**Chapter One: Shattered Code**
Rain-soaked neon lights shimmered like shredded auroras across Vera Cohen's gas mask. Crouched on the rusted fire escape landing, her military-grade earpiece erupted with electronic static.
"Target entering B3 freight elevator." The commander's voice crackled through interference. "You have two minutes seventeen seconds to breach security."
Vera jammed neural connectors into the building's vent control panel. Her retinal display exploded with cascading green data streams. When the progress bar hit 87%, metallic groans shrieked above her - a five-ton billboard tearing free from the 45th floor.
"Fuck!" She rolled into ventilation ducts as the "Jesus Loves You" neon sign shattered into digital avalanche behind her. The mask's interior display flashed crimson: [Cognitive Contamination 37%]
**Three Hours Earlier - Sector 7 Café**
In holographic fireplace glow, Alex Carter tapped his mechanical finger against a quantum coffee mug. Neural implant black-market prices materialized on the surface like bleeding wounds.
"Silverhawk Security's decommissioned military-grade synapses are fetching 300k credits." Data streams flickered across his iris. "Same model as the set in your cervical spine."
Vera stirred holographic latte art forming stained glass patterns. "So I'm a walking vault now?"
Shattered glass erupted as modified motorcycles roared past. Alex's cybernetic eye completed ballistic calculations mid-blink. "Five o'clock, depleted uranium rounds." He activated an EMP device under the table, detonating a sidewalk vending machine into cerulean flames.
**Present - Ventilation Shafts**
Vera crawled through the building's metal intestines, elbows scraping scab-like rust. When night vision revealed the laboratory's cold glow below, her pupils involuntarily dilated - thirty cryo-chambers arranged in hexagonal patterns, each containing nitrogen-preserved brain tissue floating like sea anemones.
"Silverhawk Command, this is Spectre." She gripped her trembling right hand. "You didn't mention..."
A supersonic shriek pierced her skull. Retinal projections flashed alien memories - herself restrained on an operating table, robotic arms engraving black eagle circuitry into her neck.
"Cognitive contamination critical!" Mask alarms harmonized with real-world explosions. Bursting through ductwork, Vera found the trench-coated man raising a silver briefcase. Its leaking cobalt glow matched her nightmare's cryo-chamber lights.
**Gunfire and Lies**
"Good evening, Agent Cohen." The man's vocal modulator rumbled like pipe organ bass notes. Unbuttoning his shirt revealed a black eagle tattoo merging with motherboard patterns. "A corpse from Detroit's blackout walking Silverhawk's leash?"
Vera's pupils contracted to needlepoints. Her thigh implant ejected a micro-SMG, but fingers froze mid-trigger pull - the man's temple skin cracked open, exposing quantum chip circuitry.
"Memory wipe recommended." Robotic voices invaded her skull. Agony erupted from cervical ports like cerebral jackhammers. Consciousness fading, she watched bullet-struck quantum chips unleash data storms, shattering laboratory glass into prismatic hail.
**Morgue Phantoms**
UV lights cast prison-bar shadows across steel autopsy tables. Medical Examiner McCarthy lifted a quantum chip with laser tweezers, its azure glare burning twin event horizons in Vera's irises.
"Full limbic replacement. Even fear reflexes became shelf-stable goods." The old man suddenly pointed his scalpel. "When was your last cognitive screening?"
Her phone vibrated. Crimson text crawled across vision: [Witness Lazarus Project Dawn]. As countdown timers began devouring her retinas, Saint Mary's Cathedral bells seventy-two blocks away tolled in perfect sync with Detroit's blackout anniversary.
**Breathing Room in Rustbelt Park**
Alex pressed hot chocolate into her hands, gun calluses grazing her thumb webbing. Holographic cherry blossoms settled on bulletproof greenhouses sheltering radiation-petrified tree fossils.
"City Hall purged Brooklyn's memory black markets." He projected news footage of cultural data chips burning into crucifix shapes. "Cognitive purification, they call it."
Vera fingered the neural inhibitor vial in her pocket, its aluminum surface still bearing childhood tooth marks. When artificial auroras fractured into EKG lines above, she whispered, "If I blew my brains out now..."
"Your backup consciousness would reboot in Silverhawk servers." Alex killed a dystopian ad hologram. "Giving them a clean, programmable Vera 2.0."
**Midnight Cathedral Revelation**
With 51:23 remaining, Vera stood beneath the derelict church's stained glass. Moonlight filtered through digitized scripture cast double-helix shadows.
She raised the silver briefcase seized from dead hands. Retinal scan authorization triggered liquid nitrogen vapors revealing thirty cryo-chamber feeds - each floating brain tissue branded with identical black eagle circuitry.
Holograms auto-played three-year-old news: "Detroit Grid Disaster Victim List Updated..." When Vera Cohen appeared as victim #47, the pipe organ spontaneously played the advertising jingle her mother had hummed on her deathbed.
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