CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
GCS Headquarters – Sublevel Medical Bay
The stealth transport touched down on the hidden pad beneath the barber shop at 03:47.
Alarms were already screaming through every corridor.
Medics poured out, stretcher wheels rattling like gunfire.
Li Xuefang lay motionless on it—skin ashen, lips blue, blood frozen in dark streaks across her temple.
Ryan burst through the doors first, coat half-on, eyes wild.
Ryan: Move! Clear the damn hall!
Archive sprinted beside the gurney, tablet clutched to his chest like a lifeline.
Archive: Initiating Lumen beads stabilization—now!
Dr. Stephanie waited in the scrub room, already gowned, mask dangling from one ear.
When she saw Li's face, her breath caught for half a second before steel snapped back into place.
Dr. Stephanie: Get her into OR-1. Now.
They rushed her past the onlookers—agents, techs, analysts—all frozen in the corridors, faces pale under the harsh fluorescent glare.
No one spoke.
The only sounds were boots pounding tile, wheels clattering, and the flat, endless beep of a wavering pulse.
Li was transferred onto the surgical platform in seconds.
Metal arms snapped into position. Neural filaments descended like silver threads. Holograms erupted above her—organs pulsing red, neural maps flickering, foreign code crawling through her systems like black frost on glass.
OR-1 doors slammed shut with finality.
Dr. Stephanie took command like the old days—voice calm, lethal, precise.
Dr. Stephanie: Crash cart charged. Defib ready. Archive—full neural scan. I need to see what those beads are doing.
Archive's fingers flew across the holo-console.
Golden latticework bloomed across the projection—nine microscopic nodes pulsing weakly inside Li's brain, heart, spine.
Evelyn barged in, shoving past the inner door.
Evelyn: Let me help.
Without hesitation she flashed her ID at the med team.
Evelyn: Top Nurse, International Red Cross. Field trauma certified.
Dr. Stephanie and Archive exchanged a single glance.
Dr. Stephanie: (Reluctantly) All right. We need all the hands we can get. (To the team) Keep the Lumen beads stable inside her.
Archive hurried over with a tray of Radiating Pair Gloves.
Archive: Wear these. They'll let you interface without contamination.
Over the glazed observation wall, Ryan and the rest of the concerned team watched—silent, helpless.
Dr. Stephanie leaned over the scans.
Dr. Stephanie: Her heartbeat is decelerating. I can't find any obstructions or…
Xynra's voice stuttered through the lab's system speakers, distorted and faint.
Xynra: H-Host vitality… dropping. U-Unauthorized pattern d-detected.
Archive jerked upright.
Archive: What the heck is that?!
Xynra: I am Xynra. Singular entity embedded within Li Xuefang, my host.
Archive: What…?
María's voice cut through from the observation side, urgent.
María: It's Xynra! Xuefang told me about it years ago. It's an advanced AI construct that's lived inside her since she was a toddler. It's not an enemy—it's part of her.
Dr. Stephanie zoomed in deeper.
Evelyn: What type of device is that?!
Her breath hitched.
Dr. Stephanie: …That's not a device.
She magnified the data again.
Dr. Stephanie: That's a governor.
Archive leaned closer, horrified.
Archive: It's rewriting her survival protocols… trying to hold her heart offline.
The hologram shifted, revealing a crystalline construct wrapped around Li's cardiac-neural axis—dense, elegant, merciless.
Archive: What is that?
Dr. Stephanie went pale, recognition dawning like a blade.
Dr. Stephanie: The Aetherlock Wall…
Her voice was dry, almost reverent.
Ryan banged on the glass from the other side.
Ryan: Well, what the heck is the Aetherlock Wall?!
Dr. Stephanie: It's a complex suppression structure controlled by LUMEN-9. It seals away emotion… leaves the host functioning as a machine. Total control. Total detachment.
Evelyn: What?!
Archive: I'll try penetrating through—
Systems glitched violently.
Xynra: N-Negative… O-Overriding…
Xynra went silent.
For the first time since activation.
A single, endless tone screamed through the room.
FLATLINE.
Archive froze.
Ryan staggered back like he'd been punched in the chest.
Ryan: …Nah. Don't do this. Don't—
Dr. Stephanie's hands flew over the console, eyes blazing.
Dr. Stephanie: Shock her. Now!
The defibrillator cracked.
Li's body jerked—
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Archive slammed commands.
SYSTEM: ACCESS DENIED.
Again.
SYSTEM: ACCESS DENIED.
Dr. Stephanie's fist slammed the console.
Dr. Stephanie: LUMEN-9.
The name sucked the air out of the room.
Then—a mocking pulse rose again, faint, taunting.
Ryan: …Why the heck would someone build a kill switch into her?!
Evelyn: What are we going to do, Doc?
The med team looked up at Dr. Stephanie.
She ran a shaking hand through her hair—helpless, furious.
She stared at the Aetherlock Wall, mind racing through decades of buried research.
Then—realization.
Her eyes widened.
Dr. Stephanie: …This wall wasn't designed to be broken by force.
Archive looked at her.
Archive: Then how?
She swallowed hard.
Dr. Stephanie: Emotional magnitude. The Wall can only be voluntarily lowered… or broken from the outside by affective resonance stronger than its encryption key.
She pulled up deeper scans—patterns aligning, locks resonating.
Dr. Stephanie: It responds to something stronger than suppression. Stronger than fear. Stronger than pain.
Ryan turned slowly.
Evelyn: You saying what I think you're saying?
Dr. Stephanie looked at Li's still face—beautiful, broken, defiant even in death.
Dr. Stephanie: Love.
The room went still.
Ryan: Love?! What the heck, man?! She's on the brink of death and you're telling me this sci-fi BS needs a fairy-tale cure?
Dr. Stephanie: I'm telling you medicine has failed. Science has failed.
The only thing that might reach her now is something she's spent more than a decade convincing herself doesn't exist.
The word sounded impossible in a room full of steel and death.
Archive whispered—
Archive: But where would that even—
Li's body convulsed violently.
Dr. Stephanie: Shock!
Ryan: What's goin' o…?
Archive: (Voice shaking) LUMEN-9 is forcing her heart to stop—vitals crashing. It's… it's locking us out!
Then—
Stillness.
The tone returned.
FLATLINE.
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