The factory's rear entrance squealed exactly as it had three hours ago. Same metal-on-metal protest. Same moment of freezing to see if anyone noticed. But this time Kasper's jacket pocket carried weight that felt heavier than chrome casing and careful handwriting should.
Inside, the chaos had evolved in his absence. More operatives had arrived. Equipment distribution was in full swing. The holographic displays now showed all three targets simultaneously, glowing in warm amber light against the factory's exposed brick walls. Someone had mounted pneumatic tube terminals along the eastern wall, their brass fittings polished to mirror brightness.
Kasper scanned for Onofre. Found him near the communications array, hands moving through holographic projections with conductor precision. Still briefing. Still orchestrating. Still three steps ahead of everyone.
Or so he thought.
Rui touched Kasper's arm. Light pulsed beneath his skin. Concern, not analysis. "You're about to do something that can't be undone."
"Already did it when we left." Kasper headed toward the equipment stations where Valerian and García stood studying approach vectors. "Question is whether telling them makes it worse."
They looked up as he approached. García's jaw was still tight from earlier, but her expression had shifted from anger to something more complex. Professional assessment mixed with personal concern. Valerian's tactical mind was already processing Kasper's body language for threat indicators.
"Equipment review go well?" Valerian asked carefully.
"Wasn't reviewing equipment."
"We noticed." García glanced toward Onofre. "He noticed too. Asked where you went. Casual question. The kind that gets people disappeared."
Kasper pulled out the message cylinder. Set it on the edge of the holographic display where its chrome casing caught the amber light. Geometric etchings became shadows and promises.
"Someone sent coordinates. Different convoy timing than Onofre briefed. Three hours earlier."
Valerian picked up the cylinder. Examined it with the attention he'd give unexploded ordnance. "Sindicato secure communications. Restricted access. Who sent it?"
"That's the interesting part." Kasper activated his personal display. Pulled up the intelligence from Relay Station 17. Let the data speak for itself.
The holographic projection showed schematics that made García's professional mask crack. Facility layouts. Guard rotations. Security protocols. And at the center, buried beneath layers of protection that suggested paranoia married to competence: a cryogenic preservation chamber.
"Fourth target," Rui said quietly. "Al-Zawahiri's original body. Preserved since 1985 when his consciousness was first uploaded."
Valerian's tactical assessment recalibrated in real-time. You could see it happening behind his eyes. The kind of instant strategic revision that came from surviving situations where plans fell apart and adapting meant living. "If we destroy that..."
"He fragments permanently." Kasper expanded the schematic. "Not seventy-two hours. Forever. His distributed consciousness needs the original neural architecture as an anchor point. Without it, he can't reconstitute. The man who ordered your brother's death becomes scattered data with no way to reform."
The weight of that settled over them like geometry imposing order on chaos.
García found her voice first. "Onofre didn't mention this target."
"No." Kasper met her eyes. "He didn't."
"Which means either he doesn't know..." Valerian paused. Let the impossibility of that hang in the air. "Or he knows and chose not to tell us."
Light blazed brighter beneath Rui's skin. Processing. Analyzing. His cyberlitch consciousness interfacing with data streams that human minds couldn't parse. "The facility is in the harbor district. Southeast of the city center. Coordinates match industrial complex that was decommissioned in 1998. Official records say it was demolished in 2003."
"But it wasn't." Kasper pulled up surveillance data. Thermal signatures. Power consumption that should have been zero showing steady draw consistent with cryogenic systems. "Someone's been maintaining it for twenty-seven years. Paying utility companies through shell corporations. Keeping it off every official map."
"Security?" Valerian was already calculating approach vectors. Couldn't help himself. Tactical thinking was how he processed stress.
"Former Project Lazarus subjects." Rui's voice carried weight that went beyond data analysis.
"Children." The word came out flat. Hard. "You're talking about children."
"Adults now," Kasper said. "But they were children when al-Zawahiri started conditioning them."
García's hand tightened on the display's edge. Hard enough that her knuckles went white. Hard enough that the metal creaked. "He's using victims as guards."
