Chapter 65 - The Matriarch’s Guillotine
"Automated bio-containment initiated," a synthetic computer voice chimed from the overhead consoles. "Purge cycle in one hundred and twenty seconds. All personnel must evacuate or face immediate chemical neutralization."
Marcus bounded down the metal staircase three steps at a time, smoke curling from his carbine. "We have to move now, Clara! The air filtration system is already locking down!"
Up on the mezzanine, Eleanor Vance was struggling to her feet, her immaculate silver hair now wildly disheveled, her expensive silk blouse covered in drywall dust. Despite the ruin of her facility, her gaze was fixed on Noah with an obsessive, terrifying mania.
She dragged herself toward an emergency terminal built into the mezzanine console, keying in an override sequence with bloody fingers. "You think you can walk out of here with my legacy?" she screamed over the wail of the alarms. "The Vance bloodline spans across six continents! The pharmaceutical foundations, the federal judges, the sovereign syndicates—they answer to me! I built this empire on the ashes of fools like you!"
With a savage downward strike, Eleanor slammed the master lockdown lever.
High above us, the steel ceiling groaned. Massive concrete blast slabs, each weighing several tons, began sliding down along hydraulic guide rails, sealing off every emergency exit and access shaft leading back to the surface.
"She's sealing us in to die with the gas!" Marcus shouted, firing a burst at the control console, but the thick ballistic shielding absorbed the rounds.
Julian, still dragging his ruined leg across the floor, let out a ragged, delirious laugh. "You see, Clara? Mother never leaves loose ends. If she can't have the key, nobody gets out alive. You die down here... thirty feet under... right where you belong."
I looked at the monster on the ground, then up at the silver-haired viper on the platform. The fear that had gripped me for months was completely gone. In its place was an absolute, cold certainty.
"Marcus," I said quietly, adjusting Noah inside the armored pouch against my chest. "Where is the rail transit line they used for moving heavy cryogenic containers?"
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Marcus’s eyes widened in realization. "The sub-level freight tube! It runs directly beneath the river into the old industrial rail network. But it's powered down!"
"It isn't," I pointed at the glowing blue data stream running beneath the center tiles. "The core generators are running that line on an isolated frequency. Cover me."
