2025-12-05 20:48:14
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Chapter 128
The warehouse explosion didn't sound like a bomb. It sounded like a **server rack hitting a swimming pool**—a short, wet shriek of short-circuiting potential. The Lincoln's bulletproof windows muffled the concussion into a bass note that rattled Marcus's molars. In the back seat, Emma's head snapped back as if she'd been slapped. Elena's knife clattered to the floorboard.**[SYSTEM SURGE: 340% OVERLOAD]** **[CORE INTEGRITY: CRITICAL—41%]** **[GENETIC MARKER DETECTED: HERV-CHEN-1—REACTIVATING]**Marcus had seen that code before. In a medical journal. **HERV** stood for Human Endogenous Retrovirus—ancient viral DNA stitched into human chromosomes over millions of years. Usually dormant. Usually harmless.The Chen variant was neither.Emma's eyes rolled white. Her spine arched, the silver scar tissue along her vertebrae glowing like fiber optics. "It's **resequencing**," she gasped. "The Architect... it wasn't rewriting my memories. It was **activating genes**."**[VIROLOGY FLASH: EN
Imperial achieve
Darkness wasn't a void. It was a library.Marcus's boots hit marble that hummed with quantum resonance. The door slammed shut behind them, sealing with a pressure change that popped his ears. Emma's hand in his was ice—whether from fear or Architect interference, he couldn't tell.**[IMPERIAL ARCHIVE: FULL ACCESS GRANTED]** **[HOST: MARCUS CHEN + EMMA LEYTON-CHEN]** **[ARCHITECT STATUS: CO-LOCATED—WARNING: BIO-HOST DETECTED]**Lights kindled. Not bulbs. **Memory spheres**—glass orbs the size of fists, suspended in mid-air, each containing a frozen moment. A man's life, compressed into light. Jonathan Chen's life."Welcome home," the voice repeated, but it wasn't Emma's anymore. It came from everywhere. From the memory spheres, from the marble floor, from the dragon-shaped door handle that had followed them through. "Heirs to a dream that ate its father."Emma jerked her hand free. Her eyes were wrong—pupils dilated to twin abysses. "Marcus. It's in my spine. I can feel it crawling
Warehouse War
The Lincoln's leather was cold enough to numb regret. Emma sat with her knees pressed together, hands in her lap, spine not touching the seatback—a posture of containment, as if her consciousness might leak out if she relaxed. Marcus watched the city blur past through tinted windows, his reflection fragmented across the glass.**[SYSTEM SYNC: EMMA LEYTON-CHEN—18% INTEGRATED]** **[CORE INTEGRITY: 45%—FLUCTUATING]** **[INVISIBLE HAND: ACTIVE—00:47:12 REMAINING]**The perk had a timer. Of course it did. Nothing powerful came without an expiration date."Where are we going?" Emma's voice was quieter than the engine's purr."Chinatown." Marcus didn't look at her. Looking would mean seeing the scar where the Architect's probes had entered her skull, the fine silver lines barely visible beneath her hairline. "My warehouses.""Your warehouses." She said it like a question she already knew the answer to. "The ones Richard's trying to steal.""Trying." Marcus allowed himself a smile. "Key w
Table 2
She smiled back. A ghost's smile. The first real one in thirty days.Richard returned to the table, his face a mask of corporate calm. He didn't see the change. He never looked at Emma directly. Only at what she represented.The quartet finished their song. A pause. Then a new piece. Wagner. *The Bridal Chorus.*Too early. The wedding was three days away.But the bandstand wasn't for the auction anymore. It was for an announcement.Richard stood, pulling Emma with him. His hand in his pocket. The ring box.Eleanor's voice crackled through Marcus's earpiece—a tiny bud he'd forgotten he was wearing. *"Theater's over. Time for the main event."*The lights dimmed. A spotlight hit Table One.Richard dropped to one knee.The room gasped. This wasn't on the schedule. This was a surprise. A flex. *See how much control I have? I can propose at a gala and make it look spontaneous.*Emma's hand trembled in his. The microphone waited. The cameras rolled. Richard opened the box.The ring caught th
Table 1
The ballroom was a shark tank with champagne. Five hundred of the city's apex predators, swimming in circles of polished marble and crystal, their teeth hidden behind eight-thousand-dollar smiles. Marcus's tuxedo was a $500 disguise that passed for $50,000 in this light—System-engineered fabric that caught the chandeliers just right, suggesting old money without claiming it.A waiter offered him a flute. Marcus took it. The waiter didn't meet his eyes. Good. Invisible was better than memorable.Table One wasn't a table. It was a stage. A raised platform at the center of the room, surrounded by a moat of space that lesser guests dare not cross. The names on the place cards were embossed in actual gold leaf: *Eleanor Sterling. Richard Sterling. Emma Leyton. Senator Whitmore. Ambassador Chen.*Ambassador Chen. Not Jonathan. A cousin who'd sold the family name for a diplomatic passport and a beach house in Nice. Marcus had met him once at a funeral. He'd eaten all the shrimp.The final pl
Safe house 2
He looked at the corkboard. At the photo of Richard Sterling, his face youthful and arrogant, taken years before the Architect got its hooks in.Then he looked at the photo next to it. Emma. Same age. Same party. Her hand in his, a silver necklace visible at her throat.Marcus folded the bond, tucked it into the tuxedo pocket, and dialed a number on the flip phone. It only had one contact saved: **"CATERING."**It rang three times before a voice answered: *"Mr. Chen. We were told you were deceased. Will you be requiring the usual service?"*"Yes. And tell the chef: extra spicy."He hung up. The gala was in thirty-five hours. The warehouses were safe. The money was clean.Marcus sat on the cot in the corner, the one with springs that sang like a dying cat, and stared at the ceiling. Someone had written there in Sharpie: **"THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS."**He pulled out the Glock, ejected the magazine. Empty. He checked the chamber. Empty.The gun was a prop. The threat was real.**[SYSTEM REB
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