thanh.nguyenhoang.1403@gmail.com
Stories
168
Chapters
1,512
Words
3.2 M
Comments
0
Reading
11 d, 4 h
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Sloane The profound, heavy intimacy that just bonded us in the freezing air of the bunker shatters the moment the words leave his mouth. We have a mole on the executive floor. The phantom heat of his skin against mine is instantly replaced by a glacial, creeping dread. I step back from the leather chair, my hands moving automatically to smooth down the rumpled emerald silk of my dress. My body is still thrumming, my muscles weak and sensitized from the violent climax we just shared, but my mind is…-
24.4 K • Completed
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Sloane Marcus Vance. The name burns in neon red on the Chairman’s monitor, a digital brand searing itself into my retinas. The air in the cavernous executive office suddenly feels too thin to breathe. I stare at the high-resolution personnel photo of my lead pit boss, my mind violently rejecting the data even as my instincts scream that it is flawless. Marcus. A man I recruited. A man whose daughter’s college fund I helped set up. A man who sat in my apartment less than a month ago, drinking wine…
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24.4 K • Completed
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Sloane The red pulse of the Phantom Protocol interface washes over the control panels of the server crypt, casting long, fractured shadows across the titanium walls. The air is thick with the scent of ozone and heated copper, a suffocating reminder that the entire architecture of the Elysium Crown has been hijacked from the inside. "Marcus," I breathe, the name sticking in my throat like broken glass. "He didn't just bypass the firewall. He handed the master encryption keys directly to the…
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24.4 K • Completed
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Sloane The emergency stairwell echoes with the frantic, metallic clatter of our boots as Tae-Jin and I ascend toward the main gaming floor. The air in the stairwell is stagnant, thick with the scent of overheated electrical conduits and the rising panic of the casino above. My breath comes in ragged, shallow gasps, my chest burning not just from the physical exertion, but from the searing, hollow ache left by Mina’s parting words. If you ever speak to me again, Sloane... I hope you choke on it. The…
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24.4 K • Completed
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Sloane The morning sun over the Las Vegas strip cuts through the floor-to-ceiling penthouse windows in a blinding, merciless slice of pale gold. It is an indifferent, brilliant light. It ignores the absolute carnage of the past twenty-three hours: the scorched circuitry of the subterranean server crypts, the shattered trust of a lifelong friendship, and the dark, copper-scented blood that has long since dried into the grout of the high-roller baccarat pit. I stand at the edge of the glass, the desert…
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24.4 K • Completed
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— Before Totality CLARA The first warning arrives inside a spectrum that should contain only sunlight. At 2:13 in the morning, the basement optics lab belongs to me, the refrigeration system, and the thin green line crawling across my monitor. Everyone else abandoned the building hours ago. Tomorrow we drive to Obsidian Peak. The day after that, the moon crosses the sun, and five years of work either becomes a dissertation or an expensive footnote. I should be calibrating the portable…-
25.9 K • Completed
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The air at nine thousand feet already tasted like shattered glass. I sat at the scarred wooden bar of the base camp lodge, rolling a glass of cheap, watered-down bourbon between my palms. The condensation dampened my skin, icy and sharp, anchoring me to the present. Outside the frosted windows, a freak late-spring blizzard was tearing through the lower ridges of the Sangre de Cristo mountains, burying the access roads in sheets of blinding white. Around me, the lodge buzzed with the nervous, frantic…
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25.9 K • Completed
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Clara The mechanical groan of the emergency tram disengaging from the docking bay echoed through the reinforced walls of the observatory. I stood by the frosted window of the main corridor, watching the heavy metal car disappear into the blinding white vortex of the blizzard. It was empty. The reality of our choice settled into my bones, cold and absolute. We were locked in. There was no escape route, no backup transport, and no way to call for help. The saboteur was trapped on this mountain with us,…
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25.9 K • Completed
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Julian The beam of Dr. Aris's tactical flashlight cut through the gloom of the sub-basement, stopping a few feet short of where Clara and I stood against the steel pillar. My instincts engaged instantly, overriding the heavy, intoxicating lethargy of the aftermath. I stepped sideways, smoothly placing my body between the blinding light and Clara, giving her a vital second to adjust the collar of her sweater and steady her breathing. "We're here, Aris," I called back, my voice projecting…
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25.9 K • Completed
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Clara The glaring green hexadecimal code on the encrypted terminal burned itself into my retinas. CARD ID: ALPHA-1-774-ARIS-R. There was no more room for theory, no more shadows to chase through the sub-basement. Dr. Aris was the saboteur. He was the one systematically dismantling the observatory's defenses while the mountain burned beneath us. I turned away from the screen, my mind instantly shifting from the diagnostic data to the human equation. We had to isolate him. We had to cut off his access to…
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25.9 K • Completed
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