The city didn't breathe out here.
No neon lights. No surveillance buzz. Just the bone-deep quiet of abandoned tracks and silent rail cars, rusted like memories left too long in the dark.
Aria, Kade, and Zero moved through the forgotten skeleton of the East Rail Yard, every step beneath Chicago's skin pulling them deeper into Evelyn's buried trail.
---
Underground Hideaway
They reached it by memory - Evelyn's memory, encoded in the Archive: a maintenance tunnel beneath Platform Delta-7, camouflaged by debris and rot.
Inside was a room sealed off decades ago - dusty lights, cracked terminals, shelves of analog tech and handwritten files.
"This used to be a ghost station," Aria said, scanning the space. "Tier Zero buried it when they went digital. Evelyn kept it offline for a reason."
Zero touched one of the rusted data nodes. It lit up instantly.
"She hid a relay point here," he murmured. "One of the original Echo networks."
Kade raised a brow. "She really planned everything, didn't she?"
"No," Aria said. "She gambled everything."
---
Data Dust and Digital Ghosts
They decrypted the files Evelyn left - blueprints, target lists, and a timeline that spanned decades. Embedded in one document was a list of names:
> ECHO: GENESIS UNITS
Aria. Zero. And five others.
"They were building a generation," Kade whispered.
"No," Aria said, cold realization setting in. "They were replacing one."
Each name linked to a location, each file locked behind a biometric cipher - and every one labeled MIA.
Zero leaned back, haunted. "I remember them. Faces in glass. Voices in dreams."
"They're alive?" Aria asked.
"I don't know," he said. "But if they are... they'll be coming online too."
---
Elsewhere - Rhea's Office
Rhea watched the Whisper Unit deploy on the feed: a team of unmarked agents, faceless, fast, and built for clean erasure.
She stared too long at Aria's paused image.
"She's not like Evelyn," she said quietly.
"No," Yurev replied through the intercom. "She's worse. Because she still believes in people. And belief... gets people killed."
Rhea powered down her screen.
But something inside her twisted.
---
Nightfall - Rail Yard Edge
Kade stood guard as Aria sat with Zero beneath an old rail signal.
"I don't sleep," he said softly.
"I figured," she replied.
"They tried to train me to dream like Evelyn. But it broke the others. She shut it down."
"Then she saved you."
He nodded. "But not from what I became."
Aria studied him. "You're not a weapon anymore."
"I'm not sure what I am."
"You're my brother," she said. "That's enough for now."
---
Incoming Signal
A terminal inside the hideout blinked.
Not from Tier Zero.
An encrypted message from another part of the city - bounced through five offline nodes.
One line only:
> ECHO-4 AWAKE. CHICAGO METRO SECTOR 9. STATUS: PURSUED.
Kade stared. "That's one of them."
Aria stood, voice steady.
"Then we find them before Tier Zero does."
Zero's eyes flickered with something unreadable.
"And if they don't remember who they are?"
Aria turned toward the dark.
"Then we remind them."
---
YOU ARE READING
Code Name: Echo
Mystery / ThrillerAria Lane thought she was just a normal girl from a quiet town. That changed the day her mother died-and the wrong people started watching her. Forced to leave everything behind, Aria is taken in by a quiet, distant uncle. But after a strange accide...