"He's using weapons he forged from victims." Kasper adjusted the display to show guard profiles. Enhanced individuals. Augmented with technology that belonged in nightmares. Loyal to al-Zawahiri with intensity that suggested programming deeper than conscious choice. "Some of them were probably 'rescued' in operations like the one we're planning for Target Two. Saved from enhancement laboratories. Then enhanced anyway. Just with different handlers."
The implications spread through the group like cracks in stressed metal.
"How many?" Valerian asked.
"Twelve confirmed. Rotating shifts of four." Rui pulled up movement patterns. "They don't leave the facility. Living spaces integrated into the security infrastructure. Al-Zawahiri's been preparing them for exactly this kind of assault for decades."
Kasper watched their faces. Saw the calculations happening. García considering institutional implications. Valerian running tactical scenarios. Rui processing data streams while his human consciousness grappled with the moral complexity.
"Where did you get this intelligence?" García asked carefully.
"Relay Station 17. Zona Norte industrial district." Kasper decided on honesty. Partial honesty. The kind that gave truth without revealing everything. "We investigated the coordinates from the message. Found evidence of ATA monitoring. European intelligence operatives were there."
That made Valerian's tactical assessment shift again. "Europeans? In Buenos Aires?"
"Inspector Kristine Weber. EU Intelligence Division." Kasper pulled up her profile from memory. "She claimed they've been monitoring pneumatic communications for three weeks. Said they intercepted our investigation. Wanted to recruit us for their operation."
"And you believed her?" García's institutional training kicked in. Questions first. Trust later. Maybe never.
"I believed she was telling me something true for reasons that benefit her agenda." Kasper met her eyes. "Just like I'm telling you something true right now for reasons that benefit mine."
Silence except for the factory floor's ambient noise. Equipment being distributed. Operatives preparing for missions that might kill them. Onofre's voice drifting from somewhere, explaining acceptable casualty thresholds with surgical precision.
"What do you want from us?" Valerian asked.
"Your opinion. Should we tell Onofre about the fourth target?"
García laughed. No humor. Just the sound of someone recognizing they'd been maneuvered into an impossible position. "You're asking whether to trust the man who forced us into this operation? Who's holding seventeen children hostage to our compliance? Who's been orchestrating this game for forty years?"
"I'm asking whether keeping this intelligence from him helps or hurts the children in Target Two." Kasper's hand found the message cylinder. Geometric etchings caught the light. "Because if we tell him, he adds a fourth team to the operation. Splits our forces further. Increases the chances of something going wrong. But if we don't tell him and he finds out later..."
"We're assets that betrayed his trust." Valerian finished. "Which makes us liabilities to be eliminated."
Rui's circuits pulsed with data streams invisible to human perception. "He already knows."
They turned to look at him.
"About the investigation," Rui clarified. "Not necessarily about what we found. But Onofre sent that message. He's been testing whether Kasper would investigate independently or report immediately."
"How do you know?" García asked.
"Because I've been monitoring the factory's security systems since we arrived." Light flickered beneath Rui's skin. "Onofre has surveillance on everyone. Including us. He tracks movements. Monitors communications. When we left, he noticed. Didn't stop us. Just watched."
The implications settled cold in Kasper's chest.
"He wanted us to investigate," Valerian said slowly. "Wanted to see if we'd discover the fourth target ourselves."
"And whether we'd report back." García's professional mask cracked further. The fissures spreading like fractures in old concrete. "This whole thing. The pneumatic message, the coordinates, even the Europeans. It's all part of his test."
"Maybe." Kasper looked across the factory floor to where Onofre stood in profile. Hands moving through holographic projections with the precision of someone who'd calculated every variable. "Or maybe the Europeans actually intercepted his test and turned it into their recruitment pitch. Maybe al-Zawahiri detected our investigation through the pneumatic network and now he's accelerating his timeline. Maybe there are six different games being played simultaneously and we're pieces on every board."
"That's not reassuring," Rui said.
"Wasn't meant to be."
Movement near the stairs. Kasper's enhanced hearing caught it before visual confirmation. Footsteps. Measured. Purposeful. Someone descending from the upper floor where the medical bay was located.
Lydia appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
She moved with efficiency that suggested her distributed consciousness had stabilized. Seventeen experiential streams holding pattern. Not getting worse. Not getting better. Just maintaining the terrible equilibrium that let her function as person and weapon simultaneously.
