The rain had been falling since midnight — relentless, steady, the kind that turned streets into rivers and silence into background noise.

Northvale looked cleaner from a distance, but Frank knew better. Water might wash away blood, but not what caused it.

He and Zoey had been running since the Vertex Tower explosion — ducking through alleys, changing paths twice, doubling back through dark service tunnels until they reached the abandoned subway line beneath the city. The old tracks stretched into blackness, the smell of rust, oil, and wet concrete thick in the air.

Frank dropped heavily onto a broken metal bench. His shoulders ached; his right arm was grazed, the fabric of his jacket torn. Zoey crouched next to him with a small med kit, disinfectant in one hand.

"You're lucky," she said, cleaning the wound. "Half an inch deeper and you'd be telling stories with your other arm."

Frank didn't answer. His eyes were fixed on the small blue chip between his fingers — the one they had risked everything to take from Vertex before it went up in smoke.

Zoey capped the antiseptic bottle. "You realize what we just did, right? We pissed off the most powerful tech syndicate in the hemisphere."

Frank exhaled slowly. "Not pissed off," he said. "Just reminded them they bleed."

He turned the chip under the dim emergency lamp. The glow pulsed faintly, steady as a heartbeat.

Zoey frowned. "What's on it?"

Frank set his portable decryptor on the bench. "We're about to find out."

He inserted the chip. The small screen flickered to life, scrolling with encrypted code — symbols, fragments, fragments folding into words. He began typing commands, bypassing firewalls and security layers.

Zoey leaned closer, watching the reflection of blue light on his face.

"You've done this before," she said softly.

Frank didn't look up. "It's not my first ghost hunt."

The encryption lines cleared, leaving a single header in bold red text:

PROJECT RED COAT.

Zoey frowned. "Red Coat? What is that — a program?"

Frank's face went still. "No," he said quietly. "It's a file category. Military-grade. This isn't Vertex's code — it's government."

She blinked. "You're sure?"

He rotated the device so she could see the encryption signature. "Defense Network encryption. Only high-clearance military branches use it. This wasn't just corporate theft, Zoey. This was sanctioned."

She hesitated. "You mean Vertex was working with—"

"Or for them." His voice hardened. "Which means we're dealing with something far deeper than cybercrime."

The decryption bar hit 100%.

A list appeared, clinical and cold:

Subject 001 — Terminated

Subject 002 — Active

Subject 003 — Unconfirmed

And next to the second entry, a name began to glow faintly:

FRANK MILLER.

Zoey's hand froze midair. "Frank…"

He stared at the screen. Beneath his name were the words:

Project R-Rebirth. Status: Successful. Parameters: 97.3% Retention.

Frank's throat went dry. He could feel his pulse in his ears.

"They logged everything," he muttered. "Every kill. Every mission. Even my death."

Zoey's voice softened. "Frank… this says they brought you back."

He scrolled further down the list, fingers trembling slightly.

Another name appeared.

Subject 003 — EVELYN CROSS. Status: Classified / Active.

Frank froze. The rest of the world fell away.

Zoey leaned closer. "You know her?"

He didn't respond. His stare had gone distant — lost somewhere far beyond the damp tunnel walls.

A memory flickered — laughter in the rain, a woman's hand gripping his coat, a pair of fierce green eyes that could melt or kill in the same heartbeat. Evelyn Cross. His fiancée. His partner. Dead three years before his own.

"She was killed," he said finally, voice low and hollow. "Ambush. I buried her myself."

Zoey whispered, "Then how—"

"She's the sniper," Frank cut in. "The one in the red coat."

The weight of the realization hung heavy. The only sound was dripping water and the faint hum of the decryptor fan.

Zoey rubbed her arms, suddenly cold. "If she's alive… then Vertex—"

"Brought her back too." He closed the device and slipped the chip into his pocket. "Which means she's not working for them. Not anymore."

He stood abruptly. "We're finding her."

Zoey reached for his arm. "Frank, wait—"

"She shot Ricky," he said sharply. "But she also saved us. I need to know why."

---

By dawn, they were on the trail.

The rain had slowed to a mist, fog curling across the industrial ridge above Northvale's west docks.

Frank crouched near a rusted comms relay tower, scanning the ground with a portable thermal sensor. "Fresh discharge," he said. "Sniper-grade rifle. Less than an hour old."

Zoey frowned. "So why leave? She could've finished the job."

"She doesn't miss unless she wants to." His voice was flat. "That means she's watching."

