The sewers beneath 87th Street were a maze of mildew-stained concrete and flickering light. Von's footsteps echoed against shallow water as he sprinted, lungs burning, body slick with blood and grime. He didn't stop until he emerged through a manhole tucked between two shuttered liquor stores.
He gasped, crouched low, scanning the quiet street.
No vans.
No agents.
No gunfire.
Just the hiss of rain hitting pavement and the faint buzz of a neon sign from a nearby motel. For now, he had disappeared into the cracks again. But he knew the CIA would reroute satellites within the hour. It wasn't a matter of if they'd find him, it was when.
Von staggered into the motel lobby, dripping water on the tile floor. The man behind the desk didn't ask questions, he simply passed Von a key and nodded. Cash did the talking.
Inside the room, Von collapsed onto the bed. The adrenaline faded fast, replaced by a creeping exhaustion that slithered into his muscles like venom. But before he let his eyes close, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the flash drive Shanice had slipped him.
The data they'd risked everything for.
He plugged it into the burner laptop Carter had stashed for him weeks ago. A string of encrypted files opened, flashing across the screen like a digital ghost rising from the dead.
PROJECT ORACLE: SUBJECT FILE #001
Name: Elijah Royner
Status: Deceased
Classification: Tier 7 Anomaly
Genetic Signature: Aether 9-Delta Positive
Von stared at the screen. His father wasn't just a CIA asset. He was a classified anomaly, part of a black-budget program studying "predictive anomalies," humans capable of forecasting future outcomes beyond machine comprehension.
They weren't just creating psychics.
They were breeding prophets.
More files opened video logs, internal emails, neural scan results. But one message caught his eye. It was marked with a red clearance level.
TO: Director Lyle
FROM: Agent Carter Mays
SUBJECT: 9-Delta Contingency (Royner Line)
"If Von activates fully, he won't just see the future he'll rewrite it. We created him to stabilize chaos. But the deeper he taps into Aether memory, the more unstable he becomes. Termination may become necessary."
Von's blood ran cold.
His godfather.
Shanice's father.
The man who once called him "son" had signed off on his assassination.
He slammed the laptop shut, fighting the tremor in his hands. Every memory of laughter, trust and protection, it all curdled into betrayal. The man who taught him to fight was the same one who turned him into a weapon.
The motel room phone rang.
Von's heart skipped. No one knew he was here.
He lifted the receiver slowly.
A familiar voice rasped through static.
"They're coming, Von. You've got less than an hour."
It was Mya.
The hacker from Logan Square. The only person outside the CIA who had helped him crack the Project Oracle firewall.
"How do you know where I am?" he demanded.
"I've been tracking the CIA's proxies ever since you dropped the leak," she replied. "They triangulated you from three payphones around 86th. You gotta move now."
Von rubbed his temples. "Where are you?"
"Somewhere safe. Somewhere cold," she said. "But I didn't call to chat. I found something in the drive, something worse than Oracle."
Von stiffened. "Worse how?"
"There's a second protocol. Hidden inside the Project. It's called 'Eden.' It's not about prediction, it's about control. Total social collapse prevention. They're using predictive neural patterns to simulate revolutions before they happen and stopping them pre-emptively. They've already blacklisted three million Americans."
"What?" Von choked. "Like Minority Report?"
"Exactly. And you're at the center. You're the variable they couldn't simulate. You were never supposed to wake up after Chicago."
Von sat in silence, gripping the phone so tightly it creaked in his hand.
"Send me everything you found," he said. "I'm going to end this."
"You'll need help," Mya warned.
"I already have help. Her name is Shanice."
The line clicked dead.
Von stood, grabbed his jacket, and bolted from the motel. The skies had cleared, but his mind thundered with betrayal, anger, and something else, purpose. If Eden was real, then Project Oracle was just the beginning.
Meanwhile, in a government compound buried beneath Fort Meade, Maryland, Director Lyle stood before a large glass wall, arms crossed. Behind him, Carter Mays scrolled through camera footage from the motel.
"He's evolving faster than we projected," Carter murmured.
"Because you trained him to be more than a weapon," Lyle growled. "You gave him hope. That's the problem."
Carter looked over his shoulder. "He's still a kid. He trusted us."
"That's what made him dangerous," Lyle snapped. "Activate Protocol Eden. And if Shanice Royner makes contact, bring her in. Alive."
A technician turned pale. "Sir, that would mean violating international charter and deploying drones in civilian zones."
Lyle smiled coldly. "Then we'll call it a training exercise."
Back in Chicago, Von slipped into a backroom above a bar on 79th Street. Shanice was already there, pacing, hair pulled back and the gun within reach. When she saw him, she ran into his arms.
"You made it," she whispered.
He held her close. "Barely. And there's more. There's another project, Eden. And we're the targets."
Her eyes widened. "What does it do?"
"It kills resistance before it's born."
Shanice looked away, then turned to him with resolve in her voice. "Then let's give them something worth fearing."
They stood there, two outlaws lit by the blue glow of encrypted servers, planning the fall of giants. The next war wouldn't be fought in alleys or offices, it would be fought in code, in hearts, in the space between freedom and control.
And Von wasn't running anymore.