Their eyes met across the factory floor. Brown eyes that still chose pink sneakers somewhere beneath the tactical assessment. She nodded once. Acknowledgment. Then continued toward the communications array where Onofre waited.
"She's operational," García said quietly.
"She's deployed." Kasper's voice was flat. "There's a difference."
"Not to Onofre."
Kasper watched Lydia join Onofre's briefing. Saw the way she moved through space. Careful. Controlled. Like someone walking across ice that might crack at any moment. Onofre gestured to holographic displays. Explained whatever role he'd designed for someone with distributed consciousness capabilities in an operation that would probably kill her.
And she listened with perfect focus that came from accepting there were no good choices left.
"We tell him," Kasper decided. "About the fourth target. Not about the Europeans. Not about our doubts. Just the intelligence we gathered."
"That's still lying by omission," García said.
"That's survival by strategic disclosure." Kasper headed toward where Onofre stood. "If he already knows and we don't tell him, we fail his test. If he doesn't know and we do tell him, we prove we're assets worth keeping. Either way, we improve our position."
"Or we confirm his suspicion that we're unreliable," Valerian countered. "That we investigate independently instead of following orders."
"Then he already suspected that before he sent the message." Kasper didn't slow down. "Question is whether he values initiative or obedience more. And whether we can survive being whichever one he doesn't want."
They crossed the factory floor. Operatives parted for them without obvious acknowledgment. Just the automatic space-making that happened when enhanced individuals moved with purpose. Kasper's nanobots processed threat assessment data automatically. Exits. Cover positions. Weapon locations. The machinery of violence running background calculations while his human consciousness focused on the conversation ahead.
Onofre noticed their approach. His hands stilled in the holographic display. Not surprise. Just attention shifting from one priority to another. He'd been expecting this. Maybe not the timing, but definitely the confrontation.
"Mr. de la Fuente." His voice carried cultured precision that made every word feel weighted. "I trust your equipment review was productive?"
"Found something interesting." Kasper pulled out the message cylinder. Set it on the edge of Onofre's holographic display where its chrome casing caught the amber light. "You sent this."
No question. Just statement of fact.
Something crossed Onofre's face. Brief. Gone in a moment like a fault line appearing in polished marble. But Kasper's enhanced perception caught it.
Surprise.
Not at Kasper investigating. Not at discovering the fourth target. At Kasper deducing the manipulation itself.
For the first time since they'd met, Onofre hadn't predicted his next move.
"Perceptive," Onofre said carefully. His composure resettled like ice reforming over deep water. "Most operatives would have assumed it was bait from al-Zawahiri or a recruitment pitch from competitors. You deduced it was internal manipulation."
"Rui deduced it." Kasper gestured to where the cyberlitch operative stood with circuits pulsing beneath his skin. "He's been monitoring your surveillance systems. Noticed you tracked us leaving but didn't intervene. You wanted to see where we'd go."
"And did you go where I expected?"
"Relay Station 17. Zona Norte industrial district." Kasper activated his personal display. Pulled up the intelligence about the fourth target. "Found evidence of a cryogenic facility southeast of the city center. Al-Zawahiri's original body. Preserved since 1985. Guarded by twelve former Project Lazarus subjects who've been conditioned to protect it at any cost."
He let the data speak. Facility layouts. Guard rotations. Security protocols. Everything they'd gathered presented with economical efficiency.
Onofre studied the display. His expression never changed. Still the detached precision that came from someone who'd spent forty years learning not to reveal anything he didn't choose to. But his hands moved differently through the holographic projections. Slight acceleration. Adjustment of vectors that suggested calculations being revised in real-time.
"You found this at Relay Station 17?" Onofre asked.
"Active terminal. Message logs. Someone had been using it to route communications about convoy movements." Kasper pulled up the relevant data. "We were investigating when European intelligence operatives arrived."
That made Onofre's hands still completely.
"Europeans." His voice remained level. But something had shifted. The kind of subtle change that preceded violence or revelation. "Inspector Weber's team?"
"You know her."
"I know of her. EU Intelligence Division's interest in al-Zawahiri's technology." Onofre deactivated the display. Turned to face Kasper directly. "What did she offer?"
"Intelligence about the fourth target. Claimed they've been monitoring pneumatic communications for three weeks. Said they want the same thing we do. Al-Zawahiri eliminated. But can't conduct operations on Argentine soil without diplomatic incidents."
