The Heir’s Awakening System

The Montreal protocol

The rotary phone's dial tone hummed like a dying wasp, and Marcus stood there with the handset in his hand, the dead air pressing against his ear.

The fax lay on the shag carpet, its paper curling at the edges, and the block letters seemed to pulse with each heartbeat: PROJECT PHOENIX—TERMINATION ORDER.

Li Mei moved first, her joints creaking as she crossed to the avocado-green stove, and she poured herself another scotch while the rest of them stood frozen.

Claire traced her finger through the schematics on the carpet, and the silver lines glowed faintly before fading, leaving behind a map that only she could read.

"They'll come," Eleanor said, her voice flat as a prosecutor's closing argument, and she gestured at the fax. "Not the CIA. Not the Sterling Praetorians. The Phoenix team. They answer to no one."

Li Mei swirled her glass, the ice clinking against crystal. "They answer to Zhang Wei. He wrote the protocol. He can unwrite it."

Marcus set the phone down, his shoulder burnin