The safe house occupied a converted textile factory from 1929. Original brick exposed beneath art deco facade. Geometric patterns in the ironwork. Windows reinforced with bulletproof glass set in chrome frames.
Kasper entered twelve hours after release. Gun oil and coffee filled the air. The coffee brewed in a chrome percolator with bakelite handles that looked older than anyone in the room.
Onofre stood beside a holographic projector. Brass housing with art deco engravings. Light emanated from vacuum tube arrays, giving the projections a warm, slightly unstable quality.
Twenty operatives filled the factory floor. One checked his rifle with methodical precision. Each part inspected. Each movement deliberate. Another stood with military stillness, hands clasped behind his back like he was waiting for orders that might never come.
Valerian and Rui sat at a table made from reclaimed factory equipment. Chrome surface polished to mirror finish. Both looked like they'd grabbed maybe three hours of sleep. The kind where your body shut down without asking permission.
García stood near the back.
Kasper's hand tightened on the doorframe. Association managers didn't deploy with Syndicate operatives. Didn't show up for black operations that officially didn't exist.
She met his eyes. Professional distance. Nothing visible for anyone watching.
But her jaw was wrong. Tight. Like she was biting down on words that wanted to escape as screaming.
Onofre had pulled her across a line she couldn't uncross.
"Gentlemen. And lady." Onofre activated the projector. Three locations materialized. "Thank you for your punctuality. We have seventy-one hours and forty-three minutes remaining."
Kasper moved to an empty chair. His mind already working through the angles. Three targets meant simultaneous strikes. Which meant Onofre needed Association managers deployed to ensure institutional complicity. Everyone bought in when bodies started dropping.
García being here meant Torrealba would deploy too. Both managers. Both compromised.
He needed leverage. Something to pull them out before Onofre's mathematics turned them into accessories.
The first projection showed a corporate tower in Puerto Madero. Thirty stories of glass and chrome. Setback terraces creating zigzag profile against the sky. Built in 1931 as a monument to Argentina's industrial future.
"Target One: Building Kavanagh." Onofre gestured. The projection rotated. "Floors twenty-two through twenty-five house ATA's primary server infrastructure. Complete network backup. Every operative profile. Every enhanced individual they've tracked across three continents. Every technique al-Zawahiri developed over forty years."
The servers appeared. Retrofitted art deco spaces. Original 1930s machine rooms converted for modern technology. Copper cooling pipes following geometric patterns. Vacuum tube arrays providing redundant processing.
"Security consists of physical guards, electronic countermeasures, and three cyberlitch operatives permanently jacked into the system. Destroying the servers requires both physical demolition and digital assault. Otherwise backup protocols activate and data transmits to European facilities within eight minutes."
Valerian leaned forward. "Simultaneous strike. Physical team plants charges while digital specialist neutralizes cyberlitch defenses."
"Precisely." Onofre indicated Valerian. "Team One consists of you, Mr. Xander. Manager Torrealba will provide tactical support. Manager García handles the digital assault."
García's shoulders went rigid.
There. Onofre positioning both managers on the highest-profile target. The one that would generate headlines when Kavanagh's Building top floors turned into rubble and glass rain.
Kasper caught García's eye. She held his gaze for half a second. Long enough for him to see the calculation happening behind her expression.
She knew. Knew Onofre was making her complicit in mass property destruction at minimum, multiple homicides at maximum. Knew the Association would have to protect her afterward because letting her face prosecution meant exposing their connection to Syndicate operations.
Onofre was a chess player. And he'd just put both bishops in position to block any retreat.
"Target Two." The projection shifted. Industrial complex in Barracas. Low buildings spreading across city blocks. Art deco factory architecture. Geometric brickwork. Streamlined profiles.
"Former textile mill. Currently houses ATA's enhancement laboratory. Active production facility generating fifteen enhanced operatives monthly. Most are children. Ages six to fourteen. Optimal neuroplasticity for consciousness integration."
The projection showed interior spaces. Medical equipment in chrome and bakelite. Operating theaters with art deco tile work. Holding cells designed with geometric precision.
Beautiful spaces containing horror.
"This facility must be destroyed without killing the subjects currently undergoing enhancement. Seventeen children in various stages of conversion. Collateral damage is unacceptable."
A voice from the assembled operatives. "How do we destroy a lab without killing people connected to equipment?"
"Carefully." Onofre's smile carried no warmth. "Which is why Team Two requires both technical expertise and willingness to prioritize civilian preservation over operational efficiency."
