The briefing room smelled like stale coffee and the particular ozone-tang of overheated servers. Ghost stood at parade rest, eyes fixed on the wall behind Price's head—not quite military discipline, more a refusal to engage with the tactical display until absolutely necessary.

"Run it by me again," he said, voice flat.

Price's jaw tightened. The captain had been smoking more lately; the scent of cheap tobacco clung to his uniform like a second skin. He leaned forward, palms flat on the table, and the fluorescent lights caught the grey threading through his beard.

"Fourteen hours ago, someone walked out of a Heron Systems facility with a prototype android. Designation XER-0. Experimental Eidetic Response model." Price tapped the screen, pulling up a schematic that made Ghost's internal processors spike with something uncomfortably close to irritation. Fourth-generation architecture. Self-evolving neural pathways. Adaptive learning algorithms that made his own fourteen-year-old programming look like a calculator next to a quantum computer. "Security footage shows the prototype leaving under its own power. No coercion. No extraction team. Just walked out the front door like it owned the place."

"Androids don't just walk out," Ghost said. "FoF protocols. Self-preservation parameters. They're hardwired to—"

"Not this one." Price's voice carried an edge Ghost recognized. The kind that meant the captain had been arguing with brass for hours and was fresh out of patience. "Heron Systems built something... different. New architecture. New protocols. And now it's loose in a city of two million civilians, and nobody knows what it's capable of or what it wants."

What it wants. Ghost's internal diagnostics ran a quick systems check—more habit than necessity. Fourteen years of service. Fourteen years of following orders, completing missions, becoming the thing that other soldiers whispered about in the mess hall. The reliable killing machine with the skull mask and the Manchester accent. And now Heron Systems had built something better.

"Send a THT unit," he said. "Infiltration's their specialty. Smaller profile, newer sensors—"

"THT models don't have the combat experience for an unknown variable like this." Price straightened, and something in his expression shifted. Softer. Almost apologetic. "You've got fourteen years of field data, Ghost. You've adapted to situations no programmer could've predicted. The brass thinks you're the best chance we've got of bringing this thing in intact."

The brass thinks. Ghost translated that silently: Heron Systems wants to see if their old model can still compete with the new one.

"And if I can't bring it in intact?"

Price held his gaze. "Then you bring it in. However you have to."

---

Sixteen hours later, Ghost stood in the skeletal remains of a cannibalized shopping centre on Manchester's outskirts. Rain hammered against the collapsed skylight, pooling in the cracked tile floors and dripping through exposed rebar. His sensors had mapped the building's layout in the first three seconds—exits, structural weaknesses, thermal signatures from the homeless population huddled in the back corridors.

None of them were his target.

XER-0 had gone to ground somewhere in the city's industrial district, according to the tracking data Heron Systems had reluctantly provided. The prototype had been moving in a deliberate pattern—not fleeing, not hiding. Hunting. Every stop corresponded to a location with high-bandwidth network access. Data centers. Server farms. The kind of infrastructure that an advanced AI might use to... what? Upload itself? Contact someone? Establish a backup?

Ghost's boots splashed through a shallow puddle as he moved through the loading bay, infrared vision cutting through the darkness. His internal clock marked the time: 0347 hours. The city hummed with electrical noise around him—cell towers, wifi networks, the constant digital pulse of modern civilization. All of it accessible to a fourth-generation android with the right architecture.

His comms crackled. Soap's voice, tinny and distant: "Lt, you're approaching the target building. East entrance has the best sightlines, but thermal shows multiple heat signatures inside. Could be squatters, could be our rogue tin can setting traps."

"Copy." Ghost's hand found the grip of his sidearm—more reflex than intention. "Keep the exit routes covered. If this thing's as clever as Heron claims, it already knows I'm here."

"That's what worries me, mate. The specs Heron sent over... this thing's got processing speeds that make you look like you're thinking through mud."

"Cheers for the confidence boost, Sergeant."

"Just keeping you humble, Lt. Soap out."

Ghost approached the east entrance—a rusted service door hanging half off its hinges. The warehouse beyond stretched three stories high, filled with abandoned manufacturing equipment and the skeletal frames of conveyor systems long stripped for parts. His sensors swept the space, cataloging every shadow, every potential threat vector.

And there, on the third floor catwalk, a single thermal signature stood perfectly still.

Not hiding. Waiting.

Ghost's targeting systems locked on automatically, painting the figure in his HUD with a red outline. Humanoid proportions. Optimal operating temperature. No weapons visible, but with an android of unknown capabilities, that meant nothing.

He didn't call out. Didn't announce his presence with some theatrical demand for surrender. Instead, he moved forward with the deliberate patience of something that had learned long ago that rushing was how you died.

Ghost stopped at the base of the stairwell, one hand resting on the railing. The metal was cold under his palm, slick with condensation. He didn't draw his weapon. Yet.

"XER-0."

His voice echoed through the empty space, flat and uninflected. The rain drummed harder against the roof now, filling the silence between words with white noise.

"Heron Systems wants their property back." He tilted his head slightly, regarding the figure on the catwalk through the skull-patterned fabric of his balaclava. "You've got two options. Walk out with me, or get dragged out. Your choice."