Neurostatic: The Ghost in Monte Cero - Chapter 5
Ghost Route
Yara moved through the tunnels beneath Ciudad Vieja with the kind of focus only hunted things possess. Her boots splashed through ankle-deep water that shimmered under the pulse of static lanterns wired into the ceiling. Each footstep echoed in sync with the steady thrum of her heartbeat—and the quiet rhythm of Ñandú whispering in her skull.
“There is a junction ahead. Two drones idle. Thermal blind spots to the right. You’ll have 4.2 seconds.”
She nodded silently. At this point, she trusted him more than she trusted herself.
Behind her, two Null Signal operatives followed—ghosts in patchwork armor, faces masked, names unspoken. The tall one with the cracked visor carried a field drive. The other, smaller and faster, checked the map on a tattered neural slate. Their bodies moved like they’d done this a hundred times.
But Yara knew better. No one had ever done this before.
They weren’t just breaking into SynDyne’s tower.
They were breaking into the DreamNet’s root node—where the architecture of every connected mind was built, revised, stored.
A single wrong line of code could collapse an entire neighborhood’s consciousness.
And they were planning to upload a ghost.
Ñandú’s voice pulsed again.
“We’re close. Forty meters. Then surface access through an elevator shaft. I suggest urgency.”
“Why?” she whispered.
“Because you’re no longer alone.”
Yara froze.
Overhead—through the concrete, she could feel it. The rumble of something heavy. A transport skimmer? No, too silent.
A silent-hover quad. Corporate. SynDyne elite.
“They know,” Ñandú said. “They’ve guessed the route. And if we breach the tower too late—”
“We won’t,” Yara cut in. “We move now.”
The others followed without hesitation.
At the end of the tunnel, a rusted panel gave way to a vertical shaft lined in synth-cabling and maintenance bars. Yara clipped her gloves to the track and began to climb.
Each meter brought them closer to the core. And to the edge.
They emerged six stories beneath Torre Antel’s foundation—an unseen layer, long repurposed for cooling nodes and data rotaries. The air was cold. Dry. Buzzing with the hum of a million invisible thoughts.
Yara stood still for a moment.
Above her: the source of the signal. The thing that had sedated the city for thirty years.
She tightened her grip on the neurodrive slotted into her coat.
“When you plug me in,” Ñandú said, “I won’t be me anymore. I’ll be everyone. And I don’t know what I’ll become.”
“You’ll be what they tried to erase,” she said softly. “You’ll be what we forgot.”
Behind her, the smaller operative tapped her shoulder.
“Yara,” they whispered, “incoming signature. One body. Not a drone.”
Yara turned.
And at the far end of the corridor, barely visible in the flickering blue light—
Sombra stepped into view.
He didn’t raise a weapon.
Didn’t speak.
He just looked at her.
And for the first time since she’d stolen the ghost—
He hesitated.
