It was 3:47 AM in a dimly lit server room in Austin, Texas. Maya, a freelance data recovery specialist, stared at a corrupted hard drive from a classified drone test. The drive’s only readable file was named:

A text box appeared. One line.

Against every protocol, she clicked.

The download bar on her screen—the one she hadn’t started—was at 47%.

The hyphen was closer now. She remembered the dead man’s note: “When the dash moves, so does the hunter.”