The return to Beijing was silent, grim, and under the radar. Zahra had changed. Not just in confidence or purpose, but fundamentally. Since the injection, memories flickered through her mind like old film reels: formulas she'd never studied, blueprints she'd never drawn, voices she'd never heard, yet somehow knew.
Elijah noticed it too. "You move differently," he said on the train. "Like you've already been through what's coming."
Zahra nodded. "Because I have. In a way."
Their plan was dangerous: upload Dr. Liang's full research archive to an encrypted academic server during the university's international science summit. The conference hall would be filled with diplomats, scientists, and reporters. A perfect storm.
But they needed help.
They found it in a former professor, Dr. Meiling Zhou, one of Liang's old protégés who had vanished from public life after the scandal. She lived in a modest apartment in Chaoyang, surrounded by stacks of dusty journals and relics of a life once spent chasing truth.
When Zahra showed her the files and notebook, Zhou wept. "They lied to us," she said. "They made us believe we were healing minds. But we were building weapons."
She agreed to help. Together, they coded the final upload, buried it in a dummy lecture presentation on "Neuro-Somatic Memory Encoding in Transgenerational Trauma."
But on the day of the summit, something went wrong. As Zahra stepped into the building, she saw him, Zhou's assistant, the quiet one. Only, he wasn't. He was the same man who had chased them through the woods in Hǔshān.
Zahra froze. "Elijah. He's one of them." Too late.
Security flooded the hall. Zahra and Elijah bolted through a side corridor, laptops in hand, sprinting past stunned scientists and flashing lights. They reached the media room, slammed the door, and activated the emergency uplink.
"We have 90 seconds," Zhou's voice crackled through the headset.
Elijah barricaded the door. Zahra uploaded the last files: recordings, testimony, genetic sequences, and Liang's final formula.
Just as the lock was blown off the door, the upload hit 100%. News alerts started pinging within minutes. "Leaked Files Expose Genetic Experimentation in Chinese Medical Trials." A cascade of digital fire lit up the world.
Elijah grabbed her hand. "We did it."
But before they could escape, the assistant levelled a gun at them.
"You should've stayed ghosts," he hissed.
Then Dr. Zhou appeared behind him, raising a metal sculpture. One strike. He collapsed. They fled through the fire exit as sirens wailed across campus.
By midnight, their names were international headlines. Some called them heroes. Others called them traitors, but Zahra had no regrets. She stood on a rooftop, watching the city breathe beneath her. The truth was out. Her father's sacrifice had meant something.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the final page from Liang's notebook.
"The mind can forget. But the soul remembers."