He swept the flashlight across the concrete — and stopped. A faint metallic glint caught his eye. Wedged between two pipes was a small, cracked datapad.

He picked it up carefully. "She left something."

Zoey knelt beside him. "What is it?"

Frank powered it on. The screen buzzed, then stabilized. A message appeared — plain text, no encryption.

Frank — stop chasing ghosts. You're one of them.

Zoey stared. "She left that for you."

Frank's jaw tightened. "She wants me to quit."

"Maybe she's warning you," Zoey said quietly. "If what that chip said is true… maybe we're both—"

A gunshot cracked the air, the bullet sparking off the ground near her foot.

She gasped, stumbling back. "Jesus!"

Frank was already moving — gun drawn, eyes scanning the ridge.

A voice came through a distant speaker, calm, familiar, echoing through the fog.

> "You should've stayed dead, Frank."

He froze. That voice — he'd know it anywhere.

He raised his gun toward the sound. "You should've stayed human."

A faint, sad laugh followed.

> "Maybe I did. Maybe you didn't."

Another shot — closer this time, deliberate. A warning, not a kill.

Then the roar of an engine.

Through the thinning fog, a black motorcycle came into view — tires kicking up water, a crimson coat flaring behind like fire against the gray.

For one suspended moment, she turned — helmet off, rain streaking across her scarred face.

Evelyn.

Then she was gone.

---

By nightfall, they were back in the subway. The tension hung thicker than the damp air.

Zoey sat on the bench, patching Frank's arm again. Neither spoke for several minutes.

Finally, Zoey broke the silence. "You really think she's not with Vertex anymore?"

Frank stared at the cracked datapad, its glow flickering weakly. "No. She's working for herself now."

Zoey frowned. "Then why save you?"

He turned the device toward her. The message still burned faintly on its screen.

"Maybe she still remembers what it's like to care."

Zoey studied his face. "You think you can reach her?"

"I'm not trying to reach her," he said. "I'm trying to understand what they turned her into."

He paused, his tone darkening. "What they turned me into."

He reinserted the data chip into his decryptor. The screen buzzed and shifted, pulling up a new set of coordinates.

"V-LAB ZERO — Underground Facility."

Zoey straightened. "You think she's there?"

"If she's not, whoever's running this nightmare is."

He pocketed the chip, holstered his weapon, and stood. "Get some rest. Tomorrow, we hunt ghosts."

Zoey hesitated. "Frank…"

He looked at her.

She said softly, "Whatever they did, whatever that file says — you're still you."

His expression barely changed, but his eyes softened for a second. "We'll see."

---

Hours later, the rain had stopped. The city slept — but far away, deep in the outskirts beyond Northvale's industrial limits, a single headlight cut through the night.

Evelyn rode alone.

Her red coat snapped in the wind, soaked and heavy with rain. The glow of her wrist interface painted her face an eerie blue. Beneath her skin, faint lines of circuitry pulsed — patterns crawling up her neck like veins made of light.

A distorted voice came through her comms, metallic and cold.

> "You've seen Miller."

She didn't answer.

> "He's alive."

"I know," she said quietly.

> "Good. Bring him in. The system requires its missing piece."

Evelyn tightened her grip on the throttle, her reflection flickering in the bike's side mirror — half human, half machine, eyes glowing faintly beneath the rain.

For a long time, she said nothing. Then, in a voice almost too soft for the comms to pick up:

"Sorry, Frank… this time, I finish the mission."

The bike accelerated, engine screaming through the empty night.

Rain swallowed her trail.

---

Detective Notes (Internal Monologue – Frank Miller)

He sat awake long after Zoey fell asleep.

He laid out every clue on the table — the chip, the datapad, the decrypted code fragments scribbled in his notebook.

"Red Coat" wasn't just a name. It was a project designation — human resurrection fused with neural weaponization.

The code markers matched experimental defense programs discontinued five years ago.

Evelyn was the first trial. He was the second.

Two subjects. Both survivors. Both assets.

One turned ghost. One still trying to be human.

He took a drag from his cigarette, the ember burning like the pulse of the chip beside him.

"Project Rebirth," he murmured. "Maybe death was the easy part."

He looked at Zoey's sleeping silhouette against the wall, her face calm despite everything. Then back at the chip — glowing faintly, like it was breathing.

Somewhere, he knew Evelyn was watching too.

And this time, the hunt wasn't just for truth --- It was for the part of himself that died and refused to stay buried.

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