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Level Zero Love Part 2

Level Zero Love Part 2

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5 Chapters
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Silence no longer protects them. The system has detected them. Lucía Vega and Bruno Ortega defied NCA's most sacred rule: no love. They did it in secret. They did it knowing the price. And now, that price is about to be exacted. After weeks of covert movements, something has changed: someone is watching them. Julián Iriarte, the invisible analyst, the guardian of the unspoken, has begun to trace the lines of a conspiracy. But this time, it's not just codes or manipulated reports. It's an emotional rift that can destroy everything from within. Lucía is no longer the obedient woman who entered the system. Bruno stopped obeying long before admitting it. And between them, a love burns that not only challenges the system: it threatens to overturn it completely. There is no return. There is no truce. Only masks that break, pasts that return as warnings, and an undeclared war that could change the rules of power forever. To survive will be to resist. To love will be to betray. And to win... will be to destroy everything.

Contents

Chapter 1 Line of fire

Lucía didn't sleep that night.

Nor did she try. She sat on the edge of her bed for hours, legs crossed and hands clasped together, staring at her closed bedroom door, as if she expected something-someone-to burst through at any moment.

The recycled air smelled of ozone and metal. That characteristic smell of sealed spaces, where even silence felt artificial. The clock read 2:58. Her tablet screen was still on, projecting an incomplete code onto her desktop. Nothing more than an excuse to distract herself, to feel like she still had control.

But she didn't. Not for weeks. Or maybe ever.

Bruno slept two modules away, probably oblivious to the decision she had silently made. She had promised him she would wait, that she would stick to the plan. That she wouldn't make any reckless moves. But deep down, she knew that was a lie. Or worse: a betrayal disguised as a strategy.

But this time, it wasn't about tactics.

It wasn't a mission.

It was personal.

Lucia stood up when the internal timer reached the ideal cycle. She knew the security cameras in the eastbound corridor had a micro-focus interruption during the 3:40 maintenance protocols. A technical detail that seemed irrelevant to anyone... except someone who'd been searching for cracks for weeks.

She moved quickly, as she'd trained for years: measured steps, neutral face, straight back. Functional clothing, unmarked. She pulled her hair back into a high braid and stuffed a microdevice into the inside pocket of her left boot, just below the ankle. Everything was measured. Everything except the irregular acceleration of her heart.

As she walked, she mentally reviewed the phrase she would repeat if she were intercepted: "Backup protocols review, code OR-17, area Omega." She had the proper clearance. One she'd forged days ago with temporary access. Clean enough to pass a cursory scan. Dirty enough to become incriminating if someone looked closely.

The elevator to Omega Level took eleven seconds to activate. Enough to make her regret it. Enough to escape.

But she didn't.

The data backup room was empty, as she expected. Low lighting, anodized steel walls, a secondary console on standby. The interface flickered pale blue. There was something unsettling about the silence in that room. As if the entire system was holding its breath.

Lucía plugged in the device and waited. The file began transferring: manipulated access patterns, internal traffic diversions, circumstantial evidence of a plot that still had no name... but did have a face.

Hers.

Bruno's.

The faces of everyone who had ever thought they could love without paying the price.

"Upload in progress: 34%," she read on the screen, softly, almost like a prayer.

She felt a pulse in her fingers. At the base of her neck. At her temples.

Breathe. Stay in control.

"It's for us," she thought. But at the same time, she knew that wasn't true anymore.

She was doing it for her.

For the Lucía who ceased to exist the day she agreed to be part of a system that promised stability in exchange for silence. For the young woman who once dreamed of making a difference. And for the woman who now understood that surviving wasn't the same as living.

"You know, if you do this, there's no going back."

The voice wasn't a gunshot. It was a thunderous roar. As if she'd been expecting to hear it.

Lucía turned slowly. She knew it before she saw him.

Julián Iriarte.

He was leaning against the doorframe, unarmed, without direct accusation. Just watching her with that almost clinical expression, as if she were a phenomenon to be studied. There was something in his posture that wasn't threatening, but neither was it comforting.

It was a warning.

"I crossed the line a long time ago," Lucía replied, with a serenity she didn't feel.

Julián didn't move.

"I thought he'd be the one to do it first."

Lucía said nothing.

"I don't blame him. He was trained to obey. You... were trained to resist," she added with a hint of melancholy in her voice. "The mistake was thinking we wouldn't notice."

The screen behind her flickered.

"Transfer complete. Data secured."

Lucía withdrew the device and put it away leisurely. She looked at Julián with more questions than answers, but chose only one:

"Are you going to stop me?"

He looked at her for a second longer than necessary. Then he shook his head, barely.

"Not today."

Silence.

"Why?"

"Because someone looked at me like that once," she said, her voice trembling, almost imperceptible. And I couldn't do anything for her.

Lucía didn't ask who. There was no need.

She knew it in his eyes. In that ancient tiredness that sleep doesn't cure.

When Julián left, the room seemed to grow larger. Emptier. Lucía stood there for a few more seconds, processing what she had just done. She didn't feel heroic. Or liberated. She felt... real. For the first time in years.

She was no longer part of the machinery.

He was no longer obeying.

He had made a decision. Conscious. Solitary. Irreversible.

And with that, he had sealed his fate.

I don't understand. Not entirely.

I don't know if he came to save me or to warn me. If he let me go out of compassion, out of strategy... or because somewhere he still has a spark that remembers what it feels like to be on the other side of fear.

I saw something in his eyes. Something broken. Something that can't be mended with time or logic. I saw him tremble inside. It was only an instant, barely a heartbeat, but it was there. And I wonder if in another life, in another time, Julián Iriarte would have been someone I could trust.

Maybe that's why he let me pass. Because in me he saw the woman he couldn't protect.

Because he believed I could escape.

But escape from what? From NCA? From this system infected with false loyalties? From Bruno? From myself?

I'm not sure of anything.

I only know that I crossed the line. And now I know with brutal certainty: there is no going back. Not for me, not for him, not for us-if that "us" still exists.

And yet... when he looked at me, for an instant, I didn't feel alone.

I felt seen.

Not as a threat.

Not as just another pawn.

But as someone who chose to fight.

And that, in this place, is the most dangerous thing you can be.

On the way to the elevator, he passed a security mirror. He paused for a moment. He looked at himself.

He didn't recognize the woman looking back at him.

But he did respect her.

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