The harbor district smelled like rust and old petroleum mixed with the ozone that came from electrical infrastructure running through buildings built when streamlining was philosophy instead of just aesthetic. Kasper walked past warehouses decorated with geometric reliefs that had been elegant in 1928 and now just looked tired. Chrome trim oxidized to dull gray. Brass fixtures gone green with patina. The kind of decay that happened when maintenance budgets disappeared but demolition costs too much.
Valerian's voice crackled through the encrypted channel. "In position. Rooftop northwest corner. Three potential sniper positions covering the plaza. Two occupied."
Kasper's enhanced vision swept the area. Found the positions Valerian mentioned. Figures with rifles. Professional spacing. ATA or someone with similar training. "Friendlies or hostiles?"
"Unknown. They're not aiming at the plaza. Watching approaches." Valerian paused. "Someone else is providing security. Question is for who."
The plaza opened ahead. Art deco fountain in the center, dry for decades. Geometric patterns in the concrete suggested water features that had stopped flowing before Kasper was born. Benches arranged in careful symmetry. Empty except for one figure sitting with their back to the fountain.
Young. Maybe twenty-five. Dark hair pulled back in a ponytail that showed the neural ports running along her spine. Enhanced. Obviously. The kind of augmentation that belonged in military laboratories, not civilian populations.
She wore civilian clothes cut to hide body armor. Hands visible. No obvious weapons. But people like that didn't need obvious weapons.
Kasper approached at an angle that kept the fountain between them. His nanobots processed threat assessment automatically. Multiple enhanced signatures in the surrounding buildings. More security. More variables Onofre hadn't accounted for.
Or maybe he had. Maybe this was part of the test too.
The figure didn't turn as Kasper stopped ten feet away. Just spoke to the empty plaza like they were continuing a conversation that had been happening for years.
"You came alone. Good. Shows you're either brave or stupid." Female voice. Accent from somewhere north. Colombia maybe. Or Venezuela. "Valerian's on the northwest rooftop. Tell him to relax. My people aren't here to start a fight."
"Your people are watching every approach with sniper rifles."
"Your people are planning to assault a facility and kill everyone inside." She turned. Brown eyes that had seen too much too young. Scars along her jawline that suggested reconstructive surgery after trauma. "We're both preparing for violence. Question is whether it's necessary."
Kasper studied her. Enhanced. Former Project Lazarus if the message was accurate. One of al-Zawahiri's guards who'd reached out through ghost protocols and untraceable routing. "You sent the message."
"Second message. Onofre sent the first." She pulled out a cigarette. Art deco lighter with geometric patterns. The flame caught on the first try. "He wanted to test you. See if you'd investigate independently. I wanted to warn you before you got everyone killed."
"Warn me about what?"
"That the fourth target isn't what he thinks it is." She took a drag. Exhaled smoke that caught the harbor wind. "Al-Zawahiri's body is there. That part's true. But it's not the primary installation. It's bait. Has been for fifteen years."
Cold certainty settled in Kasper's chest. His tactical mind already processing scenarios. "Explain."
"Al-Zawahiri's been preparing for exactly this kind of assault since 1985. Forty years of contingency planning. You think he'd keep his most vulnerable asset in a facility that shows up on thermal imaging?" She gestured with the cigarette. Trailing smoke like punctuation. "The body you're planning to destroy is a decoy. Clone tissue. Enough biological material to read as human on scans. But the original? That's somewhere else."
"Where?"
"Don't know. That information is compartmentalized above my clearance." She took another drag. "But I know twelve of us have been conditioned to die protecting something that doesn't matter. That al-Zawahiri is willing to sacrifice former victims to maintain operational security for the real facility."
Kasper's hand found his sidearm. Reflex. Costa del Sol training. When someone gives you intel this good, they're either saving your life or setting you up. "Why tell me?"
"Because some of us are still fighting the conditioning." She met his eyes. Something desperate there beneath the professional competence. "Six of the twelve guards remember being human. Remember being children in laboratories. Remember the operations that 'rescued' us just to put us in different cages."
She dropped the cigarette. Ground it out with her boot heel. "We want out. But we can't break conditioning alone. We need external intervention. Someone to force the choice we can't make ourselves."
"You want me to save you."
