The transmitter in my chest stopped beeping after 379 days.
Xiao Zhou found me on the rooftop watching the sunrise. His new prosthetic hand gripped my shoulder too tight.
"They're coming," he said.
The children's synchronized scream confirmed it before the radio did.
Aunt Wang assembled her antique rifle with oil-stained hands. Old Zhao welded the last armor plate onto our makeshift truck.
The signal had changed.
Not the lab's destruction countdown.
Not Zhou Pei'en's control frequency.
Something older.
Something buried deeper.
The device in my chest activated its final protocol as the first mechanical footstep shook the gates.
The last delivery wasn't for them.
It was for me.
Ding.