The silence between Ace and Aiden Vale was sharp enough to draw blood.
One was a ghost reborn.
The other, a phantom left behind.
"You're not surprised to see me," Ace said.
"No," Vale replied, motioning to a cracked monitor that showed static. "I've been watching your test scores. Your reactions. Your restraint. Sable thought you'd crack under pressure… but you didn't."
"I don't crack," Ace said.
"You will," Vale muttered. "Eventually."
Ace stepped forward. "Why am I here?"
Vale leaned on the console, eyes gleaming with something between admiration and warning.
"Because there's a war coming," he said. "And Blackridge is just the first skirmish."
Ace didn't respond. His mind was already running—mapping out exits, scanning tech, weighing Vale's rhythm of speech for deception.
Vale noticed.
"You're always calculating. Good. But you don't have the whole equation yet."
He pressed a button on the console.
A flickering holo-map emerged, hovering above the desk.
It wasn't Blackridge.
It was bigger.
An entire network—cities, facilities, energy grids, all interlinked. At the center of it, glowing red: GHOSTFLARE.
Ace's jaw tightened. "What is it?"
"Originally, a neural data weapon," Vale said. "One capable of wiping or rewriting memory patterns. Useful for spies, sleeper agents… soldiers like you."
Ace didn't flinch, but his chest felt heavier.
"Sable was built to wield it," Vale continued. "But the first iteration failed. That failure was me."
"And now?"
"She's trying again. And this time, she's starting younger."
Ace stared at the map.
"Blackridge is the testing ground."
Vale nodded.
"Every student's visor feeds into the Ghostflare mainframe. Every test, every spar, every decision—they're not training students. They're building a profile. One strong enough to overwrite others."
Ace's breath slowed.
"They're turning students into weapons," he said.
"More than that," Vale replied. "They're turning them into code."
Ace paced the observatory's dim floor.
"So why are you still here?"
Vale's lips twisted. "Because there's one flaw in Ghostflare. One variable they can't control."
Ace turned to him.
"You."
Vale's eye glinted. "You're the one candidate who scored high in all parameters but refuses to be programmed. Your memories aren't just intact—they're… resisting overwrite. It's like your brain treats manipulation like an infection and purges it."
"Lucky me."
"Not luck. Trauma."
Vale handed him a datapad. "This is your full file. The one they keep hidden even from Sable."
Ace scrolled.
Photos. Reports. Audio files.
Then—
A memory.
His extraction.
The explosion.
But the explosion hadn't killed his unit.
He had.
A system override. Orders he never gave. His hands pulling the trigger. His voice calling the strike. His eyes—blank.
Programmed.
Manipulated.
Weaponized.
Ace dropped the pad. "No."
"It wasn't your fault," Vale said.
Ace backed away, jaw clenched. "You said I resisted the overwrite."
"Eventually," Vale said. "Not the first time."
Ace's fists tightened. "How many people have I killed under their control?"
Vale looked at him evenly.
"Enough to make you dangerous."
By the time Ace returned to the dorm, dawn was bleeding over the horizon.
He stepped inside to find Kiera awake, sitting cross-legged on the top bunk, flipping through the files she'd stolen.
"You were gone long," she said.
"Found Zero," he replied.
Her brows lifted. "Alive?"
Ace nodded.
"He gave me answers."
"Good or bad?"
"Both."
He dropped the datapad on the desk and sat against the wall.
Kiera read in silence, her expression shifting as she processed the same truth he had.
"Damn," she whispered. "They turned you into a weapon."
"Us," Ace corrected.
She looked at him.
"We're all in this system," he said. "You think those placement tests were fair? That the ranks are just about skill?"
"They're pushing us," she said. "Trying to find the right pattern."
"Exactly."
Kiera folded her arms.
"So what do we do?"
Ace stared at the ceiling.
"We burn the pattern."
That day, Blackridge's energy grid suffered a surge.
Subtle. Untraceable. But enough to force a system diagnostic.
Ace used the gap to plant his counter-code—something Vale had helped design. A loop. A virus. One that would slowly overwrite the overwrite algorithm.
He didn't launch it.
Not yet.
It needed to spread quietly.
Kiera helped install it through their visors—posing as error reports, simulated test responses, even fake messages in the school forums. Within 48 hours, nearly 60% of Class C's visors were infected.
They called it: Phantom Reboot.
A virus designed not to destroy.
But to wake up.
Meanwhile, Sable wasn't idle.
She moved through the academy like a queen without a crown—subtle, sharp, and omnipresent.
She visited Class A spar rooms. Monitored drone skirmishes. Interviewed students.
But she didn't confront Ace.
Not directly.
Instead, she let the silence loom.
Let the paranoia grow.
Let him wonder when the next trap would spring.
Kiera picked up on it too.
"She's planning something," she said one night, checking their room's seals. "Every corridor I walk through now feels like a chessboard."
Ace nodded. "Then we stay ten moves ahead."
"What about the headmaster?" Kiera asked. "We loop him in?"
"No," Ace said. "He's either in on it or powerless. Either way, we can't trust him."
She didn't argue.
Because she knew he was right.
Three days passed.
The Phantom Reboot spread to 82% of Class C, 64% of Class B, and 23% of Class A.
They weren't students anymore.
They were pieces.
And Ace was flipping the board.
But then—something changed.
One of the infected students—a boy from Class B—collapsed during training.
His visor shorted out. His body spasmed. His eyes rolled back.
Dead.
Just like that.
A code ripple gone wrong?
No.
Ace hacked the postmortem feed.
Found something embedded in the visor's last data log.
A counter-virus.
Sable knew.
And she was retaliating.
Later that night, Ace stood on the rooftop of the east dormitory, wind biting at his face. He watched as students filed into the central quad for a mandatory assembly. Drones hovered overhead.
A new order had come down.
All visors must be reset.
"Mandatory wipe," Kiera said behind him. "They're scrubbing the virus."
Ace turned to her.
"Then we push before they do."
She raised a brow. "It's not ready."
"It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be loud."
He tapped his earpiece.
"Vale. We go live. Now."
A pause.
"Copy that," Vale's voice came. "Good hunting, Phantom."
Ace looked down at the academy.
It was time to wake the ghosts.