"Hao! The air is completely gone!" Luo Bing gasped, his massive chest heaving violently as he slammed his shoulder against the reinforced steel cockpit door. "The seals are dead! I can't breathe!""Luo, stop moving!" I shouted, though my voice came out as a thin, cracked whisper in the rapidly thinning atmosphere. "Every muscle you flex is burning three times the oxygen you have left! Sit down!""I can't just sit here and choke to death, Hao!" he roared, his face turning a deep, dangerous purple as he swung his heavy blade, burying the steel edge three inches into the partition wall. Blue sparks flew from the severed electrical wiring inside the frame, but the heavy deadbolts didn't budge. "The nose is dipping! The damn plane is in a full dive!"The supersonic jet’s automated emergency alarms screamed through the cabin, the red warning lights strobing against the leather seats. Through the thick cabin windows, the jagged, snow-covered spires of the Swiss Alps were rushing upward at a

The heavy, bulletproof door of the lead matte-black SUV swung open with a rhythmic click. Dr. Vance stepped out onto the frozen glacial crust, his tailored charcoal suit trousers tucked cleanly into high-end leather winter boots. He didn't seem to notice the sub-zero Alpine wind slicing across the plateau. Instead, he lifted his hands, slowly clapping them together in a slow, insulting cadence that echoed off the surrounding rock crags."Incredible," Dr. Vance said, his smooth, aristocratic voice slicing through the howling gale. "Surviving a zero-pressure descent and a crash at two hundred miles an hour over the most hostile peaks in Europe. I must admit, Jiang Hao, your biological durability defies all our corporate projections.""Vance!" Luo Bing roared, his boots skidding on the blue ice as he shifted his weight, his large arm keeping the linen bundle containing the sleeping golden-eyed infant pressed flat against his ribs. His steel blade gleamed under the high-intensity halogen

"Keep your head up, Hao," Luo Bing muttered behind me, his heavy combat boots crunching against the polished marble steps of the Zurich Palace. He adjusted the coarse fur blanket wrapped around the sleeping golden-eyed infant tucked securely against his chest. "These snobs are staring at us like we just crawled out of an industrial sewer.""Let them look, Luo," I said, my voice dead flat under the high vaulted ceiling. I pulled the rough, oversized gray fur coat tighter around my shoulders to conceal the blood-stained rags of my medical tunic. My right wrist was still stiff from the Reverse Suture, my fingers raw and blackened at the tips. "They aren't looking at a doctor. They're looking at a ledger that's about to be settled."The Grand Hall of Zurich was a massive amphitheater of white granite, silver balconies, and floating digital displays broadcasting medical statistics to the entire globe. Hundreds of international medical billionaires, corporate executives, and high-tier tradi

"Hao, look at the center stage," Luo Bing muttered, his grip tightening around the linen bundle against his chest as we pushed past the kneeling, weeping body of Baron Claude. "The silver partitions are retracting. Something massive is rising from the subterranean deck.""Stay alert, Luo," I said, my hand slipping inside my rough fur coat, my fingers bypassing the golden spine-key to hover inches above the leather kit containing my medical tools. "The true face of the Global Medical Federation is about to reveal itself."The white granite floorboards at the center of the stage split open with a heavy, pressurized hydraulic hiss. A massive cylindrical chamber made of multi-layered, reinforced diamond glass ascended into the bright studio lights. Inside the chamber, suspended in a thick, shimmering vacuum field, floated a massive, glowing crimson orb the size of a carriage wheel. It vibrated with a sickening, rhythmic pulse that perfectly matched the rapid, terrified heartbeats of the b

"The vents are blowing it back inside!" a medical billionaire screamed from the second tier, his hands desperately clawing at the reinforced glass perimeter. "The emergency seals locked us in! Vance is gassing the entire summit!""My skin! It’s blistering just from the air!" Baron Claude choked out, dragging his body along the stage stairs, his fingers digging into the gaps between the marble tiles. "Jiang Hao! This isn't just chemical waste! It's corrupted soul-poison! If that vapor fills our lungs, it will rot our neural pathways from the inside out! We will turn into mindless ghouls in less than three minutes!""Hao! The gas is dropping from the ceiling now!" Luo Bing roared over the rising shrieks of the crowd. He was pinned against the back wall of the presentation deck, his massive body hunched forward like an iron shield to cover the linen bundle containing the golden-eyed infant. "My skin is burning through my coat! I can't hold my breath for three minutes while carrying the c