ribs crunch. Marcus cursed, stumbling into a puddle as she bolted.
Four steps.
Headlights blinded her. Black SUVs skidded into formation, doors flying open. Tactical gear. No insignia.
"Federal agents! Hands where we can see them!"
Marcus tackled her behind a sedan as bullets spiderwebbed the windshield. Safety glass rained down.
"You set me up?" he snarled.
"You followed me!"
His laugh was bitter. "Yeah. Worst decision of my life."
A canister clinked across the floor tear gas.
"Move!" Marcus hauled her up, shoving her toward the stairwell.
Elena's lungs burned. She'd spent years perfecting her body's rhythms resting heart rate of 58, VO2 max in the 99th percentile but fear had her gasping like a novice.
They burst onto the rooftop. Wind whipped Elena's hair into her eyes. Marcus sprinted for the access ladder, but she grabbed his arm.
"Wait."
He turned, and she saw it the scar above his left eyebrow, pale against his storm-gray eyes. The one he'd gotten the night they'd first met, when a suspect's knife had nearly cost him more than pride.
"They'll shoot us in the open," she said.
"Got a better idea?"
She did.
Elena yanked the USB drive from her pocket and hurled it over the edge.
"What the hell—"
"Insurance." She met his glare. "You want what's on it? Keep me alive."
For a heartbeat, she thought he might push her after it. Then the door burst open behind them.
"Go!"
They slid down the ladder, bullets pinging off metal. Marcus's Crown Vic idled below, passenger door open.
"Drive!" Elena vaulted in.
Tires screamed as they fishtailed onto the freeway. She watched the rearview—no headlights. Yet.
Marcus's jaw worked. "Talk. Now."
"Blackwood's dead."
"I know. I found the body."
"No." She turned to him. "They made me forget killing him."
The car swerved. "Bullshit."
Elena pulled down her collar. Twin scars glared at the base of her skull, still pink. "Three days missing. You think I went on vacation?"
Marcus's knuckles whitened on the wheel.
"They used my protocol," she whispered. "Cut the memories out like tumors."
Rain drummed the roof.
"Why?"
"Same reason they're framing you." She tapped the dashboard GPS. "Where's this safehouse?"
"Somewhere they can't edit our damn minds."
The familiarity of his anger stung. She'd missed this missed him in the sterile silence of labs and lecture halls.
His phone buzzed. Unknown number:
STOP RUNNING. YOU'RE BOTH ALREADY INFECTED.
"Infected?" Elena's pulse spiked.
Marcus tossed the phone out the window. "Focus. How does your protocol work?"
"We map neural pathways associated with specific memories. Then we… dissolve them."
"Like bleach for the brain."
Her nails bit into her palms. "It was supposed to help trauma patients."
"And the government turned it into a weapon." He snorted. "Shocking."
The exit sign loomed: FACILITY 17 – 2 MILES.
Elena stiffened. "That's one of our research sites."
Marcus downshifted. "Not anymore."
The warehouse district swallowed them corrugated metal tombs under flickering sodium lights. Marcus killed the engine behind a gutted electronics store.
"Stay close."
They moved through shadows, Elena memorizing escape routes. Third door on the left. Stairwell. Roof access.
The safehouse stank of mildew and gun oil. Marcus tossed her a med kit. "Check for trackers."
She unzipped her jacket, fingers trembling. His gaze lingered on the scarred skin beneath her collarbone the pacemaker-like device she'd implanted to monitor neural activity.
"You're a damn cyborg now?"
"Biofeedback interface. Regulates"
Gunfire erupted downstairs.
Marcus shoved her behind the couch. "Stay down!"
But Elena was already moving. She yanked open the floor vent. "Here!"
They crawled through filth and cobwebs, emerging behind a dumpster. Sarah Chen stood waiting, tablet glowing in her hands.
"Took you long enough."
Elena's breath caught. "You're supposed to be at Stanford."
"I was." Sarah's smile didn't reach her eyes. "Then I learned what they're really doing with your research."
The tablet showed satellite images facilities across seventeen states.
"They're not erasing memories." Sarah zoomed in on a surgical suite. "They're implanting them. Creating perfect sleeper agents."
Marcus stepped closer. "Why?"
"Why build a bomb when you can grow one?" Sarah tapped the screen. A video played a senator laughing at a rally, unaware of the scar beneath his ear. "They've already started."
Elena's vision blurred. A memory surged her own hands adjusting a surgical laser, a patient screaming
"Elena?" Marcus caught her as she swayed.
Sarah gripped her shoulders. "What did you see?"
"The Convergence Protocol. It's it's not just memories. They're rewriting identity."
Marcus's radio crackled to life: "All units converge on Facility 17. Lethal force authorized."
Sarah pressed a data chip into Elena's hand. "Find the source code. It's the only way to—"
A bullet punched through her chest.
"No!" Elena reached for her, but Marcus dragged her away.
"We need to move!"
They ran as the world exploded behind them. Elena clutched the chip, Sarah's blood drying on her skin.
In the car, Marcus gripped the wheel. "Where to?"
Elena stared at the scars on her wrists the ones she'd told everyone were from a lab accident.
"Where it started," she whispered. "The place they made me forget."
The GPS recalculated. DESTINATION: BLACKWOOD LABORATORIES.
Marcus floored it. "You're sure?"
"They took three days from me." She met his gaze. "Time to take them back."