71 hours to go
As the old-fashioned clock in the attic struck one in the morning, Du Siling finally found the backup power supply for the listening device. He squatted down in front of the dusty circuit board, his fingertips lightly touching a nearly forgotten mark—the standard serial number of a police listening device. This discovery made his temples throb.
"As expected..." he muttered to himself, carefully prying open the storage unit disguised as an ordinary capacitor. The indicator light on the micro hard drive was still lit in green, showing that it had been recording continuously.
Outside the window, the rain intensified. Large raindrops pounded against the tin roof like countless tiny hammer blows. Du Siling connected the hard drive to her decryption device, and dozens of encrypted audio recordings immediately appeared on the screen. The latest timestamp showed it was this afternoon—Han Beimo had a conversation with someone codenamed "Gardener."
Du Siling opened the file, and Han Beimo's deep voice sounded in the earpiece: "...Are the azaleas in bloom...? No, it's the one in the blue porcelain pot..."
The call seemed ordinary, but Du Siling's police decryption chip detected deep encryption. After triple decoding, the hidden message surfaced: "Alpha memory is beginning to recover; the Ω sample has been delivered to the safe house; Phase Two will begin within 72 hours."
Du Siling felt a cold sweat break out on his back. He quickly flipped through the other documents and found a scanned old photograph: a young Huo Mingyuan standing in front of the police station, holding a little boy wearing a rhododendron wreath in his arms. On the back of the photograph was written: "To Alpha, remember your real father."
"Found something interesting?"
Han Beimo's voice came from the stairwell. Du Siling turned around abruptly, his right hand instinctively reaching for the pistol at his waist. Han Beimo leaned against the doorframe, toying with the blue porcelain key in his hand. Moonlight streamed in through the small attic window, gilding his silhouette with a silvery edge.
"You know I can decode." Du Siling did not deny it, maintaining a squatting posture so that she could exert force at any time.
Han Beimo chuckled, flipping the key between his fingers. "I also know you've contacted Chen Yan." He pulled out Du Siling's communicator and pressed play. After a brief static, Du Siling's low voice came through: "...Reinforcements needed...Han Beimo has the Ω sample..."
Du Siling's pupils contracted. The communication was sent from inside the submarine, where he had confirmed that no one was around.
"The submarine's escape pod," Han Beimo seemed to read his mind, "has a very interesting sound wave collecting device." He walked slowly closer, each step causing the old floor to groan under its strain. "When did you start to suspect Omega?"
"General Huo's dog tag." Du Siling slowly straightened up. "The projected date is ten years earlier than our remembered birthdays." He deliberately didn't say the whole thing, wanting to test Han Beimo's reaction.
Han Beimo stopped two steps away from him. The distance was delicate—just beyond Du Siling's sudden attack range, yet close enough to see the other's eyelashes flutter. He suddenly ripped open his shirt collar, revealing a gruesome scar below his collarbone: "Do you know what kind of injury this is?"
"Stray bullets from police operations," Du Siling repeated the other party's earlier statement.
"No." Han Beimo traced the scar's path with his fingertips. "It was caused by debris from the culture chamber when the Ω sample first went berserk." He grabbed Du Siling's hand and pressed it onto the scar. "Can you feel the beating? That's not my heartbeat, it's the resonance frequency of the RH-0 gene."
The skin beneath my palms felt unusually hot, and a rhythmic pulsation could be felt through it, unlike a normal heart rate.
Du Siling tried to pull his hand away, but it was held down even more firmly. Han Beimo suddenly moved closer, his breath hot against Du's ear: "71 hours, Officer Du. Once the countdown begins, who do you think will find us first? Chen Yan? Or General Huo?"
Du Siling suddenly broke free, taking a step back to create distance. Han Beimo didn't pursue, but simply held up the blue porcelain key to the moonlight. Only then did Du Siling notice the peculiarity of the key's teeth—each groove was engraved with tiny numbers.
"Do you know what this is?" Han Beimo asked.
"A key to a certain facility."
"Not entirely." Han Beimo suddenly tossed him the key. "This is a memory lock. Ling Hua gave it to Huo Mingyuan before she died; it can unlock the original memories of the Ω sample."
The moment Du Siling caught the key, the metal surface suddenly heated up. He instinctively wanted to throw it away, but found the key stuck to his palm. Tiny golden lines appeared where his skin touched it, exactly like the genetic markings on Han Beimo's body.
"It seems Ω has chosen you." Han Beimo's voice suddenly seemed distant. "Interesting..."
Du Siling's vision began to distort, and countless unfamiliar images flooded her mind like a tidal wave—
Ling Hua, wearing a white lab coat, is crying in the laboratory... Huo Mingyuan is holding an infant with an Ω mark on its forehead... Dozens of culture chambers are arranged in an underground facility, each containing "Han Beimo" and "Du Siling" of different ages...
The clearest image is of a circular, sealed chamber with three test tubes suspended in the center: red, blue, and clear. The labels below the test tubes read: "Select: Fusion/Separation/Reset".
The illusion abruptly ended. Du Siling collapsed to his knees, gasping for breath. The key had slipped from his grasp, but the golden lines on his skin continued to spread slowly. Han Beimo knelt before him, his golden pupils flickering like two dancing flames in the darkness.
"What did you see?" he asked.
"Three choices..." Du Siling's voice was hoarse, "Red, blue, and transparent."
For the first time, a crack appeared in Han Beimo's expression: "Transparent? Impossible... General Huo only developed two types..."
Suddenly, the sound of shattering glass came from downstairs. Both of them tensed up at the same time. Han Beimo silently moved to the window and lifted a corner of the curtain. Three black SUVs were parked outside the safe house, and more than a dozen fully armed SWAT officers were spreading out to surround it.
"Chen Yan's men," Han Beimo sneered, "arrived faster than you predicted."
Du Siling frowned: "I didn't contact them."
"I know." Han Beimo took two daggers from a hidden compartment in the floor and tossed one to Du Siling. "It's General Huo. He needs to force us to make a choice."
The sound of a breaching machine hitting a door came from downstairs. Han Beimo suddenly grabbed Du Siling by the collar, pulling him close enough to hear his breath: "Remember this now—no matter what happens, the Ω sample cannot fall into the hands of either side."
Why are you telling me this?
"Because..." Han Beimo's lips curled into an almost gentle smile, "you're the only one who understands."
The sound of SWAT officers rushing up the stairs approached like thunder. Han Beimo flung open the back window, and torrential rain immediately poured in. He glanced at Du Siling one last time, then leaped into the rainy night.
Du Siling stood rooted to the spot, the gun in his hand feeling as heavy as lead. Footsteps from downstairs had already reached the corner of the stairs. He looked down at the fading golden lines on his palm and made his decision—
He inserted the blue porcelain key between his teeth and bit it to pieces.
A cool liquid instantly filled his mouth. The moment the SWAT team burst through the door, Du Siling's world went dark, the last thing he heard being the whisper of the Ω sample in his mind: "Welcome home, Beta-2..."
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