"I want you to give us the option to be saved." She pulled out a data cylinder. Chrome casing with careful engravings. Sindicato design language. "Intelligence about the facility. Real guard rotations. Shift changes. Windows where conditioning is weakest. Times when six of us might choose to stand down instead of fight."
Kasper didn't take the cylinder. "And the other six?"
"Too far gone. Programming overwrote too much." Her voice carried weight that came from accepting terrible realities. "They'll fight until they die. But six might be salvageable if you're willing to try."
"Al-Zawahiri knows you're here."
"Of course he does." She smiled. No warmth. Just professional appreciation for someone understanding the game. "I'm the test. He's watching to see if you take the bait. If you believe former victims can be saved. If you'll compromise operational security for moral considerations."
"And if I do?"
"Then he adjusts his defensive posture accordingly. Reinforces weaknesses. Eliminates guards he suspects of wavering." She set the data cylinder on the fountain's edge. "But if you don't take this intelligence, six people who are still fighting die as weapons instead of being saved as victims. Your choice which tragedy you live with."
Valerian's voice came through the encrypted channel. "Target four. Southeast rooftop. Thermal signature suggests enhanced physiology. Weapon profile consistent with directed energy rifle. They're not aiming at you. They're aiming at her."
Al-Zawahiri was watching. Deciding whether Marina's rebellion was useful or needed correction.
Kasper looked at the data cylinder. At this woman who might be Guard Seven fighting conditioning or might be bait in a trap that wouldn't spring until Team Four was committed. At the snipers on rooftops who could be allies or executioners depending on decisions made in the next thirty seconds.
His hand found the cylinder. Chrome warm from afternoon sun. Geometric etchings that matched Sindicato design language exactly.
The woman's expression didn't change. But something behind her eyes looked like relief. Or maybe hope. Or maybe just professional satisfaction at completing an assignment.
"If this is trap," Kasper said, "you die first."
"If this is trap, I die anyway." She didn't light another cigarette. Just stood there like someone who'd calculated costs and decided martyrdom was better than complicity. "At least this way someone tried."
"The six who are fighting. How do I identify them?"
"Cylinder contains recognition codes. Small deviations in response protocols that indicate conscious resistance." She touched the neural ports along her spine. Old habit. The kind that came from years of checking connections. "But you have to be looking for them. Have to believe they're possible. If you go in expecting weapons, that's all you'll see."
"And if I go in looking for victims, I miss the six who are too far gone."
"That's the choice." Her hand dropped from the ports. "See everyone as salvageable and die trying to save the unsaveable. See everyone as threats and kill victims who were fighting to be saved. No clean option. Just which tragedy you prefer."
"How much time before al-Zawahiri relocates the real body?"
"Don't know. But he's already moving assets. Rerouting resources. Forty-eight hours ago, you had seventy-one hours before he evacuated completely. Now?" She shrugged. "Thirty-six hours. Maybe less if he detects pattern in your approach."
"What's your name?" Kasper asked.
"Doesn't matter. Al-Zawahiri took names when he took identity." She touched the neural ports again. "I'm Guard Seven in the rotation logs. That's all I've been for twelve years."
"Before that."
Something crossed her face. Brief. Gone like light through water. "Marina. I think. Memory is fragmented. Could be conditioning filling gaps with plausible narratives. Could be real. After twelve years, the difference stops mattering."
Kasper's communication device vibrated. Encrypted channel. Rui's signature.
Onofre noticed you're gone. García is covering but he's not buying it. Ten minutes before he escalates.
Ten minutes until this conversation became evidence of insubordination. Until questions became accusations.
"You need to go," Marina said. "Clock is running. Onofre will notice you're missing. Al-Zawahiri will evaluate whether I compromised operational security. And in forty-eight hours, three teams will assault infrastructure while you decide whether Team Four hits the decoy facility or finds another target."
She stood. Smooth movement that showed enhancement and training. "The intelligence is real. Whether it's useful depends on what you're willing to risk. Good luck, Mr. de la Fuente. Try not to prove al-Zawahiri right about what people become when pushed hard enough."
Marina walked toward the plaza's eastern exit. Back straight. Posture perfect. Every movement suggesting someone who'd been trained to appear confident even when walking toward probable execution.
"Tell Lydia that distributed consciousness doesn't erase identity," Marina called back. "It fragments it. But fragments can remember being whole. She's still fighting even if it doesn't feel like it."
