The air inside the broken vault was thick with the sharp smell of burnt wires and something metallic like blood. Everything was quiet, almost too quiet, except for the steady, eerie sound: drip… drip… drip. A thick black liquid oozed slowly from a damaged port in the glass lab. It was the last trace of Elias Thorne: The Architect who had tried to upload his mind into the “Operation Phoenix” system. But Leah had stopped him, tearing the program apart before he could complete the merge.

Jason stood by the shattered lab chamber, his mind spinning with shock. “David… he was really here. Alive. Thorne had him this whole time....