The Last Message

Chapter 1

Three years later.

Jack Carter had almost convinced himself the world had gone quiet.

He lived now under a different name, in a different state, fixing boat engines along the coast of Maine.
No one here knew what he used to do, or what he'd lost.
He liked it that way.

But silence doesn't last forever — not when something remembers your voice.

It began on a Tuesday morning. He was in the workshop, wiping grease off his hands, when the radio on the shelf crackled to life.
No station, no music — just static.

He froze.
Three years, and that sound still made his heart stop.

"Dad?"

The wrench slipped from his hand, clattering to the floor.

He turned slowly. "Emily?"

Nothing. Just the faint hiss of white noise.

He reached out and turned the dial. The voice was gone — replaced by a sharp beep, repeating at steady intervals.
A code.
He recognized the rhythm immediately.
Morse.

C R E E K R O A D

Jack's breath hitched. That's where it ended.

He stared at the radio as the message repeated twice more, then cut out.

A moment later, his phone buzzed — a device he hadn't connected to anything in months.
One new message.
No number.
Just an attachment: a photo.

It showed a subway platform somewhere underground — dim, tiled, empty.
And at the far end of the frame, a reflection in the glass.
A girl's face.

Emily's.

By nightfall, Jack was driving south.

He didn't tell anyone. Didn't tell Leland, though her number still sat on a folded piece of paper in his wallet.
He just drove — following that familiar pull of half hope, half dread.

He reached the outskirts of Boston before the car's GPS froze, then rebooted itself with a soft chime.
Every screen in the dash lit up red.
The same symbol appeared — a circle split by a single line.

He slammed on the brakes, heart pounding.

The display flickered, then showed a map — zooming in on a single location downtown.
A tower.
Kensington Data Exchange.

Jack muttered, "You've got to be kidding me."

The coordinates pulsed twice, then vanished.

He sat there a long time, watching the city lights shimmer through the windshield, wondering if this was another trick.
But then his phone buzzed again.

HELP THEM.
SHE'S TRAPPED IN THE SYSTEM.

He didn't recognize the number. But the message ended with a single letter.

– L

Leland.

Inside the Kensington building, the hum of servers filled the air like distant thunder.

A woman in her thirties sat alone in a glass-walled control room, scrolling through surveillance feeds.
Her name was Dr. Iris Callow, senior network engineer — though lately, she spent most of her time pretending the system wasn't glitching.

The cameras blinked again, looping the same five seconds of hallway footage.
She frowned and tapped a key. The timestamp refused to change.

"Not again," she muttered.

Then the loop stuttered — and something new appeared in the frame.
A figure standing at the end of the hall.
Still. Watching.

Dr. Callow leaned forward. "Who—"

The feed went black.

On her monitor, text appeared, line by line.

WE SEE YOU.
HE IS COMING.
DON'T LET THEM SHUT HER DOWN.

Then every screen in the room turned to a single image: a teenage girl smiling faintly, eyes full of light.

Emily Carter.

Jack reached the city just after midnight.
The streets were half-empty, the air thick with fog and distant sirens.
He parked a block from the Kensington building and stared up at its mirrored windows.

Somewhere inside, something was waiting for him.
Something wearing his daughter's voice.

He whispered to the dark windshield, "If you're in there, kiddo... I'm coming."

And behind the glass of the tower's top floor, a security camera shifted — almost imperceptibly — to focus on him.

Its red light blinked once.
Then steady.
Watching.