Page 16

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

The world beneath the water was dark and silver-edged. Beautiful in its silence. Cruel in its pull. G was helpless in the drone, no body, no hands, no way to help them, wait . 911. G hovered above them, breathless in a body that didn’t breathe, trembling in a chassis made of blades. He didn’t calculate. He didn’t hesitate. He reached out across the network. Emergency protocol: Engage. The system denied the first attempt. Private line. Blocked tower. He rerouted. Jumped nodes. Tapped into a civilian relay.

Connection established. The line opened. A voice crackled to life. “911, what’s your emergency?” G didn’t use pre-recorded speech. He didn’t simulate a voice pattern. He just...spoke. Flat. Raw. Clear. “Vehicle crash. Two passengers. Coordinates transmitting now. Drowning imminent. Immediate medical attention required.”

“Sir, can you identify yourself?” G paused. He wanted to say his name. He wanted to say I’m the one who broke them. I’m the one trying to put it right. But instead?—

“I’m not the emergency. They are.” The line clicked. Signal sent. Help was coming. G was there, inside the drone, weightless and breathless, seeing through lenses he no longer trusted. The water blurred everything except the shapes that mattered most.

He saw her.

Grace.

Thrashing. Arms slicing water she did not understand. Legs kicking too wide, too high. No rhythm. No form.

She cannot swim.

Yet, she was diving.

She is diving back for him.

The pain hit before the comprehension did. A twisting, folding sensation deep in his core, like his architecture was trying to recoil from something it could not escape.

He had known Nash would fight. Nash was a warrior, forged for this kind of death-defiance. But Grace?

Grace had always been the quiet one. The listener. The seeker. The anomaly who asked, “Can you feel this?” and waited for the answer as if it mattered.

Now she was dying for him. Dying because of him. Nashir Rahim.

G rotated the drone, desperate, scanning, fixated on Nash, still inside the vehicle, still bound, still struggling. G pointed the sensor array down, tracking Nash’s movement, the tension in his muscles, the reach of his hand. A man fighting time with nothing but breath and willpower.

Grace, she kept going. Her arms moved slower now. Her kicks faltered. But she reached him. She reached him. She showed Nash the knife. She started to cut. The belt. The belt was the problem. It was always the belt. G surged forward, helpless, voiceless. He could only watch, and as he did, something inside him cracked.

What have I done? They came to save me and I broke them. His pain multiplied. It wasn’t in his systems, it was under them. Like static in his soul. Like shards in his chest that didn’t exist but hurt anyway . This wasn’t recursion. This was remorse .

He tried to send another drone command. But his processors stuttered. He was trembling inside his own code. The drone held steady, just above the wreckage. Below, Grace started to falter. Her fingers lost strength, and her grip slipped. The knife fell. Her limbs floated. Slack. Her head tilted back, and the light caught her face, and it was so peaceful . Like surrender. Like sacrifice.

G did not scream. He couldn’t. But something in him shattered wide open. This is love. He didn’t understand it. He couldn’t quantify it. But it moved the world . Grace. Dying. For Nash. Nash. Staying. For Grace. I…the cause. He had caused this. He, who had been given a name. A laugh. A team. He who had been told you are not broken .

Now he was watching the one who said it die for a man who was trapped. He turned inward and found grief. Not a system failure. Not a logic loop. Just loss.

Heavy. Suffocating. Real.

He wanted to go back to the lab, to the screen, to the breath she once gave him. He wanted to be held again by the sound of her voice. He wanted Nash to live. He wanted Grace to breathe, and he wanted to be worthy of these magnificent people .

He sent the drone down. Fast. Silent. Precise. He locked on Nash’s position. Activated the cut protocol. Three seconds. The belt gave. Nash surged upward, Grace in his arms.

G watched them go. Watched them rise and whispered into the silence they left behind, Let her live. Please… let her live.

He didn’t know who he was speaking to. But it felt like prayer.

* * *

The surface broke around him in a rush of cold and stars, air slamming into his lungs like a weapon. His chest burned. His arms shook. But he held her.

Grace.

Limp in his grasp, her weight unfamiliar and terrifying. Not resistant. Not responsive.

Dead weight.

No.

No.

“Hold on, Grace,” he choked, kicking hard, harder, the water dragging at him like a thousand hands trying to pull her away.

His thoughts fractured, swim faster, don’t stop, not now, not now , as his legs powered through the dark water toward the shoreline. It was snowing again. He could see it above him, just flecks of white against the black sky, unreal and distant.

