Chapter 17: The Exposure
The bridge wasn't a structure; it was a vulnerability.
The moment I hooked into the Qin Group's recovery mirror, the Hyatt stopped being a fortress. I could see the feedback on my monitor—a swarm of pings hitting my local relay like rain against a window. They knew where I was. They couldn't stop the data from bleeding out to the Ministry, but they could trace the vein back to the heart.
"They're inside the relay," I said.
My voice didn't shake, but the speed of my keystrokes did. I wasn't trying to be clever anymore. I was trying to be fast.
Lu Sheng was by the door, his ear pressed to the wood. He didn't have his gun out yet. He was listening to the hallway, his body coiled in a way that made the room feel smaller.
"How long?" he asked.
"The mirror is forty percent synchronized. If I disconnect now, the data fragments and Song kills the feed to the apartment. If I stay connected, the Qin Group's counter-ops will have a hard-lock on this suite in three minutes."
"They won't use the hallway," Lu Sheng said. He stepped away from the door and looked at the floor-to-ceiling windows. "Song put tactical units in the lobby and the stairwells. The Qin Group knows that. They'll come from the blind spot."
"The service ledge?"
"The roof."
He walked over to the desk and reached into the heavy equipment bag the Ministry had dropped off with the hardware IDs. He didn't pull out a laptop. He pulled out a pair of high-tensile zip-ties and a flashbang.
"Don't look at the windows," he commanded.
"I have to look at the screen, Lu Sheng. If I lose the handshake, we lose everything."
"Then keep your back to the glass."
He moved to the corner of the room, positioned so he could see both the door and the balcony. The silence was absolute, save for the frantic, rhythmic tapping of my keyboard.
Then, a soft thud vibrated through the glass. Not a knock. A weight.
A shadow descended from the floor above, suspended by a silent winch. Through the reflection on my monitor, I saw a man in a matte-black helmet. He wasn't looking for a conversation. He was holding a glass-cutter.
I didn't turn around. I didn't scream. I watched the synchronization bar: 62%.
"Lu Sheng," I said, my voice a flat line.
"I see him."
The window didn't shatter; it imploded. The pressurized air of the suite sucked the curtains outward as the cutter finished its circle. The man didn't swing in—he threw something.
A canister skittered across the carpet.
Lu Sheng moved before the gas could hiss. He didn't fire his weapon; he used the equipment bag as a shield, shoving the canister into the bathroom and slamming the door. The suite filled with the smell of ozone and burnt carpet.
"Stay on the link," Lu Sheng barked.
The man from the ledge was inside now, but he wasn't alone. Two more shadows dropped. They weren't aiming for me. They were aiming for the laptop.
The Ministry's "protection" was nowhere to be seen. Song was letting the bridge burn to see who survived the fire.
I hit the 70% mark. My fingers were blurring. Behind me, the room erupted into a chaos of muffled impacts and heavy breathing. I heard the wet sound of a blade finding meat, and a low, gutteral snarl that didn't sound like it came from a human.
"Five minutes," I whispered to the screen. "Just give me five minutes."
A hand reached over my shoulder, gloved in black, reaching for the power cable.
I didn't think. I didn't hesitate. I slammed the heavy metal lid of the Ministry's briefcase down on the intruder's fingers. There was a sickening crunch of bone, and the hand retracted with a hiss of pain.
I didn't look back to see who it was. I just kept typing.
"Eighty percent," I yelled.
Lu Sheng's shadow passed over me, a blur of motion. He didn't speak. He just worked.
The bridge was open, and for the first time, I realized that being the lightning didn't just mean hitting the target. It meant being consumed by the strike.