As Elias shifted his weight on the rusted fire escape, the target did something unexpected. He looked up, directly into the lens of the sniper's scope, and raised a ceramic cup in a mock toast.
"You're late, Elias," a voice crackled through Elias’s encrypted comms—a channel that shouldn't have been accessible. Elias froze. "How did you get this frequency?" Lone Target
He didn't pull the trigger. Instead, Elias descended from his perch. When he reached the stall, the man was gone. He picked up the drive, and as it synced with his neural link, the city’s lights flickered. The "Lone Target" wasn't a person; it was a virus, and Elias had just become its new host. As Elias shifted his weight on the rusted