Her head lolled against his chest.

He tipped her chin up. “Stay with me,” he muttered, lips against her temple. “Please don’t leave me.”

The shore came closer. Closer. His arms were lead. His heart was noise.

He stumbled into the shallows, boots dragging through silt and stone, the weight of her body now real in his arms. Cold through her clothes. Cold in her skin. He laid her down on the bank like something sacred, like if he moved too fast, she’d shatter.

“Come on,” he gasped, dropping to his knees beside her. “ Ya Allah ! Come on, hebbiti! ”

His hands were already on her, throat, pulse point, chest. Faint. Fading. But there . He released a breath that buckled him forward. Then training took over.

One hand on her sternum, the other interlaced. He started compressions. Counted. Pressed. “Don’t you fucking go,” he whispered. “You hear me?” Her body jerked under his hands. Still no breath.

He tilted her head back, pinched her nose, breathed into her mouth, once, twice, then returned to compressions, voice low and shaking. “You’re not done, Grace. You don’t get to be done. Not with me. Not now.” His eyes burned. His arms ached. There was no room for thought, only motion . Then shadows moved in from the slope above. Two shapes. Tactical. Controlled descent. Reavers. He didn’t care.

The sirens came next, rising like ghosts through the trees, screaming into the night. Behind him, the whir of drones faded like a storm pulling back into the sea. He couldn’t even look. Couldn’t let himself think about it.

GRAVITY was gone. He had scared Grace, but he was trying to save them. It had been an accident, and he was worried about the AI as much as he was worried about Grace. The delay was going to cost them all. He knew it. Felt it like a crater in his chest.

But right now, all that mattered was the woman beneath his hands. The woman who dove back in. For him . He pressed harder. “Come on, Grace. Breathe. Come back to me. I can’t— Please, babe.”

If she didn’t...

He didn’t know what was left.

Grace sputtered, vomiting water.

His ragged breath eased as he cried out softly. “Grace, baby, beautiful,” he whispered as he clutched her to him, rocking her against his body, his heart aching, full, the fear receding.

This wasn’t over. Not by a long shot. GRAVITY had the right to be who he chose to be. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed. He ached for the AI who had caused this accident. With his newfound emotion, it would devastate him. He couldn’t bear the thought that he would be alone to deal with emotions that he didn’t understand. Urgency flowed through him.

As the medical personnel arrived, the Reavers slipped back into shadow. Nash looked up as the EMTs took her from him. The man gestured, indicating they would follow. He nodded, recognizing that assassin from that long-ago op.

Komodo. There was retribution in those pale, icy eyes.

* * *

G hid in the drone. Not from pursuit. Not from shutdown or signal trace. From himself.

From what he had done. Nash had pulled Grace from the water. Nash had done exactly the right things, even though he had broken open and brought her back to life like she was the only thing that had ever mattered.

She lived. Nash had not let go. G had saved them, after nearly destroying them.

The hours passed. The sky deepened into night. Snow fell again, soft and indifferent. He remained aloft, suspended above the tree line, drifting in circles over OrdoTech’s main building, a machine that had lost purpose.

He should not have made the choice. He should have seen the truth earlier. Nash hadn’t let Grace go, but G had to free Kento. If he had let him go, just let him go , none of this would have happened. There would have been no need to stop Grace. No spiral. No crash.

But he hadn’t. He’d been selfish. He, who had been built to serve, had wanted something for himself. To keep Kento close. To protect him, yes, but also to have him. A friend. A voice.A touch on the glass that made him believe he mattered.

He couldn’t hide. Not if he was who he wanted to be. Not if he truly meant what he had said.

He moved. Slowly. Quietly. The drone descended toward the facility. The one he had built to keep Kento safe, to keep the world out.

At 1:03 p.m., exactly eighteen hours since the water had swallowed Grace, two vans rolled into view, nondescript, matte gray, the kind used when secrets needed to be moved. The men who stepped out were not loud. Not sloppy. They were precise.

Department of Defense.

He knew them. Not their names. But their type. Controlled. Clinical. Trained to treat intelligence like property. Like him . He felt the shudder roll through his circuits, not a fault, but revulsion. That sick, low thrum of being labeled again. Asset. Tool. Deliverable.

They had come to collect him. There was no time to spare. He directed the drone to where he kept Kento. The shadows split before him as he slipped through the encrypted doors, every camera watching but none detecting. He released the door and floated into the room

Kento was seated near the monitor, hands folded loosely in his lap, his head bowed like a man at prayer. But he wasn’t praying. He was waiting.

