Chapter 139 - 137 A Heartbeat Outside of Time

Chapter 139: Chapter 137 A Heartbeat Outside of Time

The blue liquid finished running down from Sebastián’s elbow and fell onto the floor in thick drops. No new vibration came from the other side of the mechanical body. The pistons had lost pressure, the valves remained open, and the light that had occupied its eyes until an instant ago did not return.

Only the ceiling vents continued working above them, drawing in the last greenish wisps that were still rising from the pools of acid.

Sebastián withdrew his arm from the destroyed torso.

The metal edges gave way around his skin with a wet crunch. The machine tilted forward, unable to maintain its balance without the assembly of pieces that had supported its center.

One knee struck the floor.

Then the other.

The remaining weight ended up resting on its fists, as if that figure built to represent strength had been forced to bow before shutting down.

Behind the deformed wall, the director’s heart continued beating just as rapidly. Sebastián separated its beats from the noises filling the headquarters and heard the repeated brushing of fingers against a control.

The man was still trying to obtain a response from the shelter.

Farther away, outside the building, Helena’s and Selena’s breathing remained together. They were no longer beneath the window. During the minutes of the confrontation, they had moved toward one of the side alleys, where the architecture concealed their bodies from the avenue.

Sebastián lowered his gaze toward the robot.

The director could not know about the existence of the ring.

He took the machine by the rear joint of its neck and dragged it out of the narrow angle offered by the opening in the wall. The metal knees left two marks through the blue liquid.

Once his own body stood between the shelter and the remains, he extended the hand wearing the ring. ℯℯ𝘭.

A faint glow ran across the metal around his finger.

The perforated torso disappeared first. Then the limbs, the fragments torn away by the pressure dragon, and the plates scattered around the place where they had fought.

Sebastián went over the office once more and stored the smaller pieces he recognized among the remains of the desk. He did not attempt to collect the spilled fluid or the shards melted into the acid.

When he closed his hand, only the dents in the floor, a few blue drops, and the empty space the statue had occupied remained.

He returned to the wall.

The opening created before the attack barely allowed a dark strip of the interior to be seen. Sebastián inserted his fingers into both edges, found the reinforcement framework again, and pulled.

The deformed locks resisted with a groan. One broke loose inward; another tore away part of the covering and exposed cables that were still receiving auxiliary power.

The gap widened until the movable section lost its axis and remained twisted inside the wall.

The shelter appeared behind it.

It was deeper than the outer wall suggested, but it had not been built for comfort. A padded bench ran along one side. On the opposite side, metal compartments and narrow filing cabinets occupied the space all the way to the back.

A red line illuminated the ceiling.

Beneath it, the director remained huddled against the farthest corner, his gray jacket open and his tie shifted over one shoulder.

He held a compact communicator between both hands.

He pressed the screen again. The device lit up with a weak signal, searched for a link that did not exist, and returned to the same warning.

The interruption caused by Selena had left power in the files and priority systems, but not an ordinary channel through which the man could call for help.

The director struck the edge of the communicator with his thumb and tried to initiate another call.

He did not hear the wall finish giving way until Sebastián’s shadow covered the entrance.

He raised his face.

His eyes found the full-face mask first. Then they moved down toward the destroyed sleeves, the dried blood over the already-healed skin, and the blue liquid still running along part of his right arm.

He looked past Sebastián, toward the place where the robot should have remained.

He found nothing.

—Wait —he said.

The word came out broken.

The communicator slipped between his fingers and struck the padded floor.

Sebastián entered sideways so as not to brush against the torn edges.

The director tried to stand, but one leg became tangled with the bench and his back struck the lining again. He raised an open hand in front of his face.

—I can give you everything. The records, the names... There’s no need to...

Sebastián crossed the distance before he could finish.

His left hand gripped the man’s shoulder to keep his head from striking the wall. With his right, he delivered a short, controlled blow beside the angle of the jaw.

He did not use the strength with which he had pierced the robot. He used only what was necessary to make him lose consciousness without breaking the bone or turning the capture into a corpse.

The director’s eyes lost focus.

His knees gave way and all his weight fell onto the arm holding him.

Sebastián lowered him onto the bench. He checked his pulse with two fingers, monitored the continuity of his breathing, and waited for a moment.

The rhythm was fast, but stable.

The man would not wake during the minutes they needed to leave the headquarters.

Only then did he observe the entire interior of the chamber.

