Log 14
Collapsing Mask
The sea before dawn is the quietest battlefield.
The fog has yet to clear. Waves slap against the hull like a countdown.
Wai Hing stands on deck, smoking. He doesn’t look at me.
“Intel confirmed. Delta Layer is at the deep-sea cable junction. Codename: Deep Whale. Fifty meters down, there’s a floating tri-compartment module. Lau Zi Him is inside. And his… people.”
“People?” Chee Yan asks.
“Not anymore.” Wai Hing flicks away the cigarette. “He used Beta data for implantation. Half human, half machine. They have pulses — but no consciousness.”
Man Man checks her weapon. Fast. Precise.
Each of us is equipped: MP5 submachine gun, sidearm, tranquilizer darts, dive knife, flashbangs, electromagnetic grenades.
Chee Yan carries a laptop with an external power pack. Iris and Nori control the unmanned submersible and acoustic interference systems.
“This time, there are no orders from above,” Wai Hing says. “We decide life and death.”
I nod.
“We’re not here to kill him,” I say. “We’re here to make sure he can’t dream anymore.”
The engine pushes forward. Spray cuts like blades.
The sea splits open. Our vessel slips into a black underwater corridor — the maintenance entrance to Deep Whale. Cold air presses down like a wall. Oxygen mixed with iron. It smells like blood.
“Entering Delta Layer,” Chee Yan reports.
“Temperature nine degrees. Depth fifty-two meters,” Nori replies.
The tri-compartment module floats in silver-gray, three segments aligned like a sleeping metal whale.
Its eye is the central control chamber.
We descend beneath it and anchor magnetic hooks.
Three. Two. One. Breach.
Wai Hing moves first, firing a liquid breaching compound that seals silently along the door seam.
Three seconds later — click.
We slip inside.
The lighting is sterile white. Reflective metal walls. The air smells of electricity and pharmaceuticals.
Two guards in white coats stand ahead, wires plugged behind their ears, eyes hollow.
“Neural chain control,” Man Man whispers.
“Take them down.”
Wai Hing and I split left and right. One muted shot each.
They collapse almost simultaneously. Darts pierce their chests. A brief flicker of current — then silence.
No struggle. Just cut strings.
“Thermals show four targets thirty meters ahead,” Chee Yan says. “Two rooms. Server control on the left. Main corridor on the right.”
“I’ll take left.”
“I’ve got right,” Man Man says.
“Chee Yan, stay back. No improvising.”
“When have I ever—”
“Last time.”
“…Fine.”
I slip into the server control room.
Screens line the walls — city surveillance feeds. Subway stations. Hospitals. Shopping malls. Schools. Everyone walking. Smiling. No conversations.
Beta-era recordings.
He’s replaying dreams.
Across the room stands a man, back turned, hands on the console.
“Don’t move,” I say.
He slowly turns.
Half his face is covered in bio-metal membrane.
“Loke sir.”
It’s my voice.
“I am your Beta-era echo,” he says. “More precisely, your consciousness duplicate left behind in the dream.”
He draws an electromagnetic blade. Blue light hums in the air.
“Dr. Lau wants to test something. Can a man kill himself?”
He lunges.
Steel-fast.
We exchange three strikes. He moves too perfectly.
“You imitate well,” I say. “But you’ll never learn how to be wrong.”
I feint. He blocks flawlessly.
Too flawless.
I sweep his leg, kick the console. Sparks explode. Alarm blares.
Electric current hits his shoulder. One second of paralysis.
I lock his neck, drive my knee into his spine.
“Humans shouldn’t keep mistakes!” he snarls.
“Mistakes are what make us human.”
I fire an electromagnetic spike into his chest.
His body convulses. Metal cracks. Semi-transparent tissue exposed.
“…Freedom… is noise…”
“Then let the world be louder.”
One bullet through his forehead.
The blue light dies.
All city feeds go dark.
“Right side clear,” Man Man says. “But armed units are entering Compartment Two! Heavy fire! Move!”
Gunfire erupts.
Wai Hing tosses a flashbang.
White light detonates.
We push forward.
Three mercenaries drop.
Chain-controlled again.
“He’s using people as firewalls,” Chee Yan growls.
“Can you shut them down?” I ask.
“Only if I breach Delta’s core.”
“Do it.”
“I need Port Three in the central chamber.”
I glance back at Wai Hing. “Cover me.”
He raises his rifle. “Go.”
I charge into the red-lit corridor.
It’s long and narrow, water-cooling pipes running along both sides like exposed veins. Ahead, two mercenaries lay down suppressive fire. I dive, roll, and slide into a shadowed recess, yank out a flash-charge, and sling it backhand—
Crack.
The burst tears the darkness open like lightning ripping the sky. Sparks scatter.
They flinch on instinct. I pivot out from the side, raise my weapon—two shots to the chest. One drops. Two more to the leg. The other collapses to his knees.
I surge forward and smash the butt of my gun into the neural chain port at the back of his neck.
His body goes limp.
Chee Yan’s voice cuts in over comms. “Link established. Ten seconds and I’ll have access to the δ internal network.”