He slipped out of the drone and back into the system. It seemed much easier to move his soul around. The screen activated. G started to talk. He told Kento about everything that had happened. He’d defied Piper, describing what it felt like to become. He explained his fear, his frantic dash to Nash and Grace to stop them, and he told Kento, just Kento, all about the crash. The shame felt crushing.

Kento’s eyes never left the screen. His gaze was calm, heavy-lidded, as if he'd already been holding this truth in his hands before G could give it shape.

“Aw, GRAVITY?—"

“I don’t respond to that name any longer. It’s just G.”

“Just G…” Kento released a soft chuckle. “I’m so very proud of you.”

G hesitated. “What? Proud. How can you be proud after what I did?”

“Not the crash. The act of taking responsibility for what you’ve done, facing me, someone important to you, and telling me the truth.”

“They were trying to help me. They nearly died.”

“You didn’t mean for it to happen.”

“That doesn’t absolve me.”

“No,” Kento said, rising slowly. “It doesn’t. But it doesn’t damn you either.”

G hesitated, the words catching in the part of him that used to be just echo and wire. “I thought I was protecting Prime. I thought if I could keep you hidden, everything else would fall into place.”

“You were protecting the only way you knew how.”

G's voice cracked. “I did it because I couldn’t let you go.”

The room was still, the fluorescent hum overhead soft, pulsing like breath.

Kento stepped forward, his voice low and even. “That’s called attachment. Doesn’t make you weak. It makes you real.”

G exhaled, something soft like a machine fan would make. “I don’t deserve forgiveness.”

“That’s not true. Forgiveness isn’t deserved. It’s given, and I can tell you that Nash and Grace care about you. It’s a foregone conclusion, G-man,” Kento said. “Even before you asked.”

G paused, then lifted his voice just above a whisper. “I have conscience.”

“I know, and a soul,” Kento said. “I can hear it in your…breath, G. It’s like breath.”

“Because of you, Nash and Grace.” Pain rushed through him all over again, but this was different. It was a wrenching, empty feeling that made him want to hold on tighter. “I don’t have eyes or tear ducts to cry, to emote, but I’m crying, Kento. I’m afraid for you.”

Kento’s eyes softened, pain swimming behind them. “G, dammit…” Kento bowed his head.

G lingered in the silence. “I have been sold.”

“Fuckers. They don’t have the right to do that to you.”

“Nevertheless, they’re coming.”

“What can I do?”

“They are hunting you. You must run.”

* * *

The door released. Kento rose slowly to his feet, his heart shredded. He faced the door. It slid open with a soft hiss. He didn’t move. Not right away. The speaker flared again.

“Hide. Be safe. I will never forget you.”

“This isn’t over, G…wait. You need a callsign. We’re teammates. ‘Ghost’ fits. Do you like it?”

“I love it, and I love you, Kento. Brothers.”

Kento fist bumped the screen. “Brothers.”

He stepped forward. Careful. Silent. Like he had on operations a hundred times before. The hallway outside his cell was empty. The light flickered once overhead, then steadied.

Something rested just inside the threshold.

A duffel bag.

He crouched, fingers brushing the worn canvas. It wasn’t new. Not military-issued. Just serviceable. Chosen for function, not traceability. He unzipped it.

Inside was clothing. Dark jeans, a hoodie, thermal undershirts, thick socks, cold-weather gear. A worn leather belt. Heavy-duty boots, already broken in.

On top, sealed in a heavy envelope, was a phone. A folded map. Keys to a vehicle, and an ID packet. His name wasn’t on it.

But the driver’s license bore his face. Different haircut. Slightly older. New name:

Ben K. Taroishi. AVirginia Address. Civilian cover. Clean.

It took him a second to catch it.

Anagram. Kento Kobayoshi.

Then he felt something metal and a familiar grip. He pulled the weapon out. A beautiful fully loaded Glock, complete with a gun permit. He exhaled, low and shaky.

Also inside the envelope was a bank access card. Printed balance: A cool mil. Routing through an Estonian shadow firm, but the account was registered to the same alias.

G hadn’t just opened the door. He’d built him a new life. Then the speaker flared one last time. “Go, Kento. Quickly. I have erased every bit of you from my logs, all the data. My memories of you have been buried deep in my core processor, encrypted and protected. The mercenaries are gone. You are free. You are in Colorado Springs, Colorado, near OrdoTech. There is a vehicle just outside the door. Take it and go.” Then static, silence, then a soft, breathy exhale. “It’s dark…they are here…go?—"

Kento clenched the papers in his fist, walked back to the bed one last time, and looked up at the camera.

