The Ghost in the Maze
China had produced many super soldiers, but most fell far short of their vaunted reputations. In a government rotten with corruption, it was hardly surprising that their enhanced troops were anything but pristine. Yet among them, there had been one soldier who could truly be called exceptional.
Shen Sera. China’s greatest super soldier and the world’s premier sniper. Everyone called her Ghost.
Optical camouflage through light refraction, extraordinary physical ability, and an inhuman patience that let her remain utterly motionless for weeks on end. Add to that the three-kilometer range and perfect accuracy granted by her custom rifle. She was every bit the phantom her nickname implied.
No one who stepped onto the battlefield was safe from her. What defense could there be against an assassin who could slip into the heart of enemy lines, eliminate an officer, and vanish without a trace? That was why I had been deployed. That was how we met.
Through a storm of bullets, I closed the distance while dodging anti-materiel rounds that exceeded even my expectations. I tore the sniper rifle from her hands, evaded the submachine gun she drew next, and finally slipped between the bullets punching through cover until I stood before her. The fingers of my right hand had been severed by her combat knife.
I looked her in the eye with a pistol pressed to her forehead. Her gaze was murky, devoid of even a single spark of light. For some reason, I saw myself reflected in her.
I saw a person who had lost far too much in this senselessly long war.
The Ghost was not a ghost at all. She was simply human.
I took her prisoner. A year later, she became family. The days I spent living beside her became the most precious memories I possessed.
We lived together for sixty years after that. Until I turned one hundred and seventeen. Until she was murdered first. We stayed together from our time in the military until long after we had left it behind to wander. She was always by my side.
Her face was the wallpaper on my smartphone. Her last words were replayed so many times they were etched into my mind. Even so, I could not tear my eyes away from the figure standing before me now.
The gaze that met mine as dawn broke, the wind at her back. The faint blush on her cheeks. The way her eyes sparkled when the light caught them. Facing her, I felt my hands begin to tremble without my permission.
Even her voice was exactly as I remembered. No—more vivid, sweeter. The unique timbre she had loved to use when singing. The gentle mid-range that could soothe the violence buried deep in my heart whenever she whispered. It hurt.
Without realizing it, I bit my lip until it bled. She wasn’t real. A fake. A hallucination. A trap. Yet I couldn’t shake her off. I couldn’t pull the trigger. Instead, my thumb moved on its own, sliding the safety back into place.
A bitter laugh escaped me. The same tone, the same gestures, the same expression my Sera had always worn. My body moved against my will. The shotgun lowered. I couldn’t shoot her with the gift she had given me.
Fine. If I fell for the trap and suffered for it, maybe it would bring me to my senses. Maybe my wretched combat instincts would finally wake up and let me shake this off. If I had to be cut down again, if I had to fight again—
But the soft sensation that followed betrayed every one of those thoughts.
Sera pulled me into her arms. The gentle warmth that filled my chest, the coolness of her skin, the cool gray-blue hair that tickled my chin. It was all exactly as I remembered.
I knew with absolute certainty that she was fake, yet I could not push her away.
*
Sera had originally been a Hong Kong-American. She was born in the United States and had lived there her entire life. She loved taking photographs. She had been a beautiful woman with brown hair and brown eyes. She enjoyed playing the guitar, adored her parents, and raised a dog.
She had been quite different from the human weapon Shen Sera that the Chinese Communist Party would later boast about most proudly. But the world had refused to let her remain an ordinary woman.
As the threat of war grew, hate crimes surged across America. They became so frequent that Sera’s entire Hong Kong-descended family decided to emigrate to China. Only after one of them was killed did they finally act. They left America, only to be captured the moment they arrived in China.
The entire family was sacrificed in experiments to create super soldiers. Only one survived.
That survivor was Sera.
A weapon whose emotions had been surgically removed. A tool forced to commit murder and assassination for decades. A ghost. No one remembered her real name. She existed only as Ghost.
Until she met me.
I had lost my commander and been left alone. She had lost her entire family and lived her life trapped in the nightmares of the battlefield. We recognized ourselves in each other.
I pitied her. I showed her how I chose to live. I told her how my commander had wanted to live, how he had told me to live, and how I wanted to live now. I shared everything with her. I listened to her. I endured her cynical mockery and bitter laughter without ever breaking.
The shadows cast by our campfire, which had once stretched far apart, gradually drew closer until our shoulders touched.
It wasn’t some grand philosophy. We simply learned to love each moment. We listened to good music. We cooked terrible meals together. When we saw something new, we took pictures. I wrote in my smartphone’s diary. I carefully answered every letter from children who sent care packages, even though I had no idea if my replies would ever reach them. We admired beautiful scenery. We contemplated life. We allowed ourselves to rest.
Sera, who had first said she couldn’t understand any of it, slowly drew closer to me. I gave her the acoustic guitar that had caught her eye; she played it and sang for me. When she could no longer stand my clumsy attempts at cooking, she took over. Jambalaya, chicken noodle soup, meatloaf—simple home-style dishes perfect for sharing.
When I brought her a camera, she spoke of her old dream of becoming a photographer and took pictures of everything. Beautiful landscapes. Me lost in thought. And though she hated being photographed herself, whenever I lifted the camera she would blush and reluctantly become my subject.
We even got married. The whole world was our wedding hall. There was no officiant. It was only the two of us.
For forty-three years we lived together while traveling from battlefield to battlefield. She was the longest relationship I had ever known. My one and only wife.
