The brass switch, the file explained, activated the Echo Mode .

The instruments flickered. The altimeter spun backward. The radio crackled with a transmission from 2007: “Any station, any station, this is Spectre One-One. I have a bogey. Not a plane. A… tear. A rip in the sky. Requesting permission to engage.”

She found the answer in a declassified file labeled Project Siren’s Song .

The maintenance log was still in the bay. The last entry, dated fourteen years ago, read: “Pilot: LTCDR Marcus Webb. Status: MIA. Cause: Unknown. Aircraft refused to crash.”

The F-19 Spectre now hangs in the National Air and Space Museum. The plaque reads: “Aviator F-19 Spectre. Top Speed: Mach 2.1. Crew: 1. Special Feature: None. Status: Retired.”

The fissure snapped shut with a sound like a breaking piano wire. The chrome Echo shattered into a million frozen shards that evaporated in the dawn light. And in her head, Marcus Webb’s voice whispered one last time: “Thank you.”

Eva bought the wreck for $4,000.

Suddenly, she wasn’t Eva Rostova, 42-year-old restoration pilot. She was Marcus Webb. She felt his hands on the stick—calloused, trembling. She heard his voice in her head: “They told me it was a ghost. They didn’t tell me I’d become one.”