"So they want us to do their dying while they collect the technology afterward." Onofre's smile never reached his eyes. Never did. "Classic European efficiency. Let the former colonies handle the messy work."
"She also said you already knew about the fourth target." Kasper held his gaze. "That you've known since you started planning this operation. That you didn't include it in the briefing because it requires specialized approach and acceptance of casualties most operatives find uncomfortable."
The factory floor's ambient noise continued. Equipment distribution. Mission preparation. Normal chaos. But the space around Onofre felt like a bubble where physics worked differently. Where truth and lies existed in quantum superposition until observation forced reality to choose.
"Did she." Onofre's tone suggested he already knew the answer to his next question. "And do you believe her?"
"I believe you sent that message to test whether I'd investigate independently or report immediately." Kasper gestured to the others who'd followed him. "I believe you've been manipulating every variable since you recruited me. And I believe the fourth target exists regardless of whether the Europeans are lying about everything else."
Silence.
Then Onofre laughed. Not mocking. Just genuine appreciation for someone finally understanding the game.
"The message cylinder was mine." He pulled up his own display. Showed transmission logs that confirmed what Rui had deduced. "Wanted to see if you'd discover the fourth target yourself. Whether you'd investigate information that arrived through unofficial channels. How you'd handle contact with foreign intelligence operatives."
He expanded the display. Four targets appeared. The three from his original briefing, plus the cryogenic facility glowing in red amber light.
"The fourth target is real. I've known about it since we began planning. Destroying al-Zawahiri's original body fragments his consciousness permanently. But it's also the most heavily defended installation he possesses." Onofre pulled up detailed schematics that made Kasper's earlier intelligence look incomplete. "Former Project Lazarus subjects who were conditioned as children. Enhanced individuals loyal to al-Zawahiri with intensity that goes beyond rational self-interest."
García stepped forward. Her institutional training fighting with personal horror. The conflict visible in the tightness around her eyes. "You've been planning to send a team against child victims?"
"I've been planning to eliminate threats that were once victims but are now weapons." Onofre's detached precision allowed no room for sentiment. "That some were children when conditioning began doesn't change what they've become. Doesn't make them less dangerous. Doesn't reduce the necessity of neutralizing them before they can kill operatives attempting to destroy al-Zawahiri's body."
"Some of them might be salvageable," Rui said quietly. Circuits pulsing beneath his skin. "Project Lazarus survivors can break conditioning. I did. Lydia is fighting to."
"And you're both exceptional cases. Statistical outliers." Onofre pulled up success rates for deprogramming former Lazarus subjects. The numbers told brutal stories. "For every survivor who maintains enough humanity to resist conditioning, three become permanent weapons. For every one who breaks free, five die in the attempt."
He paused. Let them absorb the data.
"The mathematics are sound even if the ethics are monstrous."
There it was. The core of Onofre's philosophy laid bare.
Kasper's hand found his sidearm. Not consciously. Just muscle memory from Costa del Sol when orders stopped making sense and violence became the only language he understood.
Rui's hand covered his. Gentle pressure. Bringing him back.
"Not yet," Rui whispered. "Not here."
Kasper made himself let go. Made himself breathe. Made himself remember that killing Onofre right now would doom the seventeen children in Target Two. Would fragment the operation. Would accomplish nothing except satisfying rage that had been building since he'd watched Lydia accept deployment four hours out of a coma.
The mathematics were sound.
The ethics were monstrous.
And everyone in this room knew it.
"You were going to send my team against the fourth target," Kasper said. His voice came out steady. Too steady. The kind of control that came from nanobots compensating for what his body wanted to do.
"Eventually. After the first three operations established patterns. After al-Zawahiri committed resources to defending infrastructure he couldn't abandon." Onofre deactivated the display. "But now the Europeans have complicated everything by accelerating the timeline."
"What do you mean?" Valerian asked.
"Al-Zawahiri detected your investigation at Relay Station 17. The Europeans were tracking you through their pneumatic monitoring. Which means al-Zawahiri was tracking both of you." Onofre checked his chronometer. Brass casing with geometric numerals. Sunburst pattern etched into the face. "He's accelerating his evacuation protocols. We no longer have seventy-one hours."