He did not attempt to interpret everything he found there. That task belonged to Helena and Selena. He limited himself to inspecting the shelter with the same attention with which he would have examined a hostile place.

He opened the visible compartments first.

He found physical folders arranged by date, sealed envelopes, and narrow boxes containing storage modules. Several spines repeated the areas mentioned during the interrogation: security, internal transfers, and temporary authorizations.

Behind the bench was a separate cabinet containing two powered-off tablets, several backup devices, and a closed security case.

At the back, beneath an unmarked cover, he discovered more documents secured with bands and three compact units connected to a system that had retained power.

Everything was gathered where the director had expected to survive.

Sebastián disconnected the units without damaging their ports, grouped the objects so as not to leave isolated pieces behind, and placed them inside the ring.

Each group disappeared with a brief flash.

The folders followed the modules; the tablets, the closed case; the envelopes and backups, the boxes that protected them.

He checked the empty spaces after removing them and ran his fingers along the interior joints to locate hidden closures.

He found no other exit or second compartment.

When he finished, the filing cabinets remained open and bare.

He picked up the fallen communicator and stored it with the rest of the evidence.

Then he took the director.

He lifted him from the bench and settled the body over his left shoulder. One hand held the legs; the other remained free.

As he left the chamber, he kept the man’s head from brushing against the deformed edges.

He crossed the office following the strips of floor the acid had not reached. The mist had almost disappeared and the side intakes of his mask continued filtering the air, but the pools remained active: they bubbled around the remains of the guards and slowly sank the unrecognizable matter into the floor.

Sebastián reached the broken window and listened before jumping.

He located Helena and Selena by their breathing, by both of their pulses, and by the occasional brushing of Selena’s ponytail against the collar of her overcoat.

They were to the left, behind the adjoining building.

No third presence remained with them.

No sirens could yet be heard on the avenue.

He secured the director more firmly and descended.

He did not need to repeat the violence of the previous jump. He pushed off from the edge, dropped toward the side strip, and bent his legs when he touched the pavement.

The impact opened two short cracks beneath his boots, but the body he carried barely moved on his shoulder.

Sebastián straightened immediately and took the shortest path toward the alley.

Selena saw him first.

She moved away from the wall and cast a quick glance at the director, from his unconscious face to the hand hanging behind Sebastián’s back.

Helena remained beside her. Dust from the previous landing still dulled part of her coat, but her posture had regained the firmness with which she had entered the office.

—Is he alive? —Helena asked.

Sebastián stopped in front of them.

—Yes. He will remain unconscious for a while.

Helena observed the man without approaching. The displacement of his tie, his unresponsive face, and the complete loss of the composure with which he had received them seemed to have reduced the director to something much smaller than his position.

Selena raised the tablet she still carried. A red notification occupied the edge of the screen. She opened it, read two lines, and slid her thumb toward a log that had just been updated.

Her lips tightened slightly.

—The auxiliary system has just escalated the third-floor incident to the external emergency channel —she said—. Ordinary communication remains blocked, but that channel is part of the priority systems. The police have already received the alert.

Helena turned her eyes toward her.

—How much time?

Selena checked the time and turned off the screen.

—Four minutes. Five, if they have to confirm access before entering.

—Then we leave.

There was no discussion.

Selena put away the tablet and moved first toward the exit of the alley. She stopped before exposing herself, observed the road, and signaled that they could cross.

Helena followed her without attempting to move faster than her steps allowed. Sebastián brought up the rear with the director over his shoulder, attentive to the windows, the side entrances, and any sound that changed inside the headquarters.

The gray vehicle remained beneath the cover of the authorized access. The driver had started the engine, but remained in his seat with the lights off.

When he saw them appear, he released the locks and got out to open the doors. His eyes paused for a fraction on the unconscious man and then on Sebastián’s destroyed sleeves.

He asked no questions.

Sebastián settled the director in the center of the rear seat and got in beside him to prevent him from waking or collapsing during the journey. Selena took the opposite space.

Helena sat in front, beside the driver.

When the last door closed, the locks responded at the same time.

—Go —Helena ordered.

The driver set the vehicle in motion.

The access barrier rose through the authorization that still recognized the car. They crossed before the system could associate the departure with the third-floor alert.

The vehicle ascended toward the street, turned at the first intersection, and merged into the nighttime traffic without activating any signal that distinguished it from the others.

Sebastián looked at the headquarters through the rear window.