She disappeared into the alley between warehouses.
The sniper on the southeast rooftop adjusted position. Following her movement. Calculating angles.
Valerian's voice came through calm and steady. "Sniper's gone dark. Either stood down or repositioned. Lost visual on the target."
Kasper's communication device vibrated again. Rui's signature.
Five minutes. García is running interference but he knows you left the building. Questions incoming.
"Extraction route?" Kasper asked.
"Southwest alley. Three blocks to secondary position." Valerian's tactical thinking provided clean options. "Adds fifteen minutes to travel time. But keeps us off direct routes."
"Do it."
They moved through the industrial zone. Past factories that had produced textiles and machinery and precision instruments in the 1930s when Buenos Aires thought streamlining would save the world. Now the buildings produced rust and empty promises. Art deco facades decorated with geometric patterns that nobody maintained anymore.
The factory district appeared ahead. Familiar streets. Familiar buildings they'd passed three hours ago.
The factory's rear entrance still squealed when opened. Still the same metal-on-metal protest.
Inside, the chaos had evolved. More operatives. More equipment. More holographic displays showing targets and timelines that compressed with every hour. Forty-six hours remaining. Maybe less if al-Zawahiri detected their approach pattern.
And at the center of controlled chaos, Onofre stood near the communications array. His posture suggested he'd been waiting. That this confrontation was planned. That even the conversation with Marina was variable he'd accounted for.
Onofre looked up as Kasper entered.
Their eyes met across the factory floor.
For three seconds, neither spoke. The ambient noise continued. Equipment distribution. Mission preparation. Normal chaos. But everyone was watching now.
Kasper pulled out the data cylinder. Set it on the nearest display terminal where its chrome casing caught the amber light.
"I met with one of the guards from the fourth target. Former Project Lazarus subject. She claims six of the twelve are still fighting conditioning. Provided intelligence about facility vulnerabilities and recognition codes to identify which guards are salvageable."
Silence.
Then Onofre moved toward the cylinder with predatory focus. Picked it up. Examined it with attention that suggested he was reading more than just geometric patterns.
"And you believed her."
Not a question. Just statement of fact.
"I believed she was telling me something true for reasons I don't fully understand." Kasper met his eyes. "Just like I believe you've been manipulating every variable since you recruited me. You sent the pneumatic message. Wanted to see if I'd investigate independently."
Onofre's hands stilled completely in the holographic display. His pupils dilated. Microexpression of surprise that vanished in a heartbeat, but Kasper's enhanced perception caught it.
He hadn't expected to be called out directly.
Onofre's composure resettled like ice reforming over deep water. "Perceptive. Most operatives would have assumed it was bait from al-Zawahiri or recruitment pitch from competitors. You deduced internal manipulation."
"Rui deduced it." Kasper gestured to where the cyberlitch operative stood with bioluminescence flickering under his skin. "He's been monitoring your surveillance systems. Noticed you tracked us leaving but didn't intervene."
"Smart." Onofre connected the cylinder to the display terminal. Data flooded the holographic projection. Facility layouts. Guard rotations. Shift changes. Windows where conditioning weakened. Everything Marina had promised. "The intelligence is real. I've had sources inside al-Zawahiri's defensive network for three years. This is one of them."
García's hand found the edge of the display terminal. Gripped hard enough to make metal creak. "You arranged for her to contact him. This entire operation has been test after test." Her voice cracked slightly. First time Kasper had heard her sound anything other than professional. "He's treating us like assets on a spreadsheet. We're not operatives to him. We're variables."
"You're executing the mission right now." Onofre's detached precision allowed no room for sentiment. "Every choice is data. Every decision reveals priorities. I'm optimizing team composition for maximum effectiveness against an opponent who's been preparing forty years for exactly this assault."
He pulled up revised mission parameters. Four targets. Forty-six hours. Team assignments that had shifted based on performance during tests Kasper hadn't known he was taking.
"Team Four will assault the fourth target. But with modifications." Onofre highlighted the facility where Marina and eleven others guarded al-Zawahiri's decoy body. "Mr. de la Fuente will lead. Mr. Rulvan will provide technical support. Miss Ceballos will infiltrate security networks."
"It's a decoy," Kasper said. "Marina confirmed it. The body we're targeting isn't the original. It's clone tissue. Bait."
