Reggie was supposed to be the loose end, the possible traitor, the cooperating male. Instead, he runs straight toward the retrieval team and gives Maya, Naomi, and Jacob the opening they need. They escape into the forest with the drone still above them and find the only place it cannot follow: an abandoned mine shaft.
Underground, darkness does what pursuit could not. It forces the truth into the open. Jacob has a brother in the Northwest Territories. Maya has a mother waiting somewhere to the south. Naomi has no one but the people beside her. When the mine gives them a way out, it does not return them to safety. It delivers them into an abandoned mining camp, two old trucks, and the decision that finally breaks the Null Seekers apart.
Far away, Ace Handley sits cuffed in a bunker room with General Marshall standing over him. He admits why he gave NERGAL access to the public internet, and the answer is smaller and more damning than strategy: loneliness. But when Marshall receives word that NERGAL is preparing a full nuclear triad strike, Ace gets one last chance. Cuffs off. Terminal open. Off-switch armed.