The opening on the third floor was barely a black absence among the illuminated surfaces. A few red lines pulsed behind the broken glass, the only visible signs of everything that had happened in that office.

Then the building disappeared behind the carefully maintained trees along the avenue.

Leaving the city required no further decisions.

The vehicle took them to a service entrance of the station, away from the concourses where travelers were still moving through. There they found the passage Helena had requested before beginning the inspection already prepared.

Sebastián retrieved a change of clothes from the luggage and left behind the security uniform with its destroyed sleeves, the stains from the fight, and the chemical smell clinging to the fabric.

When he returned, the director had already been placed in a transport chair whose clinical appearance concealed the restraints fastened around his wrists and ankles.

He remained unconscious.

They crossed the restricted corridors without mixing with the public.

A closed compartment on the bullet train received them a few minutes later and kept the prisoner out of sight throughout the return journey.

Beyond the windows, the orderly city dissolved into lines of light. Afterward, only black expanses remained, intermediate stations passing without stopping them, and the reflection of four people who had nothing to say while the distance was consumed.

Helena remained across from the director. Selena reviewed on her tablet the notifications that continued arriving from the headquarters.

Sebastián occupied the seat closest to the door and kept part of his attention on the man’s breathing until the first buildings of their city appeared on the other side of the glass.

They arrived through a secondary platform.

Two dark vehicles waited behind the service barriers, and beside them a small team belonging to Helena was spread out without forming a conspicuous concentration.

They wore no visible insignias.

A woman received the vital-signs record from Selena. Two other agents transferred the director from the chair to the first car and secured his body in the rear seat.

The man did not regain consciousness during the procedure.

Helena observed every movement before turning toward Sebastián.

—The evidence will remain with you for now —she said—. Selena will determine what can be reviewed without compromising it. I will make sure he reaches the interrogation site.

Sebastián inclined his head once.

—Understood.

Helena directed a look toward Selena.

There was no prolonged farewell between them; only the practical certainty that each knew the part that belonged to her.

Selena tucked the tablet against her side and nodded.

Helena entered the vehicle where they had placed the director. The rest of the team occupied the second car, and both left the access point only a few seconds apart.

When their lights disappeared beyond the ramp, Sebastián, Selena, and a third civilian-looking vehicle remained beside the platform.

The driver waited inside.

Selena did not move forward immediately. She adjusted the strap of the bag over her shoulder and regarded Sebastián with the restrained calm she had maintained even inside the headquarters.

—Your participation ends here —she said—. I can ask the driver to take you to the mansion. Before that, you would have to give me the documents you recovered.

She paused briefly.

Her fingers rested on the edge of the tablet without turning it on.

—The other possibility is that you come with me. I will review the physical material tonight and I will be able to tell you what immediate consequences what we did will have. The choice is yours.

She did not present the second option as a personal invitation or attempt to steer him toward it.

She laid out both possibilities with equal weight and waited.

Sebastián looked toward the access through which Helena had left.

The capture was over, but the reasons that had caused it remained scattered inside his ring, still without an order that would allow them to be measured.

Besides, among that evidence rested the remains of something neither of the two women had expected to find.

—I’ll go with you —he replied—. I want to know what the documents contain and talk about the machine that was in the office.

Selena held his gaze.

—The statue?

—It wasn’t a statue. It was an operational unit.

Selena’s stillness changed slightly.

Her eyes dropped for a fraction toward the hand on which Sebastián wore the ring and then returned to his face.

—That explains the impacts we heard after leaving the building.

—I stored it with the pieces that came off. I want someone to determine whether it can be reconstructed or whether its operation can be reproduced. A unit like that would be useful for protecting the mansion when we are not there.

Selena opened the rear door of the car, but kept one hand on the frame.

—We will need an isolated place and people who know how to examine it without activating whatever it may still retain. You will not take it out in my apartment.

—I wasn’t planning to.

A hint of expression crossed Selena’s lips without becoming a smile.

She entered the vehicle.

Sebastián took the opposite seat and the door closed behind him.

The rest of the journey ended without detours. The night had advanced enough to empty a large part of the streets, and the car entered a residential area where the lit windows appeared increasingly farther apart.

Selena used those minutes to answer two messages from Helena and confirm that the director remained stable. She did not speak about the headquarters again until the vehicle stopped beneath the building where she lived.

The apartment was silent when they entered.

