The sound of wheels grinding over the floor stopped.
Li opened his eyes.
Everything around him was white—walls, ceiling, the chair beneath him. White all the way through. No windows.
And there was no sound in his ears.
Not "quiet."
More like… something had been scooped out of the world. A hollow, dead silence. He tried to turn his head. His neck felt stiff.
A flicker snapped above him.
The ceiling light flashed red—and at the same time a sharp, needle-like pain stabbed into his left calf.
He sucked in a breath. Didn't scream.
The pain stopped. The light flipped to green and blinked once.
Then the electronic voice returned inside his head, flat as an instruction manual:
"Deviation detected. Recite calibration fragments: voluntary, necessary, stabilization. Confirm."
Li opened his mouth. He realized his voice echoed in his head—his ears still heard nothing.
"Voluntary. Necessary. Stabilization. Confirm."
Green blinked again.
"Recitation correct. Reward: directive fragment."
The voice paused for a beat, then delivered a cleaner line—like a single row pulled out of a timetable:
"Subprocess 11 opening condition: assistant confirmation + mother-anchor stability threshold met."
Li didn't move. The words rolled around in his mind.
Assistant confirmation. Mother-anchor stability threshold.
Mother-anchor… that was him.
Red flashed again. This time the pain hit his right shoulder.
"Deviation detected. Recite calibration fragments: Category A-47, Subprocess 11, window period short."
Li recited it. Perfectly.
The pain vanished. Green blinked.
"Reward: supplemental fragment."
This one made cold crawl up his spine:
"Trace target: child-anchor location update requires mother-anchor emotional peak trigger."
Emotional peak.
When he thought about his daughter.
So the system didn't want to carve that memory out.
It wanted to use it as bait—to hook her location.
Gate Hall
Daniel stared at the new message popping up on his terminal and spat out, "Holy shit."
"On-site evidence countdown: ninety minutes." His voice warped as he read. "Debris ID, exact location, extraction path… and it wants contact-person wristband ID auto-capture? What the hell is that? If I touch the thing once, my employee number gets welded onto this mess?"
Marcus walked over and glanced at the screen. "What if we don't submit?"
"Don't submit?" Daniel jabbed at the fine print. "'Failure to submit on time = anomaly explanation revoked = audit rolls back to human tampering priority.' Meaning Dr. Aileen's work was for nothing and she gets nailed as a data forger. We're basically handing them the knife and pressing our fingerprints into the handle."
"Can we submit something fake?" Marcus asked.
"Fake is worse." Daniel shook his head. "They're going to re-verify. They want an 'environmental noise reproduction test.' You make up an ID, the location won't match, the reproduction test won't run, and it still becomes 'fabricated explanation.' Same result: Aileen eats the blame."
He raked a hand through his hair. "This corporate hell-system is insane. They assign you the task and pre-order the blame. Slacking off? Even 'feeling for stones while crossing the river' gets you drowned."
Marcus stayed quiet for a few seconds. "So we need the real debris. And the 'contact person' can't be you, can't be me, and can't be Sophia."
"Right." Daniel nodded. "It has to be someone allowed by procedure—maintenance crew, tech soldier—someone with a legitimate reason to touch the trench."
"How do we make that happen?"
Daniel didn't answer in time—
From the trench area in the distance came a sharp pop, and several red alarm lights started flashing.
A technician glanced at the control console. "Damn—branch seven power feed spiked. Protection tripped. We need to open a service hatch and check it."
A few people in maintenance coveralls sprinted over.
Daniel and Marcus locked eyes.
Corridor to the Holding Rooms (Monitoring Center)
Aileen walked between two soldiers. Brian paced beside her.
"Dr. Aileen, the holding room conditions are decent. You can rest well and cooperate with questioning," Brian said—tone like he was pitching employee benefits.
Aileen didn't look at him. Her fingers tapped fast on her wristband screen.
"What are you doing?" Brian frowned.
