Chapter 4 The invisible threshold

The corridors of Level S5 weren't for everyone.

The air had a different weight down there, a density that built up in the throat, as if each step dragged with it the voices of those who never returned.

They weren't listed on the official maps. They had no names, only numerical codes and permission slips that not even Bruno had been able to fully decrypt.

And yet, they were there. He and Lucía, descending an emergency staircase that creaked with a metallic wail.

Lucía carried a flashlight in her left hand and a removable chip hidden up her sleeve. Bruno didn't speak, but his bated breath betrayed him.

It wasn't fear-by now, fear was routine, like brushing your teeth or double-checking escape routes-it was something else. A formless unease.

When they reached the end of the corridor, they found themselves facing a door that looked like part of the wall. No handle, no visible hinges, no indication that it could be opened.

It was Lucía who found the sensor. A small black square hidden in the shadows, just behind a screwless ventilation panel.

"It's here," she whispered.

Bruno nodded. He didn't ask how she knew. He'd already learned that Lucía kept secrets she didn't fully understand herself.

The door opened with a soft sound, too gentle for what lay behind it.

The room was almost dark. The air was cold and clinical.

A series of beds lined the walls, all identical: narrow, gray, with straps at the ends and pillows that looked more like instruments of restraint than rest.

Monitors with biometric data were still working, silently blinking with faint signals indicating that, at some point in the not-so-distant past, they had been in use.

Lucía felt a chill run down her spine.

She had seen atrocious things inside NCA: "permanent" dismissals, silent disappearances, covert audits that erased an agent's identity in a matter of seconds.

But this was different.

This was personal.

Bruno walked over to a console built into the wall and began flipping through old records.

His fingers moved expertly, but his eyes were fixed, hard, as if he already knew what he was going to find.

"Here are names," he said, his voice hoarse. "Names and entry codes."

Lucía leaned closer.

Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt.

Bruno stood still for a moment, as if hesitant to read aloud. Then he did.

"Lucía Vega. Assessment 2B. "High emotional deviance index. Reconditioning protocol activated. Pending execution."

The world stopped.

Lucía felt as if the ground beneath her feet had collapsed.

She suddenly remembered that week when everything had seemed to move more slowly: the erroneously assigned shifts, the unanswered calls, the glances that wandered away when she entered a room.

She remembered feeling something close around her, like an invisible noose tightening, and not understanding why.

Now she knew.

"I was about to..." she murmured, unable to complete the sentence.

"To be sent here," Bruno finished for her, lowering his gaze.

Lucía took a deep breath, but it didn't reach her.

Her chest ached. Not from fear. Not from the horror of what could have been.

It ached from the certainty that, if not for a variable gone awry, for a decision not executed, she would be lying in one of those beds today.

Or worse: walking the halls of NCA with an empty mind, programmed to obey.

"Who stopped the protocol?" she asked, without raising her voice.

Bruno shook his head.

"There's no record. Someone overrode it from an external access point. It left no trace... but it was intentional. They saved you."

Lucía leaned against the wall, as if she needed something solid to keep from collapsing.

"What if it was Julián?" she asked quietly.

Bruno looked at her.

"Do you think he protected you?"

Lucía didn't answer right away. In her mind, the image of Julián Iriarte formed clearly: his calm voice, his meticulous gait, his eyes that always observed more than they spoke.

She remembered that night in S3, when she felt him close. She didn't see him, but she knew it. And yet... he didn't betray her.

"I don't know. But if it was him, it means he's playing a bigger game than ours."

Bruno nodded gravely.

"And we just stepped on your board."

They looked back at the room.

The devices on the tables, the notes printed in clinical language that spoke of "functional reintegration," "eradication of unproductive impulses," "blocking affective memory."

Lucía felt a deep nausea.

It wasn't just a place for punishment.

It was a laboratory for erasing what made a person... human.

They left in silence, without looking back.

But something had changed in Lucía. She was no longer fighting just for love, or for redemption.

Now, she was fighting for memory.

Because if that room existed, it meant that others like her had been silenced.

And if she didn't speak out, if she didn't confront the system, her silence would make them disappear forever.

In some corner of his mind, the girl who had entered NCA with her eyes open and her soul clean cried silently.

And the woman who had survived being erased... vowed to set it all on fire.

Bruno watched her crumble soundlessly.

Lucía didn't cry, apparently. She didn't scream. She didn't break down the way someone is expected to when they discover they were one step away from being lost forever.

But her body spoke another language. A subtle one, broken in the details: her shoulders hunched inward, her jaw clenched like a barrier holding back an avalanche, her fingers clenched against the fabric of her coat.

She shrank back without surrender, as if she wanted to hide from something that had already penetrated too deeply.

He said nothing.

There were no words that could change what they had just seen.

Then he simply approached, without warning, without analysis, without strategy. Just a human impulse.

He stood beside her, barely touching her shoulder, and then... he wrapped both arms around her.

Lucía tensed for a second. She had always been like that: ready to attack, to escape, to resist.

But then, something in her gave way. As if her body recognized that stillness Bruno brought, that way of saying "you're safe here" without uttering a single word.

She let herself fall against his chest. Not completely. Just enough to allow him to be a refuge for a moment.

Her forehead resting on his collarbone. Her eyes closed tightly.

Bruno held that silence as if it were fragile glass.

Inside, her mind was boiling.

"How did I not see this coming?"

That question hammered at her conscience.

He had spent so much time protecting her from the system, monitoring her movements, covering access points, designing escape routes...

And yet, she didn't know that NCA had already marked her.

He had already chosen her.

He had already condemned her.

"She was one click away from being erased," he thought.

One more report, one order executed without question, and Lucía would no longer be here.

She would be lying in that white room, her eyes open but empty.

Without a name.

Without a story.

Without him.

Bruno gritted his teeth.

It wasn't just helplessness.

It was rage. A dense, boiling fury, like magma beneath the skin.

Against the system, yes.

But also against himself. For having believed, at some point, that they could play both sides: live and survive.

Love each other and hide.

Fight without the fire touching them.

Now he understood:

NCA doesn't allow for middle ground. Either you're useful. Or you're a threat.

And they, for a long time now, had been useless.

Because love, in that equation, was a flaw in the code.

A dangerous crack.

Lucía said nothing, but he felt her breath tremble just once.

It was as slight as a blink.

And yet, in that tiny gesture, Bruno knew he was holding someone who had been alone for too long.

For too long.

He held her a little tighter.

Not like someone trying to fix something, but like someone vowing to never let it break again.

And silently, as he felt her body against his, he made a promise that didn't need to be said:

"They won't touch you again. I swear I won't."

Even if that meant destroying them all.

Even if that meant losing himself completely.

Because Lucía wasn't his weakness.

She was his truth.

The only one that mattered.