Even after we deserted, Sera stayed by my side. She gave up the war and the burdensome title of super soldier. We worked hard to build a happiness that belonged to just the two of us. It was she who found the bunker. It was she who secured the cryosleep pods.
At least until the day a Russian super soldier came for us twenty years ago.
The memory was still painfully vivid. I swallowed the bitter regret rising in my throat and kept walking. Sera remained at my side. Or rather, an exquisitely crafted fake Sera did.
It felt strangely familiar. The Church of the Blood Clan. The moment I had shot down the Holy Knight that attacked us. The instant I had fired Astrape and brought it down. The memories that had flashed through both our minds then. This reminded me of that moment.
Whether it was because my senses had grown sharper after gaining the ability to transform into lightning, or whether it was simply an illusion, I couldn’t say. But if I had to guess, this was Sera as she existed inside my memory. A fake, yet one that came infinitely close to the real thing.
It was pathetic that I could find comfort in such a counterfeit, but what could I do? I was only human, after all.
Resigning myself to that fact, I searched the bizarre space together with Sera. She had never been particularly talkative. She preferred listening to speaking and spent most of her time simply watching me. It was the same now. She observed me, studying me with careful eyes.
Her soft, warm gaze would turn cold and sharp the moment it left me. It was a habit neither of us had ever been able to break. Even now it remained.
I spread my micro-current through the surroundings, scanning every inch while staying conscious of the grip of the pistol hidden inside my coat. One hand repeatedly clenched and unclenched, keeping my muscles in constant tension. Ready to respond the instant an enemy appeared. That part of me had never changed.
But the search proved meaningless. There were no traces, no voices from my companions. If this Transmigration Labyrinth was the maze-like variety and we were trapped inside, the thought alone was horrifying. I had to find the others before our food ran out and our mental strength hit rock bottom.
While I was gloomily scanning the area, I spotted something.
“A break room?”
It was a staff break room situated in the middle of the office floor.
Sera looked at me curiously, but I had just been worrying about our dwindling supplies. There might be something useful inside. I walked over to the break room.
It was completely ordinary. Refrigerator, cupboards, sink, multi-cooker. Inside the fridge were canned ham, snacks, and soda that had gone flat. I had no idea whether this was drawn from someone’s memory or simply part of the space itself, but having such conveniences in this endlessly stretching office area was a relief. At least we wouldn’t starve.
I opened my backpack and began loading the food inside.
I had just shouldered the pack after stuffing it with supplies when I sensed a group of humans entering the range of my micro-current. I pressed myself against the wall. There was no need to explain to Sera. She had already lowered her stance and slipped into my shadow.
And the people approaching now were not my companions.
I raised my rifle. They wore military uniforms and combat helmets. Full body armor over fatigues. The style was painfully familiar.
Russians. Soldiers.
It seemed I wasn’t the only thing summoned from memory. Even the enemy forces I remembered had been dragged into this office space along with Sera. This was going to be troublesome. If tanks or biological weapons started appearing, things would get messy.
I gripped the stock of the shotgun inside my coat. I only had two shells. I had no idea whether weapons would remain after I killed them. If they didn’t, it would be a problem. Engaging in close quarters with rifles was insane. Still, it was better to assume they wouldn’t drop anything and act accordingly—
[I will strike first. Follow right behind me.]
The hand signal appeared before my eyes. The meaning slipped directly into my mind. Sera quietly drew her submachine gun and pressed it close to the wall.
Footsteps drew nearer. Sensing their positions through my micro-current, I adjusted the angle of Sera’s barrel. There was no need to give a signal.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
The suppressed submachine gun poured out rounds. A soldier’s head beyond the wall burst open and collapsed. The rest of the troops panicked under the sudden hail of bullets. Burning the scene into my memory, I pushed off the floor and stepped forward.
Crash!
The shattered wall, the flying fragments of plaster. It was cheap American office drywall to begin with. It couldn’t stop my front kick. While the soldiers were still reeling from the collapsed section, I spotted one already aiming at me.
Using my micro-current to precisely track the direction of their muzzles, their line of sight, and Sera’s position, I grabbed the barrel of the rifle pointed at me, yanked it down, and drove my elbow into the soldier’s throat.
Crack!
The sound of a broken neck. The soldier collapsed backward. I snatched the rifle before it could hit the ground, shouldered it, and fired from the hip. There was no need to aim with my eyes. The micro-current told me exactly where the muzzle was pointing.
Sera had already turned invisible. She was kneeling beside me in a stable firing position, rifle raised. We fired almost simultaneously.
Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat!
Bullets flew like rain. Fluorescent lights shattered, plunging the room into gloom. The storm of gunfire tore through desks, chairs, and cheap American walls, scattering sprays of blood. Not full-auto—single shots. One round per soldier, aimed at heart, throat, or head.
Even though I hadn’t held a rifle in a long time, the weapon I had carried for nearly one hundred and twenty years still fit my hands perfectly. Sera’s translucent form became visible again. Side by side, we scanned the fallen soldiers.
Only the spent casings rolling across the floor made any sound. I let out a quiet sigh of admiration.
This Sera might be nothing more than a fake constructed from my memories, but even her combat ability was exactly as I remembered it.
My hesitation lasted only a moment. My real companions had disappeared first—the ones who weren’t fake. To find them, I needed help. Even if that help came in the form of an elaborately crafted imitation of my wife.
Even though I knew she was fake, that smile was still heartbreakingly beautiful.