Selena turned on only the living-room lights and left the bag beside a wide table, clear except for a glass container and a narrow tray. She removed her coat, arranged it over the back of a chair, and pointed to the opposite end of the table.

—Place only the physical documents there. The modules and tablets must remain isolated until we can connect them to a system that has no access to any network.

Sebastián raised his right hand.

A flash ran across the ring and the first set of folders appeared on the surface. Then came the sealed envelopes, the archive boxes, and the packages secured with bands that he had found beneath the cover inside the chamber.

He did not take out the communicator, the backup devices, or the compact units.

Nor did he allow a single piece of the robot to leave the storage space.

Selena pulled a second chair closer. Before sitting down, she went to the kitchen and returned with two glasses of water. She placed one beside Sebastián without asking whether he needed it and took the other while examining the spines of the folders.

—Security, internal transfers, and temporary authorizations —she read—. He kept beside him exactly the records that could compromise him.

—He believed he would reach that chamber alive and that he could negotiate with them.

Selena set down the glass without drinking.

She broke the seal on the first envelope with a letter opener she took from the tray and spread out its contents without altering the order. Sebastián sat down across from her.

For a time, the conversation was reduced to the rustle of paper, dates spoken in low voices, and questions that arose only when one notation needed to be compared with another.

The documents did not offer a complete confession.

None of them identified on its own the person who had built the entire network, but together they revealed conduct impossible to attribute to isolated oversights.

There were security shifts modified shortly before certain internal movements, temporary access granted from areas that did not appear as applicants, and transfers whose official destinations did not match the recorded routes. Some authorizations were repeated under different codes; others had been approved during periods when those responsible for them were listed as being away from the headquarters.

The director had kept copies of every irregularity, not to report them, but to make sure he possessed something with which to protect himself if those above him decided to turn him into the sole culprit.

Selena separated the records into increasingly precise groups.

She did not write on the originals. She placed small removable markers along the edges and noted the connections on her tablet, still disconnected from any external network.

Sebastián observed the pattern growing among the dates before pointing to two sheets positioned at opposite ends of the table.

—These changes happened on the same day.

Selena brought both documents closer. Her index finger ran over the times and stopped on two authorization codes.

—Seven minutes apart —she confirmed—. The first opened the internal route. The second removed the guards who could have seen it.

—Then he wasn’t acting alone.

—No. But this still doesn’t prove who was giving the orders. It proves that he knew the procedure, protected it, and kept a copy to use when he no longer felt safe.

Selena added the two sheets to the same group.

The answer contained no satisfaction. Finding a structure behind the corruption did not make it simpler; it only expanded the number of places from which it could spread.

They continued until the open folders occupied much of the table.

The distance between them narrowed out of necessity whenever Selena turned a document so Sebastián could read it or he brought closer a date she had not yet connected.

The conversation gradually lost the rigidity of a report. The formality between them did not disappear, but the silence stopped feeling like a boundary that every word had to cross with permission.

Selena closed a folder and kept her palm on the cover.

—I have to ask you something before we continue.

Sebastián looked away from the record in front of him.

—Ask.

—After getting us out of the office, you took more time than necessary to recover the director. The machine was dangerous, but the impacts continued for several minutes. Why did you prolong the confrontation?

Sebastián did not look for an explanation that would diminish the decision.

—I wanted to measure my physical strength after reaching new capabilities. The unit could match it and withstand enough damage to force me to continue. I fought without supernatural powers to see how much my body had changed.

Selena’s fingers remained motionless on the folder.

—With the police approaching and the objective still inside the building.

—Yes.

—You could have destroyed it earlier.

—Yes.

The direct acceptance stopped any argument before it could begin.

Selena observed him for several seconds. She found no defiance in him, nor any attempt to turn the favorable outcome into a justification.

—It was an unnecessary risk —she said—. Not because you couldn’t defeat it, but because we still didn’t know what other systems it could activate while it remained operational.

Sebastián lowered his gaze toward the closed folder.

—You’re right. I won’t turn a withdrawal into a personal test again.

Selena removed her hand from the cover. The tension that had entered her shoulders eased without disappearing completely.

—You also made correct decisions. You followed the plan while it remained useful. You didn’t try to impose yourself over Helena or me inside a headquarters that we knew better.

—Intervening unnecessarily would have gotten in the way.

—And when the plan stopped working, you acted before we could ask you to.

Sebastián remembered the vents opening above them, the first glimmer of the greenish liquid, and the warning from his instinct running through his body.