"Correct." Onofre pulled up additional intelligence. "Which is why Team Four's actual objective isn't destroying the body. It's extracting the six guards who are still fighting conditioning and using them to locate the real facility."
Rui's light patterns shifted across his forearms. Brighter. More agitated. "You want to save them so you can use them."
"I want to prove that saving them is possible." Onofre's calculating weight behind cultured tone carried implications that went beyond tactical assignment. "That former Lazarus subjects can break conditioning. That weapons can become people again. Because if they can't, then Miss Ceballos is lost. Mr. Rulvan is inevitable threat. And everyone enhanced by Project Lazarus technology is liability instead of asset."
He paused. Let that settle like concrete hardening.
"Team Four's mission is proof of concept. Either people can be saved after conditioning or they can't. Either Miss Ceballos has future or she's weapon waiting for optimal deployment. Either we treat enhanced individuals as salvageable or we eliminate them as threats."
Movement near the stairs. Kasper's enhanced hearing caught it before visual confirmation. Footsteps. Careful. Controlled.
Lydia appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
She moved toward them with efficiency that suggested her distributed consciousness had stabilized further. Seventeen experiential streams. Still holding pattern. Still fighting to remain singular person instead of becoming fragmented network.
She stopped in front of Kasper. Brown eyes that still chose pink sneakers somewhere beneath tactical assessment.
"Marina sent message for me." Her voice carried weight that came from processing information through seventeen different experiential frameworks simultaneously. "Said fragments can remember being whole. Said I'm still fighting even if it doesn't feel like it."
She paused. All seventeen streams processing the same thought at slightly different speeds.
"Is that true? Am I still fighting? Or am I just executing programming that feels like choice because I can't tell the difference anymore?"
Kasper looked at this person who'd been deployed four hours out of coma. Who'd been told her readiness was irrelevant compared to her utility. Who was asking whether she was still human or just weapon sophisticated enough to question its own nature.
"You're fighting," he said. "I don't know if that's conditioning or choice. But I know you're asking the question. And weapons don't ask questions."
"Weapons don't need to." Lydia touched the neural ports along her temple. "Sophisticated enough programming looks identical to consciousness from inside. How do you know the difference?"
"You chose pink sneakers."
She looked at him. All seventeen experiential streams focusing simultaneously. Creating weight of attention that felt like standing under spotlight that saw everything.
Then she smiled. Small. Brief. But genuine.
"Yeah. I did."
Rui stepped forward. Circuits blazing beneath translucent skin. "I was Project Lazarus. Broke my conditioning. If Marina and the others are fighting like she claims, they can break free too. But they need help. External pressure to override the programming when it tries to reassert control."
"And if they can't break free?" Valerian asked. Always tactical. Always calculating odds. "If we go in trying to save them and they're too far gone?"
"Then we die trying to save people who were already dead." Rui's voice carried weight that came from understanding exactly what he was asking. "Or we kill them without trying and prove al-Zawahiri right. That conditioning is permanent. That people like me and Lydia are just weapons waiting to malfunction."
García stepped closer to the display. Her institutional mask had cracked completely now. The fissures spreading like fractures in old concrete. "I covered for you. Lied to Onofre. Compromised my position." Her hand trembled against the terminal edge. "Tell me it was worth it."
"I don't know," Kasper said honestly. "But I know if we don't try to save the six who are fighting, we become exactly what al-Zawahiri claims we are."
"Forty-six hours until deployment," Onofre said. He checked his chronometer. Brass casing with sunburst pattern. "You have that long to prepare. Study the intelligence Marina provided. Develop recognition protocols for identifying which guards are fighting conditioning. Create extraction plan that doesn't require killing everyone."
He moved toward the next group of operatives requiring his attention. Paused.
"Mr. de la Fuente. Everyone has agenda. The Europeans want al-Zawahiri's technology. I want it destroyed. Marina wants to prove she's still human. Al-Zawahiri wants to use your moral considerations against you. Question is whose agenda you're serving when you make choices that feel like morality but function as tactics."
He left.
And Kasper stood at the holographic display watching data scroll past that showed facility layouts and guard rotations and windows where conditioning weakened enough that people might remember being human.
Six chances to prove weapons could become people again.
