Chapter 19: The Dead Space
I didn't have seventy-two hours. I had the length of time it took for a Ministry floor-sweep to notice the lack of a "bridge completed" report.
I dragged Lu Sheng into the bathtub. It was a clumsy, grinding effort that left my shoulders screaming, but the tile was easier to clean than the carpet. He groaned once, a sound of grating bone, before his head lolled against the porcelain.
"Stay under," I whispered, though I wasn't sure if he could hear me.
I didn't use the hotel's towels. I used the spare linens from the equipment bag, binding the puncture in his thigh with the clinical efficiency of someone who had watched him do it once before. The wound was deep—a triangular tear from a tactical spike.
"Names," Lu Sheng muttered, his eyes flickering open for a fraction of a second. "Start with... the archive."
"I'm already there."
I returned to the laptop, sitting on the bathroom floor with my back against the tub. I couldn't risk the desk; the window was still an open throat to the city. I bypassed the Ministry's hardware lock by spoofing the terminal ID. If Song looked at his dashboard, he'd see a ghost-loop of data I'd set to cycle through empty directories.
Then, I opened the contract.
The shell company that had signed my father's death warrant was called Sino-Veritas. It was the primary funnel for the Social Stability Fund—the same fund that paid for the apartment where the woman was currently drinking her tea.
I found the first name I had to delete: Minister Yao.
He was Song's superior, the one who had authorized the shell. If I exposed him, the Ministry would implode. But Yao was the only one who could override a containment failure at the apartment. To save the woman, I had to protect the man who helped kill my father.
"Lin Xiao."
I looked up. Lu Sheng was staring at the screen, his face a grey mask of sweat and porcelain. He saw the name. He saw the choice.
"He's the only one with the override," I said.
"The truth is for people who aren't bleeding," Lu Sheng rasped. He reached out, his fingers stained with his own copper, and touched the edge of the keyboard. "Delete the link. Give Yao his cover."
I looked at the cursor blinking over Yao's name. I didn't think about justice. I thought about the silence in an apartment that was actually a tomb.
I hit the delete key.
The link to Minister Yao vanished. The Sino-Veritas contract was now a floating, orphaned document with no high-level signature.
A notification chirped on the screen.
[INCOMING COMMUNICATION: D. SONG]
I looked at the bathroom door. The glass in the main room was still shattered. The blood was still on the floor.
"He's coming up," I said.
"Then hide the knife," Lu Sheng said, his eyes closing again. "And start lying."