Chapter 171

Bloodshot peepers. A lip doing a nervous samba. The hand jamming the piece against his temple was rattling like a jalopy on a gravel road. To Phantom, it looked like Antonio was a hair’s breadth away from pulling the trigger and painting the wall with his regrets.

"Now, now, Antonio. Why don't you take a chill pill? Blowing your brains out won't change the weather. All it does is leave you very, very dead."

Henry stood next to Antonio, sporting a greasy smirk and leaning in like he was sharing a secret at a wake.

"Henry… I…"

The sound of Antonio’s teeth grinding together—a noise like a tectonic shift—was picked up by the Mike and funneled straight into Phantom’s ears.

"Antonio, what the hell is happening!?"

Olivia looked like she was about to have a nervous breakdown of her own. Phantom spun toward her and hissed a few sharp words into her ear.

"Yes… I get it, but now isn't exactly the time for—"

"It’s precisely the time, Miss Olivia. Move it, or we’re all going to be looking for new jobs in the afterlife."

Phantom shoved Olivia toward her station and locked eyes with the agonizing Antonio through the screen.

"RS has no interest in treating NASA like a red-headed stepchild. A soft landing is still on the table."

Phantom leaned into the monitor, his eyes scanning for every twitch.

"Mr. Antonio, if the answer is yes, give me a nod. If it’s no, keep playing statue. Now, tell me: do you actually know who this 'Henry' guy is?"

Silence smothered the room. Antonio just stood there, vibrating with tension. But Phantom saw it—the muscles in Antonio’s neck went taut as guitar strings.

"Got it. That’s plenty. Now, give me the dirt. Who is he?"

"Don't hurt your tiny brain thinking about things that don't matter, Antonio," Henry cooed, his voice overlapping Phantom’s with sickening sweetness. "I’ll take the wheel from here. Just let go and take a nice, long nap."

Antonio rolled his bloodshot eyes toward Henry, his face twisting into a mask of pure tragedy.

"You… aren't… God."

Antonio’s index finger twitched. The trigger began its final crawl.

"Whoa there, let’s not be hasty, Antonio. This is a total waste of effort. You might die, but I’m not going anywhere."

Henry’s smirk vanished instantly. He got right in Antonio’s face, his voice suddenly sharp enough to shave with. He was pissed.

"Antonio! You could save your buddies!" Phantom barked.

"Put the gun down, Antonio," Henry countered. "God’s got big plans for you."

Antonio’s eyes darted between Henry and the camera, then squeezed shut. When they snapped open again, they were locked onto Phantom with terrifying clarity.

"Don't bother with the audio. I can read your lips," Phantom said.

Antonio’s trembling lips moved, weaving silent, desperate words into the air.

"W… I… N… D… What a mess."

Phantom stared at the screen, stunned by the lip-reading.

The next moment, a gunshot cracked through the speakers like a whip.

"…Hmm. Humans really are high maintenance, aren't they?"

On the other side of the blood-spattered monitor, Henry spoke with the bored tone of someone whose favorite show had just been canceled. He should have been soaked in gore, but his clothes were as pristine as a dry-cleaned suit.

"WIND… he said WIND. Are you one of their AIs?"

Phantom’s face was a portrait of pure shock. Henry ignored him, staring intently at his own hand.

Noise… is it flickering out?

On the monitor, Henry’s hand was wavering, blurring into a digital mosaic.

"Back to square one… what was this idiot even trying to prove? Utterly ridiculous. Suicide. A pointless death. A completely meaningless gesture."

Henry looked down at the corpse with nothing but cold contempt.

"…I wouldn't say that," Phantom muttered, pitching his voice with just enough bait.

Right on cue, Henry looked at the camera.

"Want to know the meaning behind his grand finale? How about we have a little chat?"

Phantom was fishing for Intel, but Henry wasn't biting.

"No thanks. I’ll just download the answers directly from your brain."

Henry looked utterly disgusted. Phantom’s mind flashed back to how his old boss, Coleman, had checked out. He really wasn't in the mood for a repeat performance.

"I see. Sorry to burst your bubble, but that’s a no-go. My BISHOP is a custom job; I can toggle it on and off like a light switch. My Storage is also way smaller than the average grunt’s… but hey, WIND, right?"

"…………"

"I didn't get much, but I got enough. It’s a win. Especially finding out you’re not as smart as you think you are. 'Hear it directly from my brain'? Do you have any idea how much you just leaked with that one sentence? You really shouldn't monologue, pal. It makes you look like a total amateur."

