Chapter 8: The Burn
The bunker was no longer a fortress. It was a tomb with an active beacon. Lu Sheng stood by the armory door, reloading a magazine with mechanical precision despite the sweat beading on his forehead.
"The signal is pulsing," I said, my fingers flying across the keys. "They're using a brute-force sweep. If they breach the uplink, the airlocks open."
"Change the frequency," Lu Sheng ordered.
"I can't. Not without losing the ghost-map. If I lose that, we lose the location of the woman in your files."
Lu Sheng's hands froze. The silence that followed was pressurized. He didn't look at me, but I saw the muscles in his jaw tighten until they stood out like corded wire.
"Burn it," he said.
"Burn what?"
"The H City power grid. Route the feedback loop through the local substation. If the grid goes dark, their sweep loses its carrier wave."
"Lu Sheng, that's a hospital district," I said, my voice rising. "If I drop that grid..... "
"Burn it, Lin Xiao." He turned, his eyes cold and hollow. "Or stay here and explain your ethics to the men cutting through the outer perimeter. You have thirty seconds."
He wasn't asking. He was defining the cost of our survival.
I turned back to the screen and executed the command. On the secondary monitor, the city map turned red. I watched the power lines flicker, then die. Somewhere in H City, an entire district went dark. All to hide two people in a box.
"It's done," I whispered.
"Pack the portable unit." Lu Sheng didn't praise the hack. He moved toward me, but as he reached for the heavy server casing, his side gave way. He stumbled, his shoulder hitting the desk with a dull thud.
I reached out to steady him, my hand catching his arm.
He stayed there for a heartbeat, leaning just enough to keep from falling. His hand, slick with cold sweat, gripped my wrist restraint without permission. It lasted three seconds. Then he pushed off the desk, his expression locking back into place.
"Move," he rasped.
We headed for the service tunnel behind the armory, a narrow crawlspace that led to a concealed exit. Inside, the space was suffocating. We were forced into a proximity that made every breath audible. Every time the tunnel narrowed, he positioned himself between me and the jagged rock walls, taking the scrapes on his own shoulders without a word.
"The exit is blocked," I said, looking at the thermal scan on my handheld. "Three signatures. They're waiting."
Lu Sheng didn't hesitate. He pulled a flashbang from his belt and handed it to me.
"When I open the grate, throw it. Don't look at the light."
"And you?"
"I'll be the one they're looking for."
He braced his wounded side against the ladder and waited for my signal. The debt wasn't being paid in apologies. It was being paid in the fact that he stepped into the line of fire so my laptop and the girl holding it would reach the next cage.