14. Nightflight

As night falls, Turner enters his prized operational “edge,” coordinating the desert site for Mitchell’s extraction. He balances frictions—keeping Lynch and Webber apart, assigning Nathan to low-tech handwarmers marking the landing strip—and syncs with a flight-control microsoft for the incoming Hosaka jet. Mitchell’s dossier and Turner’s own coded overlays stir unease and memories.

Flashbacks surface: Conroy first spotting Turner in Mexico while Turner guarded a Sense/Net shoot, Turner’s professionalism, and the later jungle disaster that killed star Jane Hamilton. Turner recalls confronting an exec carrying Hamilton’s vat-grown camera eyes, a trauma that still haunts him.

Back on-site, the team rolls out the portable surgery. Turner sends Ramirez to the deck, Sutcliffe to remotes, and keeps the crew moving. Convinced Lynch is Conroy’s plant, Turner confronts him and, when Lynch resists redeployment, shoots him. Webber immediately claims she herself is Conroy’s plant, deepening Turner’s distrust as the autonomous jet slams down on the highway.

An ultralight hums in—Mitchell’s expected approach—but fuel-starved and hard to see under flares and gunfire. Blinded by the light, the pilot comes in wide and crashes. Simultaneously, Webber fires an anti-tank rocket, destroying the surgery module. Amid continuous fire, Turner reaches the wreck and finds not Mitchell but an unknown young woman, unconscious under taped-on infrared goggles.

Turner hauls the girl to the waiting jet, jacks into the aircraft systems, and blasts off. A second blast rumbles through the lot, then a sky-brightening detonation follows; the jet’s sensors register a tactical-scale explosion without EMP at the departure point. Turner cancels course, uncertain of next steps, and wonders if the girl will survive.