Ghost at the Table

The Buenos Aires night pressed like wet cloth against skin—humid, close, the kind of silence that meant someone was listening.

Jessica sat in a corner booth of the café, watching the door. Across from her, Leanna sipped burnt coffee, eyes flicking to the exits like a habit she hadn’t been able to break. Voss’s words still echoed like a loaded chamber: Patagonia. Underground.

The door creaked open. Olivia stepped in, rainwater dripping from her jacket, and slid into the booth beside Leanna. "They’re late," she said, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm against the table.

Jessica checked her watch. "Or they’re watching us. Making sure we’re alone."

Leanna didn’t reply. Her gaze swept the room—two students with headphones, a waitress behind the counter, an old man reading the same page of his newspaper for twenty minutes.

Then the bell above the door jingled again. She walked in like she was expecting to be followed. Beige trench coat, scarf tight at the throat, sunglasses where there was no sun. She crossed the room without hesitation and sat across from Jessica like she'd always belonged there.

The glasses came off. Sharp eyes. Cold read. "You’re the one they call Jessica."

Jessica’s spine stiffened. "And you’re the one Voss said would help."

The woman didn’t smile. "That depends. How far are you willing to go?"

Leanna cut in, low and steady. "Name."

"Dr. Astrid Langren," she said after a beat. "I used to be one of them. Now I’m no one. And if you’re smart, you’ll stay that way too."

"Too late for that," Jessica said. "We need to know what’s happening in Patagonia."

Astrid exhaled. Not a sigh—resignation. "You don’t get it. Patagonia’s not a lab anymore. It’s a colony. Self-sustaining. Off-grid. Every checkpoint, every satellite, every supply drop—it runs through them."

Olivia leaned forward. "Then why meet us at all?"

Astrid looked up, and for the first time, her voice softened. "Because they’re not making test subjects anymore. They’re making soldiers."

The silence that followed was thick enough to drown in.

Leanna broke it. "Why should we believe you?"

Astrid reached into her coat. Not fast—but every hand under the table shifted. She slid a scuffed flash drive across the table.

"Because I’m not asking you to believe me," she said. "I’m telling you to leave. That drive is all I’ve got. After this, I vanish. You should too."

Jessica stared at the drive. It was old. Scarred. The casing cracked along one edge like it had been stepped on, or ripped from someone’s hand. Her fingers closed around it. They were going to Patagonia.

---

The rain had stopped by the time they stepped back into the street. The wet pavement shone like glass under the sodium lamps. Jessica walked a step ahead of the others, her thoughts tangled with memories of cold mountains, and darker things buried beneath them.

"The last time we were there," she said quietly, "I nearly didn’t come back."

Leanna’s voice was dry. "None of us did."

Olivia nodded, her voice tight. "That time, we stumbled in blind. This time, we see the trap coming."

Jessica didn’t reply. She looked down at the flash drive in her hand. This wasn’t a rescue. It was a reckoning. And she had no intention of walking away.