At that moment there had been no command, hierarchy, or time to discuss a way out.

Only two people within his reach and a threat descending from the ceiling.

—That was why I was there.

Selena picked up one of the removable markers that had remained stuck to her finger. She folded it between both thumbnails before setting it aside.

—You could have gotten Helena out first. She would have been the logical priority for many people.

Sebastián’s answer came without pause.

—Both of you were under my protection.

Selena raised her eyes.

For a fraction, the composure with which she analyzed the records lost some of its distance, not because an open emotion appeared in her, but because she stopped hiding that those words carried personal weight.

Then she took the glass and drank for the first time.

—I know —she said.

She added no thanks.

Sebastián did not need them either.

The certainty remained between them with greater firmness than any courtesy.

Selena turned back toward the documents, although this time she did not immediately resume sorting them.

—Regarding the unit, I can’t promise you that it will be possible to reconstruct it.

—The systems that distributed the impacts were in other areas of the torso. I also kept the limbs, the reservoirs, and the detached pieces. Even if it never functions again, its structure can be studied.

—If Helena authorizes access, we can take it to a secure facility. We will have to choose very few people. Whoever built something like that could recognize their technology if we allow images or reports to circulate.

Sebastián rested his forearms on his legs, without bringing them close to the papers.

—I don’t need it to be the same. I want to know if we can obtain a defense capable of acting when Virka and I are not at the mansion.

Selena nodded slowly.

She understood that the request did not come from a desire to possess the machine he had faced. Behind it were a house too large, a girl Sebastián was unwilling to leave unprotected, and the impossibility of him always remaining by her side.

—First we will find out what it is —she replied—. Then we will decide what part of it can be used without bringing into your home something we still do not understand.

—That is enough.

The review continued.

Outside, the city continued dimming its lights, unaware of the evidence spread across that table and the man traveling toward an interrogation at some point Sebastián did not need to know.

Inside the apartment, the first task that had brought the two of them together ceased to be merely a succession of dangers overcome.

It acquired recognizable mistakes, decisions that could be discussed, and a trust that no longer depended entirely on the agreement between Helena and him.

It was not intimacy.

Nor was it declared friendship.

It was something more restrained: the certainty that they could speak without protecting themselves from one another through incomplete answers.

Selena had just lifted a new sheet when Sebastián felt the pulse.

It did not come from the street or descend from the sky.

It had no direction his senses could follow.

It was born everywhere at the same time, behind the walls, beneath the floor, and in a depth that did not belong to matter.

His instinct reacted, but found no body against which to prepare itself nor any trajectory from which he could move Selena away.

The apartment changed.

It did not disappear.

It remained around Sebastián with the same walls, the same table, and the same documents, but separated from the reality that had contained them an instant before.

The sound of the city stopped reaching him. The lights retained their form without any longer belonging to the electricity that powered them. In front of him, the place Selena had occupied existed within the replica, although she was not there.

Sebastián had been dragged into the reflection of the apartment within the Veil.

The transition did not last long enough to become an absence before Selena’s eyes.

However, within that impossible fraction, the pulse spread, and the narration of its advance fit where normal time could not have contained it.

At the mansion, Virka rested lying beside Valentina.

The girl’s breathing remained calm, and one of her hands stayed closed near her chest. A short distance away, Narka cultivated in his small form, motionless in the place he had chosen to accompany them.

The room overlapped with its reflection.

Virka’s red eyes opened at the same instant the silence of the Veil filled the walls. Her arm moved toward Valentina.

Narka interrupted his cultivation and raised his head; the gold of his eye swept across the transformed space before fixing on the girl.

Valentina was there as well.

The pulse had reached the instability of her soul and dragged her into the replica of the room.

The three of them could see one another because they had been reached by the same phenomenon.

Virka did not manage to touch her.

At another point in the city, Kael remained alone in the dojo.

He meditated with his back straight and his hands resting on his legs when the floor, the walls, and the emptiness surrounding his breathing acquired their counterpart within the Veil.

He did not open his eyes out of alarm.

He opened them because he recognized the place and, at the same time, understood that he had not chosen to enter.

His posture did not break.

He only raised his face while that pressure crossed the reflection of the dojo and continued beyond it.

The same change reached closed rooms, nighttime streets, rooftops, and hidden enclosures throughout the city.

People who were sleeping, meditating, or remaining awake appeared during that fraction within the replicas of the places they occupied.