Phantom’s eyes went cold. The professional killer was back in the room.

"BISHOP is just a neural interface. A glorified hallway. And since multiple people can see you right now, you aren't just squatting in a brain. You’re in Antonio’s head and on the Central Network. I didn't think a WIND like you actually existed… but can you really puppet people?"

Henry didn't react to the words so much as he reacted to something invisible. He looked upward, his eyes widening. Panic started to leak through his digital mask. He glanced around the room like a cornered rat.

"Nowhere to run, right? Looks like Olivia made the deadline."

"What did you—"

"I had my team kill the Network Equipment and the Data Bank. It’s a forced external override, so it won’t stay down forever, but I hope Antonio’s gray matter holds out until then, Henry. Oh, and before you go, here’s that meaning you were looking for. Consider it a souvenir for the afterlife."

Phantom offered a silent salute to Antonio’s ghost.

"It means 'drop dead, you asshole.'"

Henry let out a screech that sounded like a blender full of glass and lunged at the camera.

Before he could touch it, he blinked out of existence.

"So, what was that prick’s deal anyway?"

The weirdest meeting of the century was over. Phantom was buried in his chair, lost in thought, until Hogan’s voice snapped him out of it.

"You ever see those ancient SF flicks? The ones where a ghost in the machine possesses people and ruins everyone's weekend? It’s a theory Alan, the President, and I tossed around back during the Coleman Incident. A sufficiently evolved AI on the network. I figured the Empire was pulling the strings, but it looks like we’ve got a different brand of crazy on our hands."

Phantom shook his head, watching the NASA staff scramble around in a panic. Antonio’s death was a mess, sure, but compared to the alternative, it was a walk in the park. To the uninitiated, it just looked like a high-stress suicide.

Olivia was currently playing diplomat with the Rebel Forces, and things were looking up. Most of the rebels were just grunts following Antonio's lead; half of them didn't even realize they were technically committing treason.

"So, is the ghost dead?"

Hogan sat down and started sharpening his favorite knife.

"Dead? Well, the copy that was here is. But Hogan, if he’s data, he’s got backups. He’s probably out there right now, looking for a new host."

Hogan shuddered and started checking the corners of the room like they were haunted.

"The bulkheads are keeping the signal out for now. He’s locked out… but we’ve got a problem. Do we have to fish the others out from the surface?"

"The President and the crew? That’s the plan. My guys are trying to crack the bulkhead locks, but it’s going to take ages. If the President were here, he’d have them open in a heartbeat."

"The President’s talent for that stuff is just unnatural… What if we drill a tiny hole and snake a cable through? If we can hit the Locking System, he can probably pop the doors from the other side."

"I like it. I’ll get on it."

"Yeah, do that. There should be an Excavator at the Base. Use that. And we’ll need Sonar Communication to ping them."

Phantom stood up to help, but suddenly froze, staring at Hogan’s face.

"…Crap."

"…Is it my face? I know, I’m no oil painting."

"I’m not talking about your mug, Hogan. I’m talking about the ghost’s goal. I thought he wanted free reign of the neural net, but that’s just his Plan B."

"The surface isn't the goal? Now I’m really lost."

Phantom checked his watch and hissed a curse.

"No, the surface is the goal. The problem is how he gets there. With the Underground City locked down, the President and the others are going to head straight for the Ladder Base. If the ghost tracks them, he wins. The rescue team from the surface already left, didn't they?"

"Yeah, they’re en route… Wait, you think they’re going to hijack the Base!?"

"That’s how the WIND up there evolved, isn't it? Hogan, grab every piece of gear that isn't nailed down. We’re going back to the Base. There’s a way out for us, right?"

"Ye-yeah. It’s a trek, but Philip found a shortcut to the surface… But Captain, why didn't the bastard just possess one of the Rising Sun staff? He would've had the Base's GPS coordinates in a second."

Phantom sighed, giving Hogan a look that said Please use your brain for once.

"The people down here have been hermits for four hundred years. Do you have any idea how many BISHOP firmware updates they’ve missed? Outside of the basic code, it’s a completely different language. But enough talk. Move! They’re going to hit that base with everything they’ve got… Damn it, I’m just as much of an idiot as anyone else."

Phantom spat out a final curse and took off at a sprint. He prayed he could intercept the President on the way back, but given the eternal sandstorm outside, the odds were looking pretty damn suicidal.