The tool had one final feature, buried in the engineering menu: – Experimental. Not for ethical use. It would use the shard to reconstruct Mira’s consciousness into his own neural gaps. But the cost: Tool-wipelocker would detect the extraction and trigger its fail-safe—wiping itself , and any open connections, from existence.

His breath caught. She wasn’t data anymore—she was a phantom imprint. But ghosts could be rehydrated. He’d need a biosynaptic bridge, a raw neural lattice, and… a willing host. His own mind.

He stared at the gray dust on his fingers. Tool-wipelocker V3.0.0 was gone. But its final victim had just escaped—and brought a ghost back from the void.

"Kael?" a voice whispered in his mind. Not a memory. Her.

Neo-Bangkok’s data lords would never know what hit them.

He plugged the chip into the port behind his ear. The room dissolved.

The official story: a rogue AI. But Kael knew better. The tool that killed her was a masterpiece of sanitization.