CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
GCS HQ — Administrative Office (After Midnight)
The office had been abandoned long enough for dust to settle into the corners like quiet judgment.
María Valdés sat alone at the long table, boots planted on the polished floor, jacket draped over the chair beside her like something she'd shed and forgotten. The blinds were half-closed, Manhattan's lights slicing the room into gold and black bars.
The bottle rested near her hand.
Not empty.
Not full.
Indecisive—like her.
She poured again.
The whiskey caught the light, amber and sharp.
María: …Sixteen years.
Her voice wasn't drunk.
It was tired.
She turned the glass slowly, watching the liquid climb and fall against the rim.
María: I told myself she walked away.
That she chose rank… power… silence.
A hollow laugh slipped out.
María: Because if she didn't—
(voice tightens)
—then I was wrong.
She drank.
Archive stood across the room, back against the wall, arms folded. His posture was relaxed but deliberate—like a weapon left on safety.
Archive: You didn't misjudge her.
María looked up.
Archive: You judged the version of her LUMEN-9 allowed you to see.
She scoffed, reaching for the bottle again.
María: That doesn't make it better.
Archive stepped forward and closed the bottle with two fingers.
Firm. Final.
Archive: It makes it fixable.
She bristled.
María: Since when do you give orders?
Archive tilted his head, a faint curve at the corner of his mouth.
Archive: Since you started mistaking self-destruction for penance.
She stared at him, jaw tight.
María: I'm thirteen years older than you, kid.
Archive leaned closer—not invading, just enough to tilt the balance.
Archive: And yet you still kissed me for that "performance."
Her eyes flashed.
María: That was tactical.
Archive: (smiling, low)
You pressed harder than necessary for tactics.
María: Should we do it again…?
Archive: (a brow raised) Some people are not as innocent as you think.
A beat.
María laughed—sharp, unwilling.
María: Don't flatter yourself.
Archive: Not flattery.
Just memory.
He straightened. Now matured.
Archive: You want redemption? Stay sober long enough to face her.
The glass trembled slightly in her hand.
She set it down.
For the first time that night—she didn't reach for it again.
---
Two Days Later
GCS HQ
Medical Wing — 09:34
Monitors hummed in precise rhythm.
Li Xuefang opened her eyes without warning.
No gasp.
No confusion.
No fear.
Just awareness.
Her gaze snapped to the ceiling, then to the reflection in the glass wall—measuring distance, exits, threat vectors.
Dr. Stephanie: Easy.
Li turned her head—slow, controlled, predatory.
General Li: Report.
Dr. Stephanie: You were clinically dead for forty-three seconds or more.
Pulse returned spontaneously.
Li said nothing.
Dr. Stephanie: We identified the structure suppressing your vitals—
(pause)
—the Aetherlock Wall.
A hologram unfolded: layered crystalline code wrapped around a neural core like barbed wire.
Li's eyes narrowed.
Dr. Stephanie: The last person I saw with a construct this advanced commanded the same unit that accompanied you sixteen years ago—Black Echo Unit.
Li's fingers tightened once.
Only once.
Dr. Stephanie: Agent Carlton Li.
Silence thickened.
Dr. Stephanie: (uneasy) Xuefang, what is really your relationship with the Black Echo Unit? How and why in the freaking heck do you have LUMEN-9 inside…
Li swung her legs off the bed.
Dr. Stephanie: Xuefang, you are not cleared—
Li stood, already reaching for her coat.
General Li: Where are you going?! Clearance is irrelevant…
Her presence filled the room—heat under ice.
---
Highway — Night
A black hypercar tore through the highway, engine purring like a restrained animal.
Li drove one-handed.
The other rested near the gear shift, steady, unshaking.
Wind howled against reinforced glass.
Her expression was immaculate.
Controlled.
Deadly.
---
Sixteen Years Ago — Ghost Facility
Concrete walls.
Cold light.
The Ghost insignia burned into steel.
Li stood beside her grandfather—young, blood-spattered, trembling but upright.
He was wounded.
Still commanding.
Grandfather: 雪芳,不要犹豫.
Her breath came shallow.
Xuefang: 我不能,爷爷...
Grandfather: 你一旦停顿—
—你就死定了.
Xuefang: (Voice Shaking) ...爷爷...
TRANSLATION:
Grandfather: Never hesitate, Xuefang.
Her breath came shallow.
Xuefang: I cannot Grandfather...
Grandfather: The moment you pause—
—you die.
Xuefang: (Voice shaking) ... Grandfather...
A sudden sneeze cut through the air from her grandfather towards her face.
She flinched.
Micro-particles dispersed—unseen, unstoppable—into her nostrils.
LUMEN-9 entered her bloodstream.
The first lock engaged.
Alarms screamed.
Ghost operatives moved in.
Her grandfather turned, calm as stone.
Grandfather: Do it.
Xuefang looked at him, her irises bearing the initials of LUMEN-9.
Her blade moved before her heart could rebel.
The strike was clean.
Precise.
Her grandfather puked out blood. Yet, through the pain he grinned, his words coming out in short bursts.
Grandfather: 是...你是件武器,雪...雪芳...永远...
TRANSLATION:
Grandfather: Y... You're a weapon, Xue... Xuefang... Always...
LUMEN-9: Eliminate.
It whispered in her brainwaves.
The blade went in deeper.
His body jerked.
His body fell.
The Aetherlock Wall sealed itself inside her.
Everything that followed—
was survival without feeling.
---
Highway — Present
Li's grip tightened.
Her jaw flexed.
The city lights smeared into long streaks of white and red.
For sixteen years—
she had believed the lie.
The car surged forward.
Hot steel under ice.
And General Li Xuefang drove straight toward the fracture in her own making—the very beginning of her existence.
---