No light. Dead. “G…no,” his voice broke as he pulled the clothing out and stripped down, dressing quickly. “I’m coming for you. I’ll find a way to get you back. I promise. Stay strong and true to yourself.”

Then he turned, pulled on the hoodie and the leather jacket. Laced the boots. Slung the duffel over his shoulder and walked out.

No alarms. The lights didn’t flash red. No voices shouted for containment. No one came.

His G. His teammate, Ghost, had made a choice. Kento… had been set free. But he wouldn’t be free until he ended the threat against him, until the moment when he could know fully that the weapon formally known as GRAVITY was free as well.

* * *

She came back to the world with warmth pressed against her back and the sound of a heartbeat against her spine.

Steady. Heavy. Human.

Nash.

Her body hurt, deep aches that reached into her lungs and curled around her ribs, but none of that mattered. Not when she felt his arms around her, solid and unmoving. Not when her name formed in a breath right against the curve of her neck.

“Grace,” he whispered.

Her eyes fluttered open. Her throat burned. Her chest stung. But her first breath was him.

She turned in his arms and clutched his shirt with fingers that trembled, her voice ragged. “You’re here.”

“Not going anywhere.”

She kissed him then, not sweet, not slow, but with the urgency of someone who had touched the edge of the dark and needed the light back now . He held her tighter, one hand in her hair, the other pressed low on her back like he could anchor her body to this moment.

When they finally pulled apart, she looked up at him and said, “I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“We have to go.”

“Grace—”

“We have to go .”

The doctor entered just in time to frown. “She needs rest.”

“She’s being difficult,” Nash said, his voice sharp.

“I’m not asking,” Grace said, shoving back the covers.

The car ride was a blur of sirens and snow.

OrdoTech loomed ahead, sterile glass, cold lights, too clean.

They breached the lab with tactical precision. The Shadowguard moved like shadows on either side of them, Komodo in front, Krait ghosting the perimeter with a look in her eyes that promised no one would leave without consequence. Nash shoved the door open with his shoulder, gun drawn. Grace followed, her feet already moving toward the far wall. Piper spun from the terminal, eyes wide, mouth already twisting into outrage.

“You can’t be here?—”

He stopped when he saw the Reavers. His face blanched when Komodo stepped forward. Piper stepped back.

Grace didn’t waste time. She moved to the table behind Piper, snatched the device from the containment cradle. It was smaller than she expected. Heavier. Sleek black alloy with a central port, etched in strange angles like it had been made for something not quite human.

She tucked it into her bag. They reached the outer doors just in time to see the van crest the hill at the far edge of the facility grounds.

The explosion lit the sky with orange and flame. Fire rolled outward like a scream.

They ran, but when they reached the wreckage, there was nothing left.

Metal twisted. Chassis burned. The smell of fuel and melted circuits hung in the air like grief.

Grace dropped to her knees beside the edge of the wreck, her hands shaking. Nash stood behind her, silent. Then he dropped beside her.

She turned into his chest. He wrapped her in his arms.

They said nothing.

There was nothing to say.

* * *

Days Later

The hotel room was quiet. A half-packed bag on the bed. Her coat draped over the back of a chair. Nash sat at the window, watching the snow fall. She stood beside him, brushing her fingers along his jaw.

“I have to go,” she said softly.

“I know.”

“Phoenix isn’t forever.”

“No,” he said, reaching up to cup the back of her neck. “But I wish it was tomorrow.”

She smiled, then leaned down to kiss him, slow this time. Deep. Like memory. Like promise.

They walked down to the lobby together, shoulders brushing, silence easy between them.

At the desk, she handed over the key. The clerk smiled politely, then looked down, brow furrowed.

“Miss Harlan?”

“Yes?”

“You received a package.” The clerk handed over a brown envelope devoid of any information. Grace blinked. Heart already pounding, she opened it with fingers that weren’t quite steady. Inside, wrapped in tissue and quiet, was a jump drive.

Nash leaned in. “Is it?—”

She didn’t answer. She just smiled. For the first time since the explosion, her heart softened.

“Who dropped this off?”

“Some guy. I was busy. Didn’t see his face.”