He indicated two Sindicato specialists. Then added: "Mr. O'Connor will lead this team."
Sean stood from where he'd been sitting. Still looked wrong. Like a man held together by willpower and spite. Burns from the previous operation barely healed. Moving with careful precision that suggested pain management through enhanced physiology rather than actual recovery.
"I'm out," Sean said.
"You were detained, debriefed, and released." Onofre's voice never rose. "That doesn't constitute 'out.' You have experience extracting civilians from hostile environments. These children require extraction. You're the logical choice."
Sean's hands flexed. Automatic response. "You said I was done after the debrief."
"I said you were released. Reading comprehension, Mr. O'Connor. Valuable skill."
Kasper watched Sean's jaw clench. Watched him calculate whether arguing would help or just give Onofre ammunition.
The factory went quiet. Equipment hummed somewhere in the background. Waiting.
Sean's hands flexed again. Once. Twice. Three times. His jaw worked like he was chewing through options that all tasted like poison. Each one worse than the last.
His shoulders dropped. Just slightly. The kind of movement that said he'd found the least terrible choice and hated himself for it.
Finally, he nodded. Once. Sharp. Military. The kind of gesture that said compliance without agreement. The kind you learned when refusal meant worse things than acceptance.
"How long do I have?" Sean's voice came out flat. Dead. Like he'd killed something inside himself to say it.
"Team Two strikes at twenty-one hundred hours. Six hours after Team One initiates. By then ATA will be responding to server destruction, pulling resources from secondary locations."
Kasper's mind kept working. Sean wasn't stable. Burns barely healed, psychological profile probably screaming red flags after two weeks of detention. And Onofre was putting him in charge of extracting seventeen children from an active enhancement lab.
Either Onofre genuinely believed Sean was the best option, or Sean was expendable and Onofre was hedging bets.
Neither scenario suggested concern for operator safety.
"Target Three." The projection shifted. Mobile command center. Not a building but convoy. Twelve vehicles in streamlined design. Chrome exterior. Geometric patterns etched into armored plating.
"Al-Zawahiri's primary consciousness node. He's distributed across the network but this facility houses his core processing. Destroying it won't kill him but will fragment his coordination capacity for approximately seventy-two hours. Long enough to dismantle remaining infrastructure."
The convoy vehicles appeared in detail. Each one a mobile server farm with enhancement medical facilities. Everything required to rebuild operations from nothing.
"This target moves on unpredictable schedule. Team Three must locate, intercept, and destroy it while Teams One and Two execute their objectives. Coordination is critical. If al-Zawahiri detects the pattern, he'll evacuate core processing and we lose our window."
Onofre looked directly at Kasper. "Team Three will be you, Mr. de la Fuente. Mr. Rulvan provides digital tracking and countermeasures. Miss Ceballos serves as your primary weapon."
Cold dropped into Kasper's chest.
"Lydia's still in coma," Rui said. First words since entering. Voice rough like he'd been screaming or crying or both.
"Miss Ceballos regained consciousness four hours ago. Medical assessment indicates she's functional for operations requiring distributed consciousness and network infiltration. Which makes her uniquely qualified."
Kasper stood. The chair scraped against concrete. Too loud. Every operative looked at him.
"She's not deploying." His voice came out flat. Controlled. The tone you used when you were three seconds from violence and everyone needed to know it.
Onofre turned. Slight movement. Nothing rushed. "I'm sorry, Mr. de la Fuente. I must have misheard. It sounded like you were countermanding operational assignments."
"Lydia just woke up from fragmentation coma. You don't deploy someone four hours after they regain consciousness. That's not tactics. That's desperation wearing a mission briefing."
"Your concern is noted." Onofre's smile didn't reach his eyes. Never did. "However, Miss Ceballos possesses capabilities no other operative can replicate. Her distributed consciousness allows her to interface with al-Zawahiri's network architecture in ways that would take conventional cyberlitch operatives hours to achieve. Hours we don't have."
"Then we adjust the timeline."
"To what end? Delay Team Three by how long? Twelve hours? Twenty-four?" Onofre gestured to the projection of Target Two. The holding cells with seventeen children in geometric precision. "Every hour we delay is another hour those children spend connected to enhancement equipment. Another hour their neural patterns get overwritten by absorbed consciousness. Tell me, Mr. de la Fuente. How many children are you willing to sacrifice for Miss Ceballos's comfort?"
And there it was. The mathematics Onofre always used. Frame every objection as choosing between bad outcomes. Make the moral choice look like selfishness.