The weight of that statement pressed down like geometric architecture imposing order on chaos.
"How long?" Kasper asked.
"Forty-eight hours. Maybe forty-six by the time teams finish preparation." Onofre pulled up revised mission parameters. Four targets. Compressed timeline. Increased risk across every operation. "Four targets. Four teams. Operating simultaneously with perfect coordination across a timeline that gives al-Zawahiri minimal opportunity to respond."
García's institutional training warred with something else. Something that looked like the person she'd been before the Association taught her to think like infrastructure. "You're splitting our forces even further."
"I'm optimizing resource allocation for maximum effect." Onofre pulled up team assignments. "Team One hits the servers. Team Two extracts the children. Team Three intercepts the convoy. Team Four eliminates the cryogenic facility and its defenders."
"Team Four is suicide," Valerian said flatly.
"Team Four is necessary." Onofre looked directly at Kasper. The calculating weight behind his cultured tone carrying implications that went beyond tactical assignment. "Which is why I'm assigning it to you, Mr. Rulvan, and Miss Ceballos. Three enhanced operatives against al-Zawahiri's most loyal defenders. Acceptable odds for people with your capabilities."
Light blazed beneath Rui's skin. "Lydia isn't ready for combat operations."
"Miss Ceballos possesses distributed consciousness capabilities that make her uniquely qualified for infiltrating the facility's security networks." Onofre's expression remained unchanged. Evaluating assets, not people. "Her readiness is irrelevant compared to her utility. She either deploys or the mission fails and seventeen children in Target Two die while al-Zawahiri rebuilds from his preserved body."
The mathematics were sound.
The ethics were monstrous.
And everyone knew it.
Kasper looked at Lydia. She stood perfectly still near the communications array. Not reacting to Onofre's words. Not protesting her deployment. Just existing in that terrible space where accepting impossible orders felt like the only choice left.
Their eyes met.
She nodded once. Acceptance. Not surrender. Just someone who'd already calculated the costs and decided dying for seventeen children was better than living with their deaths.
His hand started shaking.
Just slightly. Just enough that Rui noticed. The bioluminescence beneath his skin flickered. Concern, not analysis.
Kasper made his hand stop. Nanobot control. Forced steadiness. But something in his chest felt tight. Like his enhancement couldn't quite compensate for what his body knew was coming.
"When do we brief?" he asked.
"Immediately. Individual team preparation begins afterward." Onofre moved toward the next group of operatives requiring his attention. Paused. Turned back. "Mr. de la Fuente. The Europeans who contacted you are using your investigation to redirect our operation toward their interests. They want al-Zawahiri's technology. The intelligence they provided is accurate, but their agenda isn't aligned with ours."
"And your agenda?"
"Eliminating threats to regional stability I've spent decades cultivating. Maintaining order in spaces where chaos would benefit no one." Onofre's voice carried weight that went beyond this operation. "The Europeans want to study what al-Zawahiri created. I want to destroy it. Our goals align temporarily. Theirs and yours conflict fundamentally."
He held Kasper's gaze for three seconds. Then left.
Moved across the factory floor with steady precision. Someone who'd calculated every step of this operation months in advance.
Kasper stood at the holographic display. Four targets glowing in amber light. Forty-eight hours until execution. Three teams splitting to hit infrastructure. One team assigned what Valerian had accurately labeled suicide.
"He played us." García's voice was hollow. "From the beginning. The message, the investigation, even our decision to tell him. It was all part of his test."
"And we passed." Valerian's tactical mind processed implications. "Which means he considers us valuable enough to use. But not trustworthy enough to tell the truth."
"He told us the truth." Rui's circuits pulsed with data streams. "Just not all of it. And only after we'd already discovered most of it ourselves. That's how control works. Let people think they're learning independently while you guide every discovery."
Kasper felt understanding settle cold in his chest. They'd been playing Onofre's game from the start. Every choice they'd made. Investigating the message, confronting him about Lydia, even deciding to tell him about the fourth target. All moves he'd anticipated. Variables he'd accounted for.
The only question was whether he'd accounted for what they might do next.
"There's another message," Kasper said quietly.
They turned to look at him.