Six tests to determine whether Lydia had future or was just tool waiting for disposal.
"He's been planning this from the beginning," Rui said quietly. Light patterns dancing across his skin in complex sequences. "The tests. The manipulation. Even Marina's contact. All of it designed to see if we'd choose people over mission objectives."
"And we did." Kasper pulled up Marina's intelligence. Studied the recognition codes for identifying guards who were fighting conditioning.
García joined them. "Forty-six hours until we prove whether people like you are salvageable. Whether former victims can break conditioning."
She paused.
"No pressure. Just everything."
Valerian appeared from equipment stations. Tactical gear cleaned and prepared. "What's our actual objective for Team Four? Save the guards? Destroy the decoy? Use them to find the real installation?"
"All three probably." Kasper expanded the display. "We extract the six who are fighting. Use them to find al-Zawahiri's real body. Destroy that. And try not to die in the process."
"That's optimistic."
"That's necessary."
Lydia pulled up Marina's intelligence on her personal display. Her eyes went distant. All seventeen streams converging on something that looked like memory fighting to surface through fragmentation.
"I read the guard profiles." Her voice went quiet. Soft in a way that suggested vulnerability beneath the tactical assessment. "Recognized three names."
Kasper's tactical mind recalibrated instantly. "You know them."
"We were in Project Lazaris together." Lydia's hand found Kasper's. Trembling. "We were friends. Before."
The weight of that settled over the group like geometry imposing impossible equations.
Rui moved closer. His expression showing something that looked like pain and hope fighting for dominance. "Memories can be weapons or lifelines. We'll find out which when we're inside."
"When we go in," Lydia continued, her seventeen streams showing visible disagreement now. Some wanted to save them. Others calculated tactical risk. The conflict played across her face like watching someone argue with themselves. "I might remember them. Might remember being children together. Will you still let me deploy if that happens?"
Kasper looked at his team. At Rui who'd sacrificed everything to protect Lydia. At García who'd compromised institutional position for conscience. At Valerian who provided tactical support even when tactics required impossible choices. At Lydia who asked whether she was fighting or just executing programming sophisticated enough to feel like agency.
At people who were trying to remain people in systems designed to turn them into infrastructure.
"Forty-six hours," he said. "We study Marina's intelligence. Develop recognition protocols. Create extraction plan. We prove that weapons can become people again."
He paused.
"Or we die trying. Either way, we don't become what al-Zawahiri claims we are."
Lydia's hand tightened on his. All seventeen streams processing the same terrible certainty.
"The factory's proximity alarms just triggered," she said quietly. Her distributed consciousness already interfacing with security systems. "Multiple enhanced signatures. Military-grade equipment. They're not ATA."
"Then who?" Valerian's hand found his sidearm.
"European." Lydia's eyes unfocused. Processing data streams invisible to human perception. "Inspector Weber's team. They tracked us back from the harbor."
García sprinted toward the communications array. "How many?"
"Twelve operatives. Heavy weapons. They're not here to talk."
Valerian's aristocratic background suddenly showed through. He'd seen these tactics before. Recognized them from whatever training the Obsidian Syndicate had given him. "Those formations. EU Special Operations. This isn't reconnaissance. They're here for conquest."
Onofre's voice cut through the factory floor. Calm. Precise. Someone who'd been expecting this. "Defensive positions. They want the intelligence about the fourth target. They're not leaving without it."
Kasper looked at the data cylinder. At Marina's intelligence that would save six lives or get them all killed. At the choice between surrendering information to foreign operatives or fighting people who wanted the same thing they did.
Al-Zawahiri eliminated.
Different methods. Different agendas. Same ultimate goal.
"Forty-six hours," Rui said quietly. "If we're still alive in forty-six hours."
The factory's main entrance exploded inward. Not subtle. Not quiet. Just directed energy weapons turning art deco metalwork into molten slag and superheated vapor.
Through the smoke and debris, figures in tactical gear advanced with professional precision.
Inspector Weber's voice echoed through the factory floor. Amplified. Clinical. "We're not here for a fight. Just the intelligence about al-Zawahiri's cryogenic facilities. Give us the data and we leave. Resist and we take it from your corpses."
Kasper's hand found his sidearm.
Forty-six hours until they proved whether victims could be saved.
But first, they had to survive the next forty-six minutes.