Three weeks after the explosion, the city had still not found peace.
Rumors traveled faster than electricity. Each night, in dark alleys and abandoned streets, people whispered of blue light flashing in midair and when it faded, someone vanished. No blood. No screams. Only a faint luminous haze drifting briefly before dissolving into nothingness.
The public called them "electronic phantoms."
In the classified files of the Special Forces, however, they bore a different name: X-Blue Phenomenon.
Department of Unnatural Energy Investigation, Ministry of Technological Security.
Captain Phạm Quân stood before a holographic display, blue light reflecting off a face hollowed by sleepless nights.
"Captain, the X-Blue incident map has been cross referenced."
"Show me."
A technician touched the interface. Flickering blue points appeared slowly forming a spiral, spreading outward from the Western Bureau toward the North.
At its center: the coordinates of the former Thiên Châu Launch Platform.
"All victims disappeared within a 500 kilometer radius of the platform," the technician reported.
"Age? Gender?"
"Random. No shared blood types. No common professions. But…"
She hesitated.
"All of them had biological identification chips implanted under the National Project 2079."
Quân frowned. "The bio-chips… Van Sinh developed them, didn't they?"
"Yes. And although the company was officially dissolved, the source code remains under Van Sinh's control."
He said nothing.
Under the blue lights, his expression hardened, thoughts sinking like still water.
"Any energy samples matching the footprint from Western Bureau?"
"Yes, Captain. Two disappearances in the Eastern District share the same frequency though weaker in intensity. It appears to be a residual effect."
"Residual?" Quân echoed softly.
"Or… footsteps."
The room fell silent.
He deactivated the display and spoke quietly.
"Prepare a vehicle. I want to visit the latest site."
Two hours later. Đông Liệt Industrial Zone once a major civilian robot assembly hub. Now reduced to collapsed structures and warning signs marking false radiation zones.
Phạm Quân entered a pitch-black factory hall. His flashlight swept across rusted machinery. On the wall remained a crude message scrawled by workers before evacuation:
"We are human beings, not experiments."
He stopped at a patch of ground stained with silvery light.
A dim glowing trace ran across it like a vein beneath translucent skin.
He crouched and touched it lightly.
"Blue energy…" he murmured.
"But colder than Western Bureau."
Behind him, a subordinate spoke with a trembling voice.
"Captain… do you think it's the same entity?"
"No."
Quân stood up.
"It's the same person."
At the same moment, northwest of the city, deep within an abandoned industrial bunker, Trần Trung stood beside a decaying control console.
A faint blue glow pulsed from his chest, reflecting off the aged face of Professor An.
"Your energy output is increasing," the professor said. "Each use spreads the frequency farther. They will find us soon."
"I don't care," Trung replied. His voice was low, hoarse almost mechanical.
"You should. This time, the ones hunting you aren't ordinary humans."
"They are defective replicas."
"Defective… replicas?"
"When Van Sinh failed to preserve the original template, they resorted to cloning imperfect versions. The bodies live but the minds are hollow. Programmed with a single directive: retrieve the emotional core."
"The emotional core…" Trung repeated softly.
"The thing inside me."
"And the very thing that makes you different from all of them."
Silence. Outside, wind shrieked through metal seams. Lights flickered weakly. The professor stepped closer, placing a hand on Trung's shoulder.
"Do you know why I saved you?"
"Because you needed me?"
"No."
"Because I wanted to prove that emotion can still be the strongest energy in the world."
Trung slowly lifted his head.
"And you?"
"I only wanted to see someone made of steel who could still keep his heart."
That same night, Phạm Quân returned to base.
He rested his hand on the display, replaying satellite footage of blue halos drifting across the city slow, deliberate, patterned. When magnified, they formed a spiral identical to human neural wave models.
"It's not moving randomly," Quân said, eyes fixed on the screen.
"It's searching… or looking for someone."
An officer beside him swallowed hard.
"Captain… do you think it's the one responsible for Western Bureau?"
"I think…"
"…it's a survivor."
Quân stepped onto the balcony. Beyond, storm clouds smothered the night sky. Far on the horizon, a faint blue shimmer pulsed weakly.
"If he is human," Quân said softly,
"then perhaps he's fighting the same enemy we haven't yet seen."
He crushed out his cigarette. His eyes gleamed with something suspended between suspicion and understanding.
In the hidden bunker, Trung sat alone. From within his chest, the blue light pulsed gently, casting reflections along the cracked walls. He closed his eyes.
And for the first time since Mai disappeared he dreamed.
A soft voice echoed inside his mind.
"Can you hear me?"
"…Mai?"
"They're coming. But don't be afraid. I'm here."
His eyes flew open.
The light within his chest surged, spreading through every strand of steel fiber in his body. Outside the bunker, the sand trembled as if something long dormant was beginning to awaken.