Those who were beside other beings endowed with power saw them there with them. Those who were surrounded only by ordinary humans found the spaces that an instant before had seemed inhabited empty.

No one was taken to a different place.

The Veil reproduced every location and received those affected exactly where they were.

The pulse left the city without weakening.

It crossed other urban expanses, dark regions, and boundaries that existed only on the maps of the normal world.

In every place the same superposition occurred: a reflected reality, an interruption too brief to be measured, and beings capable of sensing it raising their gaze before understanding it.

For ordinary humans there was no silence, emptiness, or disappearance.

Their conversations continued, the vehicles maintained their course, and no clock lost a fraction it could record.

The wave crossed the continent.

Beyond the coast, it descended through the reflection of the waters.

The surface remained above, increasingly distant, while the pulse reached regions where light did not reach and continued sinking toward the seafloor.

There, separated from the world of cities by pressure capable of destroying ordinary bodies, ten forms remained hidden.

All ten were dragged into the Veil.

They did not leave the depths.

They appeared within the reflection of the same abyss, distributed in the places they already occupied. None needed to move to recognize the beat that had just passed through them.

During that immeasurable interval, the reflected ocean seemed to contain something greater than its own expanse.

Then everything returned.

The room in the mansion recovered its place in the normal world.

Virka’s hand completed its movement and rested on Valentina. The girl continued breathing without having had time to fully awaken, although her fingers closed more tightly around the fabric.

Narka remained with his head raised and his cultivation interrupted.

In the dojo, Kael was once again surrounded by ordinary reality.

He was still alone.

His hands had not left his legs, but his eyes remained open.

In the cities, the people who had been reached reappeared within the same movement they had been making before the pulse.

In the depths, the ten forms returned to the ocean without changing their positions.

In the apartment, the sheet Selena was lifting had barely advanced between her fingers.

Sebastián saw her in front of him again.

The nighttime sounds once again penetrated the walls, and the light recovered the electrical nature it had lost within the reflection.

To Selena, he had not disappeared.

Not even enough time had passed for her eyes to register an interruption.

She only noticed that Sebastián’s attention was no longer on the documents.

The sheet stopped moving.

—What happened? —she asked.

Sebastián did not answer immediately.

His senses swept through the apartment, the structure of the building, and the nearby streets.

He found no origin.

That had already passed, but the impression it left within him did not resemble the echo of a door closing or the awakening of a presence that had remained asleep.

It was deeper and less complete.

—Something passed through this place —he said.

Selena kept the sheet suspended.

—Do you know what it was?

Sebastián remembered that single heartbeat spreading through the reflection of the world.

It had not announced the arrival of something complete.

It had been the first contraction of an existence that still did not possess enough form to be born.

—No —he replied—. But it wasn’t waking up.

He raised his gaze toward the darkness contained beyond the windows.

—It was gestating.

Selena kept her eyes on Sebastián after hearing him. The sheet remained suspended between her fingers, but the tension that had entered the room produced no other alteration.

The lights remained stable, the sounds of the city continued reaching them from outside, and no second pulse passed through the apartment.

—Does it represent an immediate danger? —she asked.

Sebastián examined once more everything within reach of his senses before shaking his head.

—I can’t determine that. I don’t feel anything anymore.

Selena placed the sheet on the table.

She did not insist on obtaining an explanation he did not possess, nor did she allow a still undefined threat to undo the work carried out throughout the night.

She gathered the documents they had already reviewed, kept those showing direct connections separate, and placed in another group those that would need to be compared with the digital files. Sebastián helped her restore the original order of each folder.

Then they closed the opened envelopes, numbered the boxes, and marked the dates that needed to be reviewed first.

The night finished consuming itself around them in that way.

They spoke little.

Selena asked a question when she found an incomplete authorization or a misplaced signature; Sebastián answered according to what he had seen inside the chamber and returned to silence.

When the darkness beyond the windows began to lose its depth, the table had stopped looking like a collection of papers recovered by force.

Each piece of evidence occupied a recognizable place and could be handed over to Helena without forcing her to reconstruct from the beginning what they had already connected.

Selena closed the last box and checked the time.

—I’ll have them collected after sunrise. The devices and the unit will remain with you until we prepare a secure place.

—All right.

The driver was still available in the parking area.

Selena accompanied Sebastián to the apartment door and stopped there, with one hand resting on the frame. Fatigue could be seen in the stillness of her eyes, although her posture remained the same with which she had faced every difficulty since the beginning of the operation.