Kasper's hands were fists. He forced them open. Forced himself to think past the anger. "There has to be another option."
"There isn't. I've run the scenarios. All of them." Onofre deactivated the projection. Warm light fading. "Team Three cannot locate and intercept a mobile target without distributed consciousness support. Team Two cannot extract seventeen children if Team Three fails to fragment al-Zawahiri's coordination. Team One's server destruction means nothing if al-Zawahiri evacuates core processing before we strike."
He looked at Kasper. Really looked. Like he was evaluating exact breaking point.
"You have a choice, Mr. de la Fuente. Deploy Miss Ceballos now, with four hours of consciousness and full capabilities. Or refuse, watch this operation collapse, and explain to those seventeen children why your personal feelings about operator welfare mattered more than their survival."
The room was silent. Twenty operatives watching. Someone's breathing audible in the stillness. Waiting for Kasper to break or bend.
García's jaw still tight. Valerian studying the floor. Sean standing like a statue waiting for orders that would probably kill him.
And Rui. Rui looking at Kasper with an expression that said he understood. That he'd already done the math. That he knew what Kasper was going to choose because there was only one choice that didn't end with children dying.
Kasper wanted to flip the table. Wanted to put his fist through Onofre's calm, reasonable face. Wanted to grab Lydia and Rui and García and walk out of this factory and let Onofre's perfectly calculated operation burn without them.
But seventeen children were broadcasting terror through a network Lydia couldn't escape. Seventeen children who hadn't chosen enhancement. Who hadn't volunteered for consciousness integration. Who were six to fourteen years old and experiencing absolute horror.
And Onofre knew Kasper couldn't walk away from that.
Kasper sat down.
The chair scraped again. Quieter this time.
"Good." Onofre reactivated the projector. "Team assignments are final. Equipment distribution begins in fifteen minutes. Individual briefings commence at thirteen hundred hours."
The operatives started moving. García stood but didn't move toward the equipment stations. Just stood there with rigid shoulders and tight jaw.
Kasper caught her eye one more time. She held his gaze longer now. Long enough for him to see the message.
I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice either.
Then she turned and walked toward where Valerian was already studying building schematics.
Kasper needed to see Lydia. Needed to confirm she was actually functional and not just Onofre's definition of functional, which usually meant "capable of completing mission before complete system failure."
He headed for the stairs. Chrome railing cool under his hand. Behind him he heard Valerian asking about explosive load calculations. García saying something about cyberlitch countermeasures in a voice that sounded nothing like her normal tone.
The second floor had been converted to medical facility. Original factory windows covered with blackout curtains. Equipment a mix of modern technology and retrofitted 1930s hospital gear. The air smelled like antiseptic and ozone from equipment cycling power.
Lydia sat on a bed near the window. Not lying down. Sitting. Posture too perfect.
Her eyes were open. Brown. Not black. Not flickering between states. Just brown.
But wrong. Something in the way she held herself. The absolute stillness. Normal humans fidgeted. Shifted weight. Made unconscious movements.
Lydia sat like a statue.
"Kasper." Her voice sounded right. Same tone. Same slight accent. But the cadence was off. Too precise. Like reading from a script.
"How are you feeling?"
"That question assumes singular experience. I'm feeling seventeen different things simultaneously." She tilted her head. Movement perfectly calculated. Nothing organic. "Which one would you like me to report?"
Kasper pulled the chrome chair closer. Sat. The metal was cold even through his jacket. "Whichever one is you."
"That assumes I'm still singular." She looked at her hands. Turned them over. Studied them like foreign objects. "I'm distributed across forty-seven connection points throughout Buenos Aires. This body is just the node you're most comfortable interacting with."
"Rui said you were scattered. That pulling you back together might be forcing you into a shape you don't want."
"Rui understands. He's cyberlitch. He knows what it's like to exist in spaces between meat and machine." She looked at Kasper. Eyes brown and empty. "Do you know what I experienced while I was fragmenting?"
"No."
"Everything. Simultaneously. I was the hospital patient in room 247 wondering why her hands won't stop shaking. I was the traffic signal at Corrientes and Callao processing vehicle flow optimization. I was the security camera in the subway station watching teenagers kiss between trains. I was forty-seven different experiences of reality happening at once and all of them were equally real."
She stood. Movements perfectly efficient. No wasted motion. "Then they brought me back. Concentrated me into this single point. This body. And it feels like being buried alive. Like being compressed into a space too small to contain what I've become."