He pulled out his communication device. The one he'd kept on silent throughout Onofre's revelation. The one that had vibrated exactly when the Europeans left Relay Station 17. Which meant someone had been watching even more carefully than Onofre.
He showed them the text that had arrived with ghost protocols and untraceable routing.
You have one hour. Harbor district. Come alone or don't come at all. The children in the cryogenic facility remember being human. I should know. I was one of them.
No signature. Just coordinates and a truth that complicated everything.
"Someone from the fourth target's security detail." Valerian read over Kasper's shoulder. "Reaching out."
"Could be a trap," García said automatically. Institutional training. Suspect everything. Trust nothing.
"Could be our only chance to turn the defenders instead of killing them." Kasper checked the coordinates against the facility location. Different place. Public space in the harbor district. Exposed ground under potential sniper overwatch. "Perfect place for an ambush. Also perfect place for a conversation that might save the children al-Zawahiri conditioned."
Light pulsed brighter beneath Rui's skin. Processing. "If you go, you're operating outside Onofre's control again. Making independent decisions. Exactly what he's been testing for."
"If I don't go, we deploy in forty-eight hours with no intelligence about the defenders' state of mind. No idea if any of them are fighting conditioning. No alternative to killing everyone who stands between us and al-Zawahiri's body." Kasper looked at each of them in turn. "That's the choice. Play Onofre's game by his rules. Or change the rules while we're playing."
Valerian's tactical assessment ran through scenarios. You could see it happening behind his eyes. Approach vectors. Risk calculations. Probability matrices. "If this is a trap and you die, Team Four loses its best operator forty-eight hours before a suicide mission."
"If this isn't a trap and I don't go, we might kill people who are trying to break free." Kasper met his eyes. "Which mistake would you rather live with?"
Silence.
Then García's institutional training warred visibly with something that looked like conscience finally winning. Her hand found the edge of the display. Gripped hard enough to turn her knuckles white. Hard enough that the metal creaked softly under the pressure.
"Go," she said finally. Her voice carried the weight of someone making a choice that couldn't be unmade. "But take backup. Not Rui. Onofre will notice if both of you disappear. Someone who can provide overwatch without being obviously present."
Her hand was shaking when she let go of the display.
"I'll go." Valerian checked his equipment. "Sniper position. Covering angles. If it's a trap, I'll extract you before they finish springing it."
"And if Onofre asks where we are?" Kasper asked.
"Bathroom. Equipment check. Personal time." García's training shifted from protocol enforcement to creative compliance. "I'll cover for you. One hour. That's all I can manage before he notices the pattern."
Kasper looked at Lydia across the factory floor. Still standing near the communications array. Still perfect posture and tactical efficiency. Still fighting to remain person instead of becoming weapon.
She caught his glance. Nodded once. Permission. Or maybe just acknowledgment that some fights required going outside official channels.
"One hour," Kasper agreed.
They moved toward the rear exit. Not hurried. Not obvious. Just operatives conducting whatever personal business required brief absence during mission preparation chaos.
The door squealed softly as Kasper opened it.
Outside, Buenos Aires waited.
Art deco facades glowing in afternoon light that turned everything amber and gold. Geometric patterns that promised order while hiding chaos. A city that had learned to balance beauty and brutality with the practiced ease of someone who'd been doing it for ninety years.
Kasper walked into that light.
Let the city swallow him again.
Wondered if the person he was about to meet had been conditioned to kill him. Or if somewhere beneath the programming, they still remembered what it meant to choose.
Forty-eight hours until four teams deployed simultaneously.
One hour until a meeting that might change everything or get him killed.
And between those numbers, someone who'd been a weapon was trying to warn him about something that went deeper than even Onofre's forty-year game.
The question was whether understanding would matter if the only choice was which tragedy to live with.
Behind him, the factory door closed with a soft metallic protest.
And Buenos Aires kept moving. Traffic flowing. People walking. Life continuing with the oblivious momentum that came from not knowing what happened in buildings marked with brass plaques and elegant lettering.
Beautiful and brutal and indifferent to whether the people moving through its geometric streets were making choices or just executing programming installed by people who understood that ownership was another form of architecture.
Kasper headed toward the harbor district.
Toward a meeting with someone who remembered being human.
Hoped he'd still remember the difference himself when this was over.