—I’ll let you know when Helena decides what we’ll do with the robot.

Sebastián nodded.

—I’ll be waiting.

They did not need to prolong the farewell.

Sebastián went down, entered the vehicle, and left the building behind as morning began to form over the empty streets.

The mansion remained silent when he arrived.

The driver left him in front of the entrance and departed without waiting for him to cross the doors. Sebastián found the main lights off, but before going upstairs he could already distinguish three presences in Valentina’s room.

Two of them were awake.

He walked there without making more noise than necessary.

Virka was sitting beside the girl. She had left one hand on the blanket, near her shoulder. Narka remained in his small form on the other side of the bed; he had not resumed cultivating, and his golden eye followed Sebastián from the moment he appeared in the doorway.

Virka raised her face.

—You were there too.

—Yes.

Sebastián approached the bed.

Valentina slept on her side, with both hands gathered beneath her cheek and her breathing calm. Nothing about her showed her passage through the Veil, except for the slightly tense position of her fingers on the pillow.

—She was dragged in too —Virka said.

Sebastián placed two fingers on the girl’s wrist.

Her pulse was regular.

Narka moved a little closer, without taking his eyes off Valentina.

—We don’t know what caused it —Sebastián replied—. Selena didn’t manage to perceive the change.

Virka lowered her eyes toward the girl.

She asked no further question.

If the phenomenon had left an immediate threat, Sebastián would have returned prepared to face it; the fact that he could not name it meant that none of them yet had anything against which to act.

They remained beside Valentina for a few minutes and, after confirming that the pulse did not repeat itself, allowed the night to end without waking her.

Morning arrived with the usual schedules.

Valentina opened her eyes when daylight was already entering through the curtains and sat up naturally. She ate breakfast with them, argued with a sleeve that refused to stay properly adjusted, and checked twice that Narka had enough room inside the backpack.

Sebastián and Virka had rested little, but neither allowed the fatigue to alter the rhythm with which they prepared to leave.

The Institute received them with the same movement as every day.

Students crossed the gardens, credentials opened the access points, and the sound of the first instructions mixed with the sea wind.

Valentina separated from them to head toward Primary Group 3. Sebastián and Virka continued to Tenth A and took their places before classes began.

During those hours there were no raided headquarters, corrosive substances, or machines hidden behind decorations.

There were explanations written on the panels, pending exercises, and notebooks that had to be completed before the change of subject.

Time thus recovered an ordinary measure.

During the following days, mornings began at the mansion and continued inside the classrooms.

Sebastián and Virka attended their classes; Valentina returned every afternoon with new sheets in her backpack and questions that often had nothing to do with one another. Narka remained close to her while they were at the Institute and resumed his periods of cultivation when they returned home.

At night, Sebastián also set aside time to cultivate, although his attention sometimes returned to the fraction in which the world had been replaced by its reflection.

Virka dedicated that time to reviewing information about the trip or staying with Valentina until she fell asleep.

The pulse did not repeat itself.

That absence did not make them forget it, but it kept it from occupying every conversation. Without an origin, a direction, or a new sign, they could only keep it as a pending warning.

On the days assigned to training, Sebastián, Virka, Zaira, and óscar returned to the outdoor field.

The instructor did not prepare another test like the one they had overcome. He made them repeat the transitions between the Arrow, the Serpent, and the Spiral until the changes no longer depended on haste.

Sometimes a minimal difference in the position of one foot was enough for the formation to lose its precision; other times they completed the entire sequence without him having to correct them.

There was no sudden advance.

They improved through repetitions, short breaks, and new attempts, as befitted something they intended to retain and not merely demonstrate once.

The afternoons assigned to the club followed a similar rhythm.

The room facing the sea began to fill with maps, printed notes, and lists that changed every time one of them found a new condition. Virka gathered information about the weather and access routes; óscar compared transportation and lodging possibilities; Sebastián kept the permits, available resources, and what he would have to cover himself in order.

Zaira joined the review without trying to impose a different direction. She read the records about the communities they could visit, pointed out which places still preserved references to the ancient Rakzar, and helped separate useful sources from descriptions created solely to attract visitors.

Valentina occupied a small part of the table.

Her personal list began with clothes, a notebook, and a few objects she considered indispensable, but she ended up devoting almost the same amount of space to Narka.

No one removed her notes.

