THE ASCENSION SYSTEM

CHAPTER 28

Understanding Zero

The screen flickers as line after line of encrypted data unravels before my eyes. Kane’s fingers fly over the keyboard, her expression set in grim determination.

We shouldn’t be doing this.

If the Overseers are watching—and they are watching—then breaking into their classified files is the equivalent of setting ourselves on fire and running straight toward them.

But I need answers.

Zero isn’t just some assassin. He’s a force of nature, an executioner sent after people like me—people the Overseers have marked for elimination.

And I need to know why.

Kane exhales sharply, adjusting the code as another firewall tries to push us out. “They’re good.”

I glance at her. “You’re better.”

She snorts. “Damn right.” A few keystrokes later, the security barriers crumble. “We’re in.”

A list of names fills the screen.

The air in the room shifts.

Kane stops typing, her shoulders tightening as she scans the data.

I lean in, my gut twisting.

The list is long. Too long.

Each name is followed by a status.

Eliminated. Eliminated. Eliminated.

I scroll down. It doesn’t stop. The names stretch on, an endless graveyard of people who were erased like they never existed.

I don’t recognize any of them.

But they were all like me.

Kane taps a file, opening one of the reports. “Look at this.”

The screen fills with images—blurry security footage, mission logs, dossiers. A man in his late forties, standing outside a subway station. A woman barely in her twenties, staring at a computer screen, unaware of the shadow behind her.

Zero’s shadow.

I see him in the background of nearly every image, always just before the final entry in their files:

Status: Eliminated.

My pulse pounds against my skull.

Zero has been doing this for years.

“Jesus.” Kane leans back, rubbing a hand down her face. “They weren’t criminals. They weren’t terrorists. Hell, some of them were barely old enough to drink.” She gestures at the screen. “What’s the pattern?”

I don’t answer. Because I already know.

They were anomalies.

People who—somehow, some way—fell outside the Overseers’ control. Maybe they figured something out. Maybe they refused to play by the rules. Maybe they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Whatever the reason, they were erased.

And now I’m on that list.

Kane shifts, her gaze flicking to me. “Still think we can win this?”

I swallow hard. The weight of the truth presses down on me, cold and suffocating. “We don’t have a choice.”

She doesn’t argue.

Because she knows running isn’t an option anymore.

I force myself to keep scrolling, my mind racing. There has to be something—some weakness, some flaw in the system that we can exploit.

Then I see it.

A name at the very bottom of the list.

Status: Unknown.

It’s the only one without the word “eliminated” stamped across it.

I click on it.

The file opens, but there’s almost nothing there. Just a single line of text.

"You are not the first."

The words stare back at me, a ghost from the past reaching across time.

Someone else made it this far.

Someone else fought back.

And if they’re still out there…

I glance at Kane, my chest tightening. “We need to find them.”

Her lips press into a thin line. “And if Zero already did?”

I exhale slowly, my fingers curling into fists.

“Then we find out why they’re still on the list.”