The dead don’t haunt you all at once.

They come back in pieces, reflections in glass, names you never say out loud, the smell of cordite when rain hits hot pavement.
Bond drove through the mountains with all of them riding shotgun.
The road climbed like a wound that refused to close. Switchbacks carved into black stone. No guardrails. No forgiveness. The new Aston Martin moved with predatory calm, engine tuned low, suspension reading the road faster than instinct ever could. It wasn’t built to be admired. It was built to survive exactly this kind of night.
Bond’s hands were steady on the wheel.
His ribs were not.
Prague had left fractures that never quite healed right. The jump from the balloon, the landing, the burn, his body remembered even if the reports didn’t. 
Officially, the incident never happened. Weather anomaly. Civilian negligence. Tragic accident.
Unofficially, Bond had been marked.
The message waited for him when he crossed the border. No sender. No flourish.
You proved the model works. Now it’s time to retire it.
Bond deleted it.
The Walther PPK rested against his side, heavier than the polymer nonsense the new boys favored. Old steel. Old truth. A gun that didn’t pretend killing was anything but personal. 
He’d asked for it specifically.
Someone still listening had still understood.
That worried him more than the threat.
The headlights appeared behind him without warning.
One. Then two. Then a third, hanging back where predators waited. The spacing was disciplined. No panic. No ego. These weren’t contractors. These were men who had been briefed, approved, and erased before they ever turned a key.
The first burst of gunfire shattered the rear glass.
Bond accelerated.
The Aston Martin surged forward, engine opening its throat as the road twisted hard left. Bond took the corner too fast, intentionally late on the brake. One SUV clipped the rock face and vanished into the void below without a sound loud enough to matter.
The second pressed closer.
Bond reached back, fired the PPK through the ruined window without turning his head. One shot. The driver slumped. The vehicle jackknifed and died screaming against stone.
The third stayed back.
That one had orders to finish the job clean.
The road opened suddenly into light.
A festival clung to the mountaintop like a defiance, music, champagne, old money pretending to be culture. Hot air balloons rose slowly into the night, their envelopes glowing like burning lungs, tethered by ropes and tradition.
Bond drove straight into it.
People scattered. Screams cut through the music. The Aston Martin tore through barriers and equipment, tires ripping grass and gravel.
 He could feel the third vehicle closing now, urgency replacing patience.
The impact came hard.
Metal shrieked.
The Aston Martin spun and slammed into balloon rigging. Ropes snapped. Burners roared as flame surged uncontrolled. The balloon lifted, dragging wreckage with it.
Bond climbed out as the car settled, fire crawling along the hood.
The man stepped from the SUV calmly. Older. Controlled. A face shaped by institutions that had outlived their conscience.
“You should’ve stayed dead,” the man said.
Bond raised the PPK. “I tried.”
Gunfire echoed across the field. Bond closed the distance, slammed the man into the basket as the balloon tore free and surged upward.
They rose fast.
Wind screamed. 
The festival collapsed into distant noise below them. The balloon’s fabric strained, glowing orange and alive.
“You think killing architects changes anything?” the man laughed, blood on his teeth. “The system already learned how to replace you.”

Bond shoved the barrel under his jaw.
“I’m not here to stop the system.”
One shot.

The body pitched over the edge and vanished into darkness.

Bond yanked the burner, flame roaring uncontrolled. The balloon lurched violently, fabric tearing. He waited until altitude meant consequence, then jumped.
The impact stole his breath. Pain flared white and absolute.
Above him, the balloon burned and collapsed like a dying star.
London didn’t ask questions.
It never did.
M watched the footage alone in her office, grainy, incomplete, stitched together from sources that officially didn’t exist. Bond in motion. Bond falling. Bond vanishing into fire and night.

“He’s still alive,” Tanner said quietly.
M didn’t answer.
Bond stood in the ruins of an old house by the river two nights later, rain soaking through his coat, the city breathing around him like a tired animal. This was where the program had been tested decades ago. Where the idea of a man becoming a myth had first been signed off in ink that no longer existed.
They had built a weapon and taught it to think.
Then they’d tried to put it back in the box.

Bond placed the PPK on the table. Looked at it for a long time. Then loaded it again.
He wasn’t done.

Somewhere, the system was already adapting, rewriting protocols, designing something cleaner, quieter, more obedient.
Bond stepped into the rain and walked toward the city.
No flag above him now.

No handler to call.

Just a reckoning coming, and a system about to learn what happens when its ghost refuses to disappear.