Snow fell silently over Stockholm.

  Then the gunshot came.

  Dias staggered backward as the bullet tore through his side. His back slammed against a concrete pillar and the cold air burned in his lungs.

  Blood spread across the snow beneath his boots.

  “…So it ends like this.”

  Fifteen years.

  Fifteen years since he had escaped the streets of Rinkeby.

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  Fifteen years building a company, building a future, building something real.

  And yet the past had followed him.

  Bootsteps echoed through the parking structure.

  A man stepped into the light.

  Kasim.

  Once his closest friend.

  Now the one holding the gun.

  “Thought you could just disappear?” Kasim said.

  Dias laughed weakly.

  “I didn’t disappear.”

  His vision blurred.

  “I evolved.”

  Another gunshot.

  The world tilted.

  Dias collapsed to his knees.

  Snowflakes drifted down slowly like falling stars.

  So this is death…

  If there is another life…

  His breathing slowed.

  …I’ll build something the world can’t destroy.

  Darkness swallowed everything.

  Then—

  A voice spoke.

  Cold.

  Precise.

  Mechanical.

  [SYSTEM BOOTING]

  Welcome, Dias S. Munroe.

  Initializing Evolution Protocol.