"Submitting audit supplemental materials," Aileen said. "According to Appendix Three of the Anomaly Review Procedure: while detained but not formally suspended, an operator still retains one evidence-supplement submission right. I just submitted a note: if extracted debris models aren't paired with an environmental noise reproduction test, a standalone ID has no adjudication weight."
Brian's face sank slightly.
Almost immediately, Aileen's wristband, Brian's wristband, and a nearby soldier's wristband all vibrated at once.
A system receipt popped up:
[Audit supplement received. Verification requirement: environmental noise reproduction test.][New workflow generated: reproduction-test window (open / requires on-site maintenance chain cooperation).]
Brian stared at the screen for a few seconds, then smiled. "Aileen. You really know how to weaponize the manual."
"Just following procedure," Aileen said.
"Fine." Brian pressed his earpiece. "Upgrade detention to isolation. Freeze all her supplemental submissions."
He'd barely finished speaking when the wristband buzzed again.
This time the receipt had an icy blue border:
[Supervisor request: denied.][Reason: during audit, evidence-supplement rights hold higher priority than temporary restriction.][Suggestion: if restricting the operator is required, apply temporary re-verification to the reproduction-test on-site executor(s).]
Brian's gaze shifted at that last line.
He turned toward Aileen. "You win the procedure. But you won't keep the people."
Trench Zone
The service hatch was open. Two maintenance workers were down inside checking lines. Sophia stood among a cluster of curious refugees, not too close, not too far.
She watched Daniel and Marcus walk up and speak to the supervising technician. The technician nodded and pointed toward the hatch.
Daniel crouched by the opening, pretending to jot notes. A worker reached up from inside and handed out a small object—gray-white, like a plastic clip.
Daniel took it, swept it with a scanner, then slipped it into his tool bag. The whole exchange took less than five seconds.
Sophia finally exhaled.
The real resonance clip she had shoved in earlier—she'd already swapped it out.
What was left inside now was her pre-prepared "clean shell": same frequency, but no spray code, no markings—like a standard part fresh off an assembly line.
The real one was in her palm now, still slightly warm.
The maintenance worker closed the hatch. The alarm lights died.
Daniel stood, nodded at Marcus, then hurried back to his terminal and started typing.
Sophia turned and disappeared into the crowd.
Daniel submitted the debris ID and location. The system displayed: "Received successfully."
Almost at the same time, a new receipt hit—not just for him.
In the entire gate hall, every wristband screen lit up once.
Marcus looked down. A line of red text slammed onto his display:
[High-risk binding candidate pool: enrolled][Related process: reproduction test / evidence chain][Role: Assistant (Brown) — status: under temporary re-verification][Possible disposition: cancel / reassign / downgrade to supervised escort]
"Fuck," Marcus muttered.
Brian's counterattack had landed. He wasn't blocking the workflow—he was blocking the person. He wanted to rip the "assistant" key out of Marcus's hands and replace it with his own people.
Marcus had to act before this "temporary re-verification" returned a result.
Right then, his wristband jolted again.
Not red this time—an aggressive gold frame. A pop-up covered the entire screen:
[Audit secondary verification update][Debris-model credibility: MEDIUM → MEDIUM+ (allowed to continue)][Conclusion: cause undetermined / leaning environmental interference; operator conviction deferred]
Marcus's heart kicked.
But before he could read more, a second pop-up crashed down immediately:
[Subprocess 11 window: OPEN (00:90)][Assistant confirmation request: sent to Brown assistant wristband][Confirm: YES / NO]
Fine print underneath:
"Confirmation will activate mother-anchor 7-4-23's Subprocess 11 verification window."
Marcus's finger lifted instantly toward YES.
His fingertip was still a centimeter above the screen when—
BEEP—
A shrieking warning tone.
The display turned blood-red in an instant:
[Supervisor temporary re-verification: assistant identity pending][Re-verification countdown: 00:30][If failed: assistant reassigned / window voided]
Thirty seconds.
Marcus's hand froze in midair.