The Choice to Run

The clock was ticking. Jessica sat on the edge of her chair in a cramped internet café, eyes flicking between Olivia’s screen and the street beyond the smudged glass window. Buenos Aires was alive outside, bustling, indifferent to the fact that someone wanted them gone.

Leanna leaned over Olivia’s shoulder, scanning the data she was pulling from a hacked Vanguard employee server. Kevin and Hannah were outside, acting casual as they monitored the street. Every so often, Kevin would glance inside and give Jessica a nod—clear for now.

“We don’t have time for this,” Hannah had warned before they came here. “Twelve hours isn’t a buffer—it’s a countdown. We need to get the hell out of here.”

But Olivia had insisted, and Jessica had agreed. They needed one more piece of intel before they disappeared.

“This isn’t just payroll records,” Olivia muttered, fingers flying across the keyboard. “There’s something deeper here.”

“Anything useful?” Leanna asked.

Olivia narrowed her eyes. “Looks like supply shipments to a site listed under an alias. ‘Project Albatross.’”

Jessica felt a chill. “Where?”

“Not here,” Olivia said. She pulled up a map of Argentina, zooming in on an area far south—past Buenos Aires, deep into Patagonia.

Leanna exhaled. “They moved everything out of the city.”

“Looks like it,” Olivia said. She hesitated before clicking on an encrypted document. It took seconds to bypass the lock. When she read the title, her face paled.

>SUBJECT STATUS: ACTIVE

Jessica’s stomach twisted. “They’re still experimenting?”

Olivia nodded. “And we’re looking at recent logs. Last month.”

Leanna pulled back, jaw tight. “So this was never about shutting down Prometheus. They just relocated it.”

“Patagonia’s perfect for something like this,” Olivia said. “Remote. Private. If they don’t want you found, you won’t be found.”

Jessica barely heard her. Her attention had shifted—to the window.

Across the street, a man was standing too still. He wasn’t looking at them, but his posture was all wrong. Too relaxed. Too aware. Jessica felt it before she fully understood it. They had been made.

She stood abruptly. “We need to go. Now.”

******************************

They left in pairs again, but Jessica’s mind was spinning.

SUBJECT STATUS: ACTIVE.

Someone was still inside Vanguard. Someone like her. She glanced at Leanna. She wanted to go back. To dig deeper. But the others? They wanted out, and she couldn’t blame them.

Kevin caught Jessica hesitating at a crosswalk. “Jess, we have to go.”

Jessica clenched her fists. “Someone’s still there.”

“We know,” Kevin said. “We also know that we’ll be there too if we don’t leave now.”

Jessica looked at Leanna, but Leanna only gave her a slight nod, the choice was Jessica’s. A car slowed down a block behind them. Jessica exhaled sharply. Not today. She turned away from the thought, away from the fight she wanted to have, and followed the others.

For now, they ran.

They didn’t go back to the hotel. By the time the first Vanguard operatives arrived, the gang was already on a long-haul bus headed south. The city faded behind them, the tension in Jessica’s shoulders easing only slightly as the streets gave way to an endless highway.

Leanna reached over, placing a hand on hers. Jessica squeezed it, but neither spoke.The bus rattled onward into the night, carrying them closer to answers—and to danger.