Lei was pinned against the marble bench, the harsh white floodlights from the armored sedans baking the cold sweat on his back. The Night Watchers—the government agents—were closing the distance, using the vast, open lanes of the financial district to their advantage. In this polished, echoing environment, any movement would be seen, and any breath would be heard.
He had minutes before they were close enough for clean thermal shots. He had to turn the city's acoustics against his pursuers.
He looked around desperately: glass, steel, and granite, reflecting every photon and every micro-vibration. He saw a row of high-end electric scooters, locked to a charging station ten meters away. Electric vehicles were silent, but their charging systems created a low, rhythmic ultrasonic hum—invisible to humans, but a beacon to the Ghosts.
Lei didn't have time for silence. He threw caution aside and darted from the bench, his Mute-Box Prototype instantly activating with a silent, powerful shhh of acoustic chaos, masking his sprint. He reached the charging station, pulled the Sonic Pulse Dampener, and fired the concentrated spike into the central locking mechanism. The pulse shredded the electronics, and the scooter cables snapped free.
He kicked one scooter, sending it skidding into the empty street toward the approaching agents. The metal scraping on the granite was a deafening sound, but Lei was already gone, racing toward the massive, black glass façade of the Guangzhou Bank Tower, a skyscraper adjacent to the Pearl Tower.
The agents momentarily focused on the noise, but then a deeper, more chilling sound answered the scrape. Two Ghosts, drawn by the sudden, intense acoustic anomaly, detached from the shadows near the bridge and began to glide toward the source of the sound—right where the Night Watchers were setting up their positions.
Lei didn't wait to see the inevitable horror. He smashed a reinforced inspection panel near the Bank Tower's service entrance, the sound muffled by his Mute-Box's rapidly degrading charge. He slipped inside, into a dark, oil-scented utility shaft.
The Mute-Box sputtered, gave one last mournful click, and went silent. Charge depleted.
Lei began to climb, pulling himself up the thick, vertical trunk lines of the tower's HVAC system. He ascended twenty floors until he reached a maintenance walkway overlooking a massive air handling unit. From this height, the Pearl Tower's satellite dish array looked close enough to touch.
The distance was still forty meters, separated by a deadly, wind-swept void.
Lei climbed out onto the main rooftop, his heart sinking. The government had anticipated this—the rooftop edge was lined with razor wire and bright infrared security lights. But the most important discovery was on the adjacent rooftop, thirty meters away.
Mei's last hint: The Skybridge.
Running between the Bank Tower and the Pearl Tower was a nearly invisible, sleek glass observation bridge, used only for VIP tours during the day. It was locked, shielded by a biometric scanner, and guarded by two Night Watchers stationed inside the Pearl Tower's end of the span.
Lei gripped his Sonic Pulse Dampener, his hands slick with sweat. He had to cross the razor wire, disable the men, and then breach the glass bridge's entrance.
He took a desperate jump, clearing the wire by inches and landing on the rough, graveled roof. The Night Watchers hadn't heard his muffled jump, but one was facing the wrong way, staring intently down at the street where their comrades were now dealing with the Ghost distraction.
Lei sprinted low, using the large vent stacks as cover. When he was twenty feet from the bridge entrance, he hurled a small, insulated piece of scrap metal he'd picked up in the utility shaft toward the opposite side of the rooftop. The clink was small, but sharp.
The second agent whipped his head toward the sound.
This was his chance. Lei aimed the Sonic Pulse Dampener at the exposed back of the second agent's neck, the pulse designed to cause temporary acoustic disorientation. He fired. The agent slumped instantly, knocking his head against the glass.
The first agent whirled around, gun raised. Lei dove for cover just as the agent shouted a wordless alarm. The noise was fatal.
Down below, the city screamed. A Ghost, drawn by the agent's shout, began to ascend the tower's exterior structure, using the resonant framework of the building like a sound ladder.
Lei didn't look down. He aimed the dampener at the remaining agent, this time focusing on the temple, and fired. The man dropped, silent.
Lei rushed to the biometric lock. He slammed the Master Frequency chip against the scanner, praying Mei had somehow programmed the Key of Leda to act as an override.
A soft chime. The lights turned green. ACCESS GRANTED: LZ09.
Mei hadn't just studied the Jìngwù; she had accessed and back-doored the government's entire access network. The bridge door hissed open.
Lei ran across the glass span, the lights of the city glittering beneath his feet, reaching the Pearl Tower's side. He climbed the final stairs to the Broadcast Relay Room.
It was a small, cold room dominated by humming server racks and a central console. Lei frantically found the universal upload port, slammed the chip into it, and hit 'Upload.'
The screen flashed a single, terrifying red message:
FIREWALL: LEVEL 9 ENCRYPTION DETECTED.
CODE: REQUIRES VERBAL PASSKEY.
Lei stared at the prompt, his heart sinking. A passkey? He had the chip, the encryption key, but the system required a final verbal lock. He scrambled through Mei's scrambled notes on the screen, searching for the clue, the phrase, the word—the final piece of the Romance puzzle that had become the city's last hope.
He looked at the only non-technical data on the screen: a small, almost hidden icon of a Chinese lantern, and a single, four-digit number: 7601.
Lei's mind flashed back to a night with Mei, huddled in a small cafe, watching the lantern festival. He remembered her saying, "My lucky number, qī liù líng yī—the day I knew I loved you."
He pressed the voice activation button, fighting the urge to sob. He projected the phrase he knew she always wanted to hear, the most forbidden sound in the city:
"I love you."
The screen stayed red. Wrong language.
Lei closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and repeated the number, forcing the perfect, clear Mandarin required by the high-tech system:
"Qī liù líng yī."
The screen flashed blinding green. The firewall dissolved.
UPLOAD INITIATED. MASTER FREQUENCY INJECTION.
But as the progress bar inched toward completion, the main door to the Broadcast Relay Room slid open. Standing there, silhouetted against the emergency lights, was the leader of the Night Watchers, a tall, cold man in a black tactical suit, holding a silenced submachine gun.
"It ends now, boy," the commander said, his voice flat, emotionless. "That weapon belongs to the state."