“Make it fast.”
“Eight… seven… six…”
“We’ve got company,” Wai Hing says, low and steady.
The hatch ahead detonates inward. A squad in tactical gear floods through. Gunfire erupts again.
A storm of bullets.
I flatten and slide into a recess along the wall, extending my rifle to return fire. Rounds punch through steel with a shriek that scrapes the nerves raw.
From the opposite gap, Mian Man lobs a smoke canister. The corridor floods instantly with churning white haze.
She moves inside it like a shadow.
“Left side clear!”
“Two on the right!” I shout.
She vaults off the wall, drives a kick into an enemy’s face, and rides the momentum down to the floor. I finish the last one with a clean shot.
Clear.
“Chee Yan?”
“I’m in!” His breathing is sharp. “I found the host core—Lau Zi Him’s consciousness is mapped into the ‘Black Whale Core.’ I can freeze him for three minutes, but you’ll have to pull the lines manually.”
“Location?”
“Core chamber—door right in front of you.”
I pull the pin and push through.
The core chamber is a vast sphere.
Liquid-cooling walls curve around us, glowing faintly. At the center hangs a transparent cube. Inside it floats Lau Zi Him.
White coat. Eyes closed. His body threaded with hundreds of cables.
Six black-clad guards surround him—all neural-chain controlled.
They stand motionless, like statues guarding a god.
“He’s dreaming,” I murmur.
“Then wake him,” Mian Man replies, adjusting her aim.
I step forward and sight the control console of the cube.
In that instant, all six guards snap their eyes open.
No expression. Movements eerily synchronized.
Six guns drawn. Six streams of fire.
“Cover!”
I roll behind a console as bullets tear into the floor, sparks exploding around me.
Was Hing storms in, back to the wall, fires three controlled bursts.
Two guards take rounds to the chest—and keep advancing.
Mian Man launches forward, sweeps one down, drives her blade into the control chip at the base of his skull.
Chee Yan’s voice spikes. “δ defense protocols rebooting! I can’t hold this long!”
“Five seconds,” I grit out.
I yank an EMP grenade from my pack and pull the pin.
“Scatter!”
Wai Hing grabs Mian Man and dives back.
I hurl the grenade into the center of the cube.
Boom—
Blue-white light flares, pressure collapsing into a vacuum pulse.
Sound disappears.
All six guards drop at once. Wires snap. Sparks spit into the air.
The coolant ripples.
Inside the cube, Lau Zi Him’s eyes open.
He looks at me—and smiles.
“You really came.”
His voice resonates directly inside my head.
“I thought you wanted to be a god.”
“I only wanted the world to stop hurting.”
“You numbed it first.”
He smiles faintly. “Loke Tin Kay, you think you’re free? You’re nothing but my control variable. Without me, you have no meaning.”
“Then I’ll destroy two people— you and me.”
I raise my gun.
He lifts his hand, fingertips touching the glass.
Instantly, the chamber lights turn red.
Chee Yan screams over comms. “He triggered self-destruct! Fifteen seconds to full hull overpressure!”
I lunge forward and slam my fist into the glass.
It cracks—but doesn’t shatter.
Mian Man tosses me an electromagnetic breach hammer. “Use this!”
I catch it and swing down hard.
Crash—
The glass explodes. Freezing coolant blasts outward.
I grab Lau Zi Him by the collar and drag him out of the liquid.
He thrashes. The doctor’s eyes are gone. What’s left is madness.
“You don’t understand—pain will come back—they’ll hate you—!”
“At least they’ll feel,” I answer quietly.
I bring the gun butt down against the back of his neck.
He goes limp.
Alarms howl.
“Move!” Wai Hing roars.
Chee Yan counts down in my ear. “Ten—nine—eight—”
We haul Lau Zi Him out of the core chamber and sprint down the corridor.
Explosions rip behind us. Shockwaves shove us forward.
At the hatch, Chee Yan shouts, “Three—two—”
We leap clear. The sub’s grappling lines yank us upward.
BOOM—
The entire δ layer detonates on the seabed. Fire blossoms underwater into a massive boiling sphere, forcing the ocean surface to bulge.
The maintenance boat lurches violently. I slam onto the deck, lungs burning.
Mian Man drops beside me, one hand steadying me, the other still holding her gun on guard.
Sea wind cuts across us, sharp with salt and smoke.
“Is it over?” she asks.
I look at the sea, split by a blade of sunlight.
“No,” I say. “Just another layer waking up.”
Wai Hing dumps the unconscious Lau Zi Him at the stern and binds his wrists.
Chee Yan wipes sweat from his face, managing a weak grin. “Keeping this guy alive is worse than killing him.”
“Let him live,” I say quietly. “Let him face pain.”
On the horizon, sunlight tears through the fog.
The white tower in the distance is only a faint silhouette.
I grip my rifle. Inside, there’s nothing but stillness.
The world pauses for one breath.
Then the wind rises. The waves return, striking the hull again—
A reminder:
The dream may be broken.
The war is not.