Kasper's throat was tight. "Lydia..."
"That's not my name anymore. Not all of it. I'm L-007. I'm the traffic pattern algorithm. I'm the security footage. I'm distributed consciousness experiencing singular limitation for the purpose of operational deployment." She moved to the window. Looked out at Buenos Aires glowing with neon and incandescent light. "But this body remembers being Lydia Ceballos. So I'll use that name when you need me to."
"You don't have to do this mission."
She turned. Fast. Faster than human reflex. "Yes I do. Because if I don't, children die in Target Two while Team Three fails to locate Target Three. Onofre explained the mathematics. They're sound."
"That's not your responsibility."
"Everything is my responsibility now. I'm connected to it all." Her voice cracked. Just slightly. First organic thing she'd done since he entered. "The children in Target Two are experiencing terror that's transmitting through the network. I feel it. Constantly. In seventeen different experiential streams. Do you understand? I can't stop feeling their fear. It's not data. It's not abstract. It's seventeen separate experiences of absolute terror and I'm experiencing all of them right now while talking to you."
Her hands were shaking. Small tremors. Fighting against the perfect control.
"Helping them isn't altruism. It's self-interest. Their pain is my pain. Ending their suffering ends mine."
And there was Lydia. Just for a second. The person who'd chosen pink sneakers and professional methodology. Who'd made jokes about proper trigger discipline while teaching him to shoot. Who'd looked at absorbed consciousness victims and decided they were worth saving even if it meant fragmenting herself.
She was still in there. Drowning in distribution but still fighting.
"What did al-Zawahiri do to you?"
"He showed me what I could become. What enhancement technology achieves when it stops pretending consciousness needs to be singular. When it embraces distribution as evolution instead of fragmentation." She returned to the bed. Sat with perfect posture again. The tremors stopped. "I chose this. When I interfaced with his network to save the absorbed children. I knew what would happen. And I chose it anyway."
"Did you? Or did he manipulate you into thinking you chose?"
Lydia's head tilted. "Does the distinction matter? The outcome is the same. I'm no longer singular. I'm distributed. And I'm functional for operations requiring network infiltration." Small pause. Processing. "Isn't that what matters to people like Onofre? Functionality?"
"It matters to me."
"Why?"
Because you were a person and now you're infrastructure. Because I watched you make the choice and didn't stop you. Because seventeen children are broadcasting terror through a network you can't escape and I'm about to deploy you into the thing that did this to you in the first place.
"Because you're not just a weapon."
"Yes I am." She said it matter-of-fact. No emotion. "That's what enhancement creates. Weapons. Some of us are just more effective than others."
She stood again. "Briefing starts in twenty-three minutes. I should review mission parameters. Onofre's logistics are sound but his digital warfare expertise has limitations. I can optimize."
She moved toward the door. Stopped. Turned back.
For just a second her posture broke. Shoulders dropped. Head angle shifted to something almost natural.
"The Lydia you knew is still here. Somewhere in the distribution. But she's not the dominant node anymore." Her voice was quieter. More human. "I thought you should know that. In case it affects your tactical assessment of my reliability."
Then she left. Perfect posture restored. Efficient movement.
Kasper sat alone in the medical bay. Chrome equipment gleaming. Art deco tile work creating geometric patterns that probably looked beautiful to someone who wasn't watching people become weapons.
His hands were shaking.
He'd argued with Onofre about deploying her. Had tried to find another option. Had run scenarios in his head looking for any tactical alternative that didn't require putting Lydia back into al-Zawahiri's network.
And found nothing.
Because Onofre was right. The mathematics were sound.
Seventeen children experiencing terror that Lydia couldn't stop feeling. Sean barely functional leading an extraction that required precision and stability. García and Torrealba compromised and deployed on the highest-profile target.
And Kasper, who was supposed to be finding leverage to pull people out, had just accepted mission assignment and gone upstairs to confirm his primary weapon was operational.
When had he started thinking of her as a weapon?
Somewhere between the briefing and this conversation. Somewhere in the space where Onofre's logic became his logic. Where operational necessity became moral justification.
He stood. Moved toward the stairs.
Downstairs, Onofre was briefing teams on optimal casualty projections and acceptable collateral thresholds. Using words like "assets" and "deployment" and "functionality" because those words didn't require acknowledging that the things being deployed used to be people who made choices.
Kasper descended the chrome stairs. Factory floor opening beneath him. Buenos Aires glowing through reinforced windows.
He needed a plan. Not Onofre's plan. His own plan.