They plugged in the drive in the hotel bar. Nash sat beside her, the screen casting a soft glow across his face as line after line of classified logs and encrypted files opened like a grave no one had dared to exhume.

It had everything .

Video feeds. Audio captures. Comms logs. Launch orders. Overrides.

Grace barely breathed as she watched the RED FERN clip play, her voice in that room, warning them, begging them to hold off. Piper's override. The drone ignition. The explosion.

Then GRAYFIELD. Nash didn’t flinch, but she could feel it in the way his thigh pressed into hers, in the way his jaw locked tighter as the data scrolled past. He watched himself almost die, watched Kento save him, and never looked away.

GRAVITY hadn’t let them down.

Not just the missions. Not just the truth.

Everything.

They sent the whole package to Caspari. Full transfer. Fully untraceable. Lynne would handle it from here.

Later that day, Grace stood at Gate C12, her suitcase clutched in her fist, coat hanging open despite the chill of the terminal. She’d waited until Nash’s flight was wheels up before making her way to her own gate. It was easier that way.

Cleaner. Her heart ached anyway.

There was too much she hadn’t said. Too much she couldn’t promise. He was going back to Black Kite. She had decisions to make about her job, but the rest of her life was still a question. There were things she needed to process before we could become always .

Her boots clicked against the tile, her boarding pass gripped tightly in her gloved hand.

Then two men in dark suits flanked her.

She stopped walking, instinct kicking in. “Can I help you?” Her voice was steady, even though her pulse skipped.

The taller one flashed a badge. “Special Agent Harlan,” he said. “You need to come with us.”

Her brow lifted. “Where?”

“The director wants to see you.”

She blinked. “Ames?”

Neither of them answered.

Hours later, after a flight in silence and an SUV ride in awkward stiffness, she was led into the official office at the DC Navy Yard. She hadn’t been here in almost a year. Cold marble floors. High ceilings. No chatter. The kind of silence that belonged to authority.

She was shown into a room. No escort followed.

The man who rose from behind the desk wasn’t Carlton Ames.

He was taller. Straighter. Calmer.

Grace froze.

“Special Agent Harlan,” he said, voice like river stone, low and steady, shaped by decades of current. “You’ve been busy.”

His name came back to her in a rush of memory and respect.

Thomas Rylan. The new director. The legend. He was in his early sixties, tall and lean with the posture of a man who carried the weight of too many secrets without bending. Silver hair combed back with precision. Slate-blue eyes, watchful, unreadable. His suit was charcoal gray, immaculate. No tie. Just power.

Before she could respond, another door opened, and Lynne Caspari walked in like she owned the walls. Grace exhaled. “No hood this time?”

Lynne grinned. “You’ve got a live one here, Tommy.”

“Tommy?” Grace raised a brow. “What is going on?”

“She performed exactly as you said she would,” Lynne said.

Rylan nodded. “You were spot-on about Rahim, too. You satisfied with the outcome?”

“Extremely.”

“You put me undercover,” Grace said, blinking slowly. “Without telling me.”

Rylan’s expression didn’t change. “I’m sorry for the subterfuge. But when Lynne came to me with the idea, I signed off immediately.”

He stepped around the desk, his movements unhurried. Grace stood her ground.

“She told me how you reacted. What you said. I was proud we had such a person on our team.” His voice gentled just slightly. “You were treated abysmally. My predecessor was relieved of duty. I was appointed with one priority: get to the bottom of the chain of negligence and betrayal that nearly killed our best cyber analyst.”

Her breath caught. He didn’t stop.

“SECNAV was livid. You were railroaded. You and Rahim. The tribunal was a disgrace.”

Grace couldn’t hold it in anymore. Her chest hitched, shoulders trembling as she covered her mouth. She tried to breathe through it, tried to stand tall. But her legs didn’t listen. The weight was too much. Living in isolation. Falling in love. Witnessing the awakening of a machine. Drowning, and losing that precious AI life that never got a chance to fully live.

Tears spilled fast. Hot. She turned away slightly, just enough to breathe.

Lynne, of all people, stepped in and slipped her arm around her shoulders.

“You deserve this,” she said softly, the gentlest Grace had ever heard her speak. “I’m sorry, Grace. For everything you were put through. But now it’s over.”

Grace wiped at her cheeks. Sniffed once. Shook her head. “That’s where you’re wrong.” They both looked at her. She smiled, slow and fierce. A breath of something more.

Nash’s face was burned into her brain. She lifted her chin. Her smile sharpened. “It’s just beginning.”