The ferry never came.
She waited anyway.
Three ferries were listed. None arrived.
Behind her, the city loomed like a closed eye.The city felt like it was waiting for something.
It felt like the world had slowed, but not stopped. Like a breath held too long. She checked the burner phone once again. Still dead. No signal.
She waited near the dock for nearly an hour before she gave up and started walking. She walked east, keeping the river to her left, her hood pulled low.
After walking for awhile she reached,near the underpass by Jinling Road, she passed a checkpoint that hadn't been there yesterday. Uniformed figures not the local police,medics were quietly scanning retinas. No questions. No shouting. Just a slow procession of bowed heads and open eyes.
She kept to the edge, head down, pulse steady.
Her burner buzzed in her pocket.
Unknown Source:Don't go back to your apartment. You've been flagged. They'll erase the records, not just you. Tier 3 now means silence.
She didn't stop.
Across the street, a noodle shop's TV played a muted press conference. Government officials smiled behind charts of stable infection rates. Behind the lie, a man collapsed quietly outside the door no one moved to help.
She ducked into an alley, cut through a forgotten arcade. The lights inside flickered like old memories. Beneath a dead claw machine, she opened her tablet. Pulled up the corrupted Virex logs.
One entry blinked at her:
Subject 0622:"Stood motionless for hours. Pupils dilated. Pulse steady. Whispered: 'I can see the net.'"Status: Threshold crossed. Initiate Protocol Blackout.
She closed the file.
Someone was in the arcade.
Li An stiffened.
She heard the breath first soft, even then the step. Not heavy. Not threatening. But alert.
A man stood just past the doorway, half-shadowed, wearing a dark field jacket and boots covered with dust. Not military. Not civilian. His eyes scanned the room like someone trained to see too much too fast.
And then they landed on her.
She didn't move.
He looked down at the tablet in her hands.
"You shouldn't be reading that," he said quietly, voice low, steady. "That kind of truth burns people."
Li An said nothing.
He stepped forward, slowly, like approaching an injured animal.
"You downloaded the 0491 series. You've seen the pattern. You know they've started containment outside Sector 6."
Her grip tightened.
"Who are you?"
The faintest pause. Then: "Someone who used to believe the virus was the problem."
He glanced toward the window, where the checkpoint sirens had begun to hum.
"They're not testing for infection anymore. They're mapping behavior. Triggers. Speech cadence. Reflection tracking."
"Virex," she whispered. "It's listening."
His eyes flicked back to hers. "It's evolving."
Before she could ask another question, they heard a strange humming noise coming from the alley.It was a surveillance drone.They both freezed for sec.
He pulled a thin black mask from his jacket, slipped it on.
"Leave the city, Li An."
She startled. "How do you—"
But he was already gone, slipping into the shadows like he'd never been there.
She stood there a moment longer, heart hammering. The arcade suddenly felt colder. Quieter.
Whoever he was… he'd known her name. Her files. Her fear.
And somehow, she didn't feel so alone anymore.