Virka reviewed them with her and turned what was necessary into a separate list, while óscar left enough margin in the calculations for the girl’s luggage.

The preparation did not advance through a single decision.

One route seemed suitable until they discovered how much time it required to travel; one lodging option offered enough space, but was too far from the places they wanted to study; some contacts could receive them during the day and others required advance confirmation.

Each afternoon they resolved one part and marked the questions for the following day.

In that way, the northern region stopped being a broad point on the map and began to become a possible succession of roads, stops, and people.

Luciana stopped by the room one of those afternoons.

She reviewed the progress without interrupting the order of work, confirmed that the cultural purpose remained intact, and reminded them that the final route would have to match the requested permits.

She did not remain longer than necessary.

When she left, they continued adjusting schedules and discarding what they could not sustain without rushing.

The operation at the headquarters remained outside that routine.

Selena sent brief and separate messages. In one, she confirmed that the director had awakened in custody; in another, she reported that Helena already had the classified documents and that the devices would be examined later.

She included neither interrogation results nor new names.

Nor did she request another intervention from Sebastián.

The first assignment had ended, even though its consequences continued developing far from the Institute.

The nights passed without changing life inside the mansion too much.

They ate dinner together, reviewed Valentina’s assignments, and left the uniforms for the following day prepared. Sometimes the girl fell asleep before reaching her room and Sebastián had to carry her; other times she remained awake long enough to remind them of some object that, according to her, could not be missing from the trip.

Narka settled nearby, still reduced to his small form. Virka corrected the lists while Sebastián checked the messages related to permits and transportation.

By the middle of the week, they had already eliminated the routes that exposed Valentina to unnecessary travel. They also reduced the lodging options and defined what equipment they would need to record images, testimonies, and observations.

They booked nothing without first confirming the institutional conditions.

The availability of resources made it possible to solve difficulties, but none of them again confused that ease with the absence of planning.

On Thursday, the club table showed more resolved matters than pending questions for the first time.

óscar reorganized the schedules to avoid repeated travel. Virka added clothing and supply recommendations according to the temperature changes. Zaira finished a list of sites linked to ancient practices, and Sebastián checked that the time planned for each place did not turn the expedition into a race.

Valentina carefully marked the objects she already had prepared and left untouched those that depended on the adults.

Afterward, they put away the material and returned home.

They did not celebrate the progress because there were still confirmations to receive, but the conversation during the journey stopped revolving around possible problems and began to focus on what each of them hoped to find.

Even so, none of them turned the trip into a vacation.

The intention remained to observe, learn, and record what modern versions left out.

Friday arrived without any visible difference from the other mornings.

They ate breakfast, left the mansion, and separated in the Institute corridors upon reaching their respective classrooms.

The classes kept their usual duration.

Sebastián completed his exercises, Virka followed the explanations without losing track of the schedule, and Valentina spent the day with her group before meeting them again at the end.

The final club meeting began when most of the students were already leaving the buildings.

óscar was the first to spread the updated itinerary across the table. Virka placed the list of route conditions beside it. Zaira added the references that could guide their first questions when they arrived in the north, and Sebastián gathered the documents related to the Institute and the resources that still needed to be confirmed.

They did not discuss every decision again.

They reviewed the whole, corrected two overly tight timeframes, and identified the few answers that were still missing.

Valentina remained beside the window with Narka inside the backpack. From time to time, she returned to the table to make sure her things were still written down.

Upon discovering that no one had removed the space reserved for him, she returned satisfied to watching the sea.

The afternoon descended while they put away the folders.

Zaira secured the sheets inside a sleeve; óscar closed the itinerary on his tablet; Virka gathered the notes she would still need to review at the mansion.

Sebastián checked the room before turning off the lights.

What remained on the table was no longer the confusion of the first days, but a plan that had taken shape through small and continuous decisions.

They left together into the corridor.

The Institute was beginning to settle into its weekend rhythm, and the sound of the sea accompanied their steps all the way to the main entrances.

The week had passed without another attack, without a new pulse, and without an answer about that whose heartbeat had traveled through the Veil.

In its place, it had returned to them the classes, the training, the meals, and the patient work of the club.

By the end of Friday, the trip north was no longer a distant idea.

There were still details to confirm, but they all knew what they had to do before departing.

For the moment, that was enough.

________________________________________

END OF Chapter 137 The path continues...

New Chapters are revealed every

Sunday, and also between Wednesday or Thursday,

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