Log 05
Residual Ash
The explosion tore the night in two.
As I charged down the stairwell of the Bayfront Police Station, a bloom of pink light flared across the distant skyline—like someone had thrown a dream into a furnace. The forensic center was unmistakable. Glass, steel beams, laboratory-white walls—reduced in an instant to fragments of language scattered in the air. The wind moved fast, grinding shattered truths into ash. This city had always been good at that—burning truth until nothing but dust remained.
The comms channel was chaos.
“—All units respond! Explosion at Forensic Center. Possible secondary device. Establish perimeter—”
“MCS en route,” I cut in. “Chee Yan , Mun Tseng—status.”
Half a second of silence. Then Chee Yan’s breath, sharp and ragged. “I’m at the A-block rear slope! Mun Tseng’s trapped on the second floor—sampling room!”
I clenched my jaw and turned to Cheung Man Man. “You drive. Fast.”
She nodded. The Land Rover Defender growled to life, low and predatory. We blasted through two red lights and climbed the access road. The wind forced its way through the window seams—not fresh. It carried the sickly sweetness of burning plastic, fabric, human oil. Death wrapped in sugar.
When we arrived, half the main structure had collapsed. A floor slab leaned at a crooked angle against a support pillar. The fire suppression system had triggered too late; flames crawled along ventilation ducts like veins of molten light. Uniformed officers struggled with crowd control. Tactical units sealed the inner perimeter.
We showed credentials and pushed through.
“You take the north stairwell,” I told Man Man. “I’ll go east wing. She’s on two.”
“Watch for secondary blasts.”
“I know.”
I pulled on a mask, lifted a shield, and stepped into fire.
The building breathed like a dying lung. Every inhale filled with dust. Glass shards screamed beneath my boots. The second-floor landing was blocked by twisted steel beams, leaving only a narrow gap.
I wedged the shield in, shoulder against metal, body sliding through the crack. My flashlight beam cut the smoke.
Two silhouettes.
The shorter one coughed violently.
“Chee Yan.”
His sleeve was charred, blood streaking his shoulder, but he kept hammering at the reinforced door.
“She’s inside!”
I pressed my ear to the metal. “Lee Mun Tseng. Respond.”
Two knocks from inside. Short. Short.
Alive.
The blast had warped the door tracks. “We’ll breach,” I said.
He handed me tools, hands shaking. “Power’s unstable—”
“No time.”
I set the shield as a wedge. First impact—to test. Second—to shift structure. Third—with full body torque.
Metal screamed.
Chee Yan swung a fire extinguisher like a battering ram beside me. His strength was raw, straight-line force; I redirected it at an angle. On the fourth strike, the seal split.
Heat roared out.
I forced the gap open and slipped inside.
The sampling room wasn’t filled with black smoke—but white haze. Sweet. Floral. Jasmine. Sandalwood.
E-IX residue.
Mun Tseng leaned against the wall, goggles cracked, mask half hanging. She looked at me and smiled faintly.
“You’re two minutes late.”
“Can you stand?”
“Yes.”
A burning cable dropped beside us. Flames spread along the floor.
I grabbed her wrist and hauled her toward the door.
Chee Yan had laid down a fire blanket as a slide path. We wrapped and moved. Behind us, a secondary flash detonated.
Heat slammed into our backs.
Chee Yan turned, lifted a fallen steel beam just enough to widen the escape gap. His arms trembled violently, but he didn’t let go.
We made it down the last flight of stairs just as fire swallowed the upper landing.
Outside air hit my lungs like ice.
Mun Tseng pulled off her mask, coughing hard but conscious. Chee Yan hovered beside her, voice breaking. “You’re okay? I thought—”
She touched his neck and pressed her forehead against his.
“Thank you.”
I looked away.
Two seconds is enough to change everything.
—
Drones went up. Thermal scans confirmed the blast center: a storage drum in a side corridor.
Not an accident.
Someone had planted it.
Internal Affairs arrived far too quickly.
“MCS is suspended pending investigation.”
Anonymous accusation.
Not anonymous.
We surrendered gear. I slipped a microSD card into my sleeve seam.
You never survive this job without keeping a hidden breath.
—
Later, in the underground garage, we reviewed a chip from one of Wai Hing’s sources.
Video footage.
A lab room.
A restrained subject wearing neural headgear.
Dr. Lau Zi Him adjusting controls.
And beside him—
Commissioner Lau Kwok Fan.
The mouth formed silent words:
“Increase dosage.”
The neural readings spiked violently.
Then static.
Delta test.
Deviation protocol.
Not therapy.
Conditioning.
“Project MORPHEUS,” Hui Xing murmured. “It’s bigger than we thought. Hospitals. Private labs. Sleep pods. A compliance network.”
Compliance.
Control through dreams.
—
Near midnight, Man Man and I infiltrated a warehouse linked to a shell foundation—Lead White Foundation.
Lead white. A primer used to cover original paint.
Inside stood three silver sleep pods.
One display read:
M-9/Δ — Compliance Protocol
WAITING SUBJECT
Waiting.
For someone to lie down.
A voice drifted from the doorway behind us.
“Detective Loke… you should sleep.”
Not the commissioner.
But tuned to the same instrument.
I didn’t answer.
Chasing would surrender rhythm.
We withdrew with the hard drive.
—
Back in the car, I received a message from Mun Tseng:
Home.
Starting data recovery.
We’re together.
I stared at the screen for a moment before replying:
Congratulations. Don’t sleep too deeply.
Her reply:
Don’t worry. I’m wide awake.
I put the phone away and looked at the city lights reflected in the dark water.
The scent of jasmine lingered faintly in the air.
The dream is still moving.
But so are we.
“Let’s go,” I told Man Man. “Time to dig deeper.”
The engine started.
Gray ash drifted in the night wind.
Ash doesn’t speak on its own.
You have to grind your heart finer than dust—
and force it to confess.