The armored car rolled to a stop just outside the walls as the massive gates began their slow, grinding ascent. tal scread against tal, floodlights sweeping across the sand in blinding white arcs.
"I once doubted the walls," Harmione said, her voice quiet, eyes fixed on the rising barrier. Sothing new lived in her face, a harder kind of understanding that hadn’t been there when we left.
"You can’t appreciate what you have until you lose it," rcury answered from the driver’s seat.
Nobody argued.
The gates opened fully with a final, thunderous clang. Sherry’s eyes were bright beside , not crying but close, the raw expression of soone who had been afraid they weren’t coming back and was now staring at proof they had. Code lay slumped in his seat with his eyes closed, the only one for whom returning seed to be a neutral event.
Sinn stepped out first. A squad of soldiers marched through the gate and snapped sharp salutes. He returned it cleanly, then gestured toward rcury.
She started the engine again. The car rolled forward, stopping beside him. Sinn climbed back in. rcury drove us through.
Inside the walls. She stopped just past the threshold.
"CGI headquarters next," Sinn said, his voice carrying a weight it hadn’t held since before the Guardian truck. "But first." He turned in his seat, looking at each of us in turn. "I want to thank every one of you."
rcury wiped her eyes quickly with the back of her hand, small tears she refused to acknowledge. Sherry’s fingers tightened around mine. Harmione stared straight ahead, jaw set.
"This mission was bigger than any of us expected," Sinn continued. "We lost people. We lost more than we should have. But the mission is complete. The walls will rember what happened out there." He paused, throat working once. "I will rember."
Another military truck pulled ahead to lead us. rcury followed.
We moved through the city streets along the sa route Bala had taken the first day I ca inside. I recognized every turn. The sa squat buildings. The sa flickering streetlights. The specific heavy silence of a city at night that had no idea what had been done outside its walls to keep it standing.
The CGI building rose ahead, all sharp angles and cold glass under the floodlights.
I stared at it through the windshield and thought about Bala waiting inside with his specin, his failing Life Layer, and whatever plan he still believed was intact. I thought about Owen sowhere deeper in the complex, having already delivered his own specin and whatever version of events he had chosen to tell.
The truck ahead slowed. rcury followed, pulling us into the wide, brightly lit courtyard. Engines cut off. Doors began to open. We were back.
The CGI building doors hissed open.
Bala strode out at the head of a group of agents, his coat flapping once in the night air. Behind him, the others spilled forward, Max Donman first, face splitting into a wide grin, Rebecca beside him, Danny Stam, and at the back Ernesto la’s unmistakable ssy blue hair catching the floodlights.
They were already celebrating before we were fully out of the car, fists pumping, voices rising in sharp, relieved shouts that echoed off the concrete courtyard.
Sinn stepped out first, boots hitting the ground hard. Code slid out right behind him, blades retracted but posture still coiled. Inside the car, Sherry fell into , arms wrapping tight around my waist. May joined instantly, pressing in from the other side. The three of us held on for one fierce, wordless mont, bodies locked together before the outside world demanded us back.
rcury and Harmione climbed out. The CGI agents kept their distance but applauded louder, the sound sharp and rhythmic, giving us the space we needed.
The girls stepped clear. I was last.
We stood together just outside the car, the seven of us, arms pulling into a tight, ssy knot. The team that had gone out and co back. The agents held the periter, still clapping, letting the mont stretch. Sweat, dust, and dried blood still clung to our clothes. Exhaustion sat heavy in every shoulder, but we stood there anyway, holding the fact that we were still here.
Bala walked forward and stopped several ters short, hands clasped behind his back.
"Protocol," he said, voice carrying clear apology. "You had an infected in your vehicle. I can’t get closer yet."
He looked at each of us slowly, the seven standing in the harsh lights of the CGI building in the middle of the night, plain still ground into our skin and clothes, mission carved into our faces.
"Is it alive?" he asked.
"Yes, sir," Sinn answered.
"We thought the mission had failed when the first car arrived with a dead specin," Bala said. "Whatever you went through out there... the walls will rember it." He snapped a crisp salute to Sinn. Sinn returned it. Bala turned sharply and walked back inside.
A team in full white hazmat garnts approached the car with clinical efficiency. One went straight to the boot. Another stopped in front of us.
"Follow ," the lead technician said, and turned toward the building without waiting.
The agents lined both sides of the path, still applauding steadily. I walked with Sherry close on my right, her hand brushing mine. Max caught her eye from the sidelines and waved. She waved back, quick, genuine, but the kind of wave that carried the knowledge she was standing beside soone else.
We moved through the wide doors into the brightly lit corridor. The air inside slled of antiseptic and recycled oxygen.
"Where are they taking us?" Sherry asked quietly.
"Isolation," I said. "Standard protocol after contact with infected. They’ll keep us separate until they’re sure."
She nodded, leaning into my side as we walked deeper. The corridor stretched ahead, sterile white walls and overhead lights humming softly.
I looked at the man leading us, then at the halls branching off. I was inside the walls again. Sa body. Completely different weight.
Abram, son of Ethan Nadez, I reminded myself as we reached the quarantine zone doors. They hissed open ahead of us, revealing rows of sealed observation rooms.
The mission that had started as Bala’s had beco sothing else entirely.
And I was only getting started.
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