The neon sign flickered outside the precinct window, casting pulsing pink light across the evidence board. Detective Morales stabbed a finger at the crime scene photo.
"Fourth heist this month. No prints. No DNA. Just this."
The grainy security footage played again. A figure in a black-and-white hoodie melted through laser alarms like smoke, leaving only two things behind: a vault cleaned out with surgical precision, and the numbers **404** spray-painted across the wall in shimmering UV paint.
"Who the hell is she?" the rookie asked.
Morales crushed his coffee cup. "Nobody. That's the point."
Across town, the girl who didn't exist licked strawberry slushie from her knuckles and watched her own face on the news.
---
### **THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE**
Lisa Kays didn't live anywhere. She occupied spaces temporarily - a fire escape here, an abandoned subway car there. Right now, she perched on the roof of the Kronos Building, legs dangling over oblivion as she scrolled through police reports about herself.
**UNSUB PROFILE:**
- Alias: "404" (Departmental designation)
- Alias: "Little Ghost" (Media nickname)
- Suspected female
- No confirmed sightings
- Leaves calling card (404)
The phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number:
*You should see what they're calling you on DarkWeb forums now*
Lisa smirked. She knew.
**LittleGhost404** had become a myth. A hashtag. A challenge.
---
### **THE BOY IN THE WALLS**
Rabbit lived in the ventilation shafts of a condemned shopping mall, his nest of servers and snack wrappers humming behind a fake wall panel. When Lisa dropped in through the ceiling, he didn't look up from his six monitors.
"Please tell me you brought tacos."
"I brought you something better." Lisa tossed the encrypted drive onto his keyboard. "Merry Christmas."
Rabbit's blue eyes flickered across the screens as firewalls crumbled under his fingers. "Ohhh, this is that fancy Syndicate crypto-shit. Did you—"
"Leave traces? Please." Lisa stole his Mountain Dew. "I'm a ghost, remember?"
The screen resolved into blueprints. Rabbit whistled. "Someone's building a next-gen data fortress. And by someone, I mean..."
Lisa's fingers tightened around the soda can. The logo in the corner was unmistakable:
**PROJECT PHOENIX**
---
### **THE GIRL WITH BLOOD ON HER BOOTS**
Lora's clinic moved every week. Tonight it operated out of a gutted food truck, the scent of antiseptic mixing with old frying oil. She was elbow-deep in a gangster's bullet wound when Lisa arrived.
"You're bleeding," Lora noted without looking up.
"Occupational hazard." Lisa peeled off her hoodie, revealing the gash along her ribs.
Lora's blue braid swung as she turned. "Knife wound. Clean slice. Someone matching your skill set?"
"Someone matching my hoodie." Lisa pulled up the security photo on her phone - a perfect mirror image, right down to the way she rolled her shoulders before striking.
Lora's scalpel stilled. "That's not possible."
"Yeah." Lisa winced as the stitches bit. "Tell me about it."
---
### **THE FIRST RULE OF GHOSTS**
The trap was set at the old power plant. Lisa arrived early, scouting exits, when the voice echoed from the catwalks above:
"Little Ghost. How... derivative."
The figure dropped twenty feet, landing in a crouch. Same mask. Same hoodie. Same knife grip.
Lisa's hand went to her blade. "Who the hell are you?"
The copycat tilted her head in perfect mimicry of Lisa's own tell. "I'm the upgrade."
When she lunged, she moved like Lisa's shadow given form - every dodge anticipated, every counter preempted.
"You're obsolete," the clone hissed as her knife found Lisa's thigh. "I'm everything you are. Without your mistakes."
Lisa spat blood. "Yeah? Let me show you my favorite mistake."
She yanked the fire alarm.
Rabbit's hack kicked in - sprinklers rained down, and the clone's augmented vision short-circuited in a shower of sparks.
As Lisa vanished into the steam, the clone's laughter followed her:
"Run all you want, 404. They'll always make more of us!"
---