Chapter 9 CHAPTER 9 — AFTERMATH CALCULATIONS

I pushed myself fully to my feet, water sloshing around my boots. My body felt heavier, older. Every joint protested. “Enough standing around. We’re extracting. Now. Ren, take point. Lian, stay beside me. Zhao Yun, watch our backs. Captain Huo, you’re with Yun. Let’s move before anything else decides to wake up.”

Ren nodded once but didn’t meet my eyes. He turned and started splashing toward the exit corridor without his usual fire. “Yeah. Moving.”

Lian stayed close, her shoulder brushing mine, but she kept glancing sideways like she was studying a stranger. “Wei… are you really you right now? I’m trying to read you but it’s all tangled. Parts feel familiar. Parts don’t.”

“I’m me,” I said, forcing my legs to work properly. “At least mostly. Let’s get out of this flooded graveyard first. Then we can talk.”

Captain Huo fell in beside Zhao Yun, rifle ready. “You heard the captain. Double time. I don’t like how quiet it got after that seal. Too clean.”

We started the long extraction through the half-drowned terminal, boots echoing off broken tiles. The air still carried that metallic hell-stench, but the oppressive pressure from the Gate was gone. For now.

Zhao Yun kept glancing at his tablet while walking, fingers flying across the screen. His usual calm expression had tightened into something sharper. Not fear. Realization. Like he’d just solved an equation he didn’t like the answer to.

“Talk to me, Yun,” I said. “What are those models saying now?”

Zhao Yun didn’t look up immediately. “I’m running silent calculations, Captain. Cross-referencing the forty seconds of anomalous behavior with previous Thread usage logs. The divergence is… consistent. Increasing.”

Ren snorted from up ahead without turning around. “Consistent? That’s what you call his dead wife taking the wheel? Just say it’s fucked, Yun. We all saw it.”

“Ren,” I warned.

He finally glanced back, but his eyes slid past mine. “What? I’m not avoiding the truth, boss. You collapsed after she sealed that Gate for us. Look at your hands. You aged ten years in one fight. And now you’re telling us to just keep walking like nothing happened?”

Lian squeezed my arm gently, but her grip felt uncertain. “Ren, ease up. He’s still our captain. He got us through it. But Wei… I’m staying close because I’m worried. When she was in control, your emotions felt warmer. Safer. But now it’s all jagged again. Like you’re fighting something inside.”

“I am fighting,” I muttered. “Or trying to understand it. Captain Huo, you’ve known me longest. Say what you’re thinking.”

Huo kept her eyes on the corridor ahead. “I’m thinking we need to get you back to Jing-An for a full medical scan. I saw Mei-Ling’s style in those movements, Wei. The way you…she…handled that Gate. It was her. No doubt. But you’re the one paying the price. Again.”

We climbed a collapsed escalator, water pouring down the steps. My knees burned with the effort. I reached for the Fate Thread internally, just a light test.

It responded instantly. Too fast. Golden lines flared in my vision before I even finished the thought. A minor adjustment to steady my balance happened automatically. The ache in my joints eased slightly, but I felt the years tick anyway.

“Shit,” I whispered.

Lian noticed. “What? Your Thread just flared. I felt it. Wei, don’t push it again so soon. You’re already…”

“I wasn’t pushing hard,” I said. “It’s reacting faster now. Like it’s primed. Waiting.”

Zhao Yun’s voice dropped. “That matches my models. Synchronization is altering baseline response time. Captain, your Thread efficiency has increased, but the cost curve is steeper. Every use is accelerating something.”

Ren kicked a piece of debris out of the way, still avoiding direct eye contact. “Accelerating what? Him turning into her? Or something worse? I’m supposed to trust you with my life, boss, but after watching you move like a different person… I don’t know what to say.”

“Say you’re alive,” I shot back. “All of you. That Gate would have torn us apart if I hadn’t… if we hadn’t… sealed it. I’m still here. Still making calls.”

Lian looked up at me, voice soft. “But are you? When she spoke through you… it felt like she knew exactly what to do. Like she’s been waiting for this. I’m unsettled, Wei. I want to believe it’s still you leading us, but part of me is scared of what happens next time.”

Captain Huo glanced over. “We’ve all lost people. But having her inside you… that’s new territory. You need to figure out how much control you still have before the next mission. The squad can’t afford uncertainty in the field.”

“I know,” I said quietly. “I’m tracking it. Treating the voice as a variable now instead of ignoring it.”

Zhao Yun suddenly stopped walking for a second, staring at his tablet. His face went rigid.

“Yun?” I asked.

He looked up slowly. “Captain. A new metric just appeared in the System feed tied to your signature. I’ve never seen this before.”

A faint notification flickered across my vision, unstable and glitching at the edges.

[GATE SYNCHRONIZATION: 23%]

My stomach dropped. “Twenty-three percent. What the hell does that mean?”

Zhao Yun shook his head. “No context provided. But it’s linked directly to your Fate Thread and the sealed Gate. It wasn’t there before today. The timing suggests the forty seconds of lost control raised it.”

Ren finally turned fully, expression dark. “Great. So now there’s a percentage on how much you’re syncing with hell? Or with her? Boss, we need real answers before this gets any worse.”

Lian stayed pressed close, but her hand trembled slightly against my arm. “Wei… I can feel it shifting inside you. Whatever this synchronization is, it’s not finished.”

The corridor ahead opened toward the surface exit. We kept moving, but the weight of their uncertainty pressed harder than the years I’d lost.

Then her voice returned, soft and almost fond, brushi

ng warm against the back of my thoughts.

“…we’re running out of time.”