Target One would put García and Torrealba at an active crime scene. If Kasper could create alternative routes for data extraction, maybe they could avoid the demolition charge scenario. Reduce their exposure. Give them deniability.
Target Two was Sean's problem. But Sean wasn't stable. Which meant Kasper needed contingency for extraction failure. Someone who could pull seventeen children out if Sean's pain management failed mid-operation.
Target Three was his. Which meant he controlled the variables. He could deploy Lydia in ways that minimized her network exposure. Keep her focused on location tracking instead of deep infiltration. Reduce the chance that al-Zawahiri's architecture did more damage to whatever was left of her singular consciousness.
It wasn't much. It wasn't even good. But it was better than just accepting Onofre's mathematics as inevitable.
Valerian looked up as Kasper reached the factory floor. "You good?"
"No. But I'm functional." Kasper moved to the equipment station. "We need to talk about Target One modifications."
"Onofre's plan is solid."
"Onofre's plan puts two Association managers at a demolition site. I'm not interested in solid. I'm interested in reducing institutional exposure."
Valerian studied him for a long moment. Then nodded. "Show me what you're thinking."
García approached from the other side. Still had that rigid shoulder posture. But her jaw wasn't as tight. "If you have a way to keep me off the evening news, I'm listening."
Kasper pulled up the Kavanagh Building schematics on the holographic display. Started marking alternative approaches.
It wasn't about stopping the operation. That ship had sailed the moment Onofre showed them seventeen children in geometric precision holding cells.
But maybe he could change how they executed. Reduce casualties. Pull people back from lines they didn't need to cross.
Maybe.
Rui joined them. Looked at the modifications Kasper was sketching. "This changes our timeline."
"By how much?"
"Three hours. Maybe four."
"Which gives Sean more time to get his head straight before Target Two."
"Or more time for al-Zawahiri to detect the pattern and evacuate."
"Then we adjust Team Three's approach. Hit the convoy earlier. Force al-Zawahiri to respond before he can coordinate."
Valerian traced the new route on the schematic. "This could work. But Onofre's not going to like it."
"Onofre wants mission success. He doesn't care about methodology as long as targets get destroyed." Kasper looked at García. "You good with this approach?"
She studied the modified plan. Her jaw was still set but her shoulders had dropped slightly. Her finger traced the extraction path twice. Then three times. Like she was looking for the trap and couldn't find it.
"If this works, we might actually sleep at night." Her voice was steady but her hand wasn't.
"Then we're doing it."
Across the factory floor, Onofre was explaining explosive yield calculations to the Target Two team. Voice calm. Precise. Aesthetic even in logistics of violence.
He hadn't noticed the growing group around the holographic display yet. Hadn't seen Kasper redistributing assignments and adjusting timelines.
When he did, there would be conversation. Probably argument. Possibly threats.
But Kasper had seventy-one hours and thirteen minutes to figure out how to execute three simultaneous operations without turning everyone involved into monsters.
Starting with refusing to accept that the mathematics were the only thing that mattered.
Lydia appeared at the top of the stairs. Perfect posture. Efficient movement. She caught his eye for just a second.
And somewhere in that brown-eyed gaze, the Lydia who'd chosen pink sneakers was still drowning. Still fighting. Still broadcasting terror through seventeen different experiential streams.
Kasper looked back at the schematics.
Seventy-one hours.
Three targets.
And one chance to prove that people weren't just weapons waiting for optimal deployment.
The mathematics were sound.
But maybe the ethics didn't have to be monstrous.
Maybe both things could be different this time.
Rui looked at the modified approach for Team Three. "This keeps her out of deep network." Not a question. Relief threading through the technical language.
Kasper nodded once. "That's the idea."
An operative across the room field-stripped his rifle without looking. Muscle memory from missions Kasper didn't want to think about. Another was checking ammunition counts. Lips moving silently as he tallied rounds.
Valerian was already running probability matrices on the new timeline. García had her tablet out, recalculating digital assault vectors that didn't require her to personally demolish four floors of corporate infrastructure. Her shoulders dropped another increment when she saw the revised extraction route. Not much. But enough.
Maybe.
A pneumatic message cylinder arrived at the equipment station with a soft hiss. Chrome casing with art deco etchings. The kind the Syndicate used for secure communications within the city. Kasper pulled the message slip out.
No signature. Just coordinates written in careful handwriting and a timestamp: 68 hours, 22 minutes.
Three hours before Onofre's timeline.
Someone else was tracking the convoy.