Chapter 68 - Shadows on the Horizon
Marcus glanced back at me, his brow furrowed. "What do you mean? Eleanor was the CEO. She signed the harvesting authorizations. Her signature is on Noah's synthetic patent file."
"She was an asset manager," I said, cold sweat prickling my neck as the tablet decoded an encrypted organizational tier labeled *Consortium Primus*. "Look at the financial routing. The Vance estate didn't own the patents. They were holding them in trust for an offshore sovereign entity based out of international waters."
I pulled up the latest transmission log, dated less than six hours ago.
*Recipient: Flagship Leviathan — Coordinates 32°N, 142°W.*
*Status: Awaiting Noah Vance cellular extraction payload. Standby for orbital link.*
"Julian knew," I realized aloud, the horror dawning on me in full force. "When Julian told me on the mezzanine that Noah's sequence didn't belong to me, he wasn't talking about his mother. He was talking about them."
The maintenance cart rounded a sharp bend in the tunnel, and the damp air gave way to the sharp, salty smell of the ocean. Ahead, a sliver of gray morning light cut through the gloom.
We burst through the rusted iron exit gates into an abandoned dry dock on the edge of the industrial harbor. Rain was falling in soft, gray sheets across the gray water, washing the soot and blood from my jacket.
Waiting near the edge of the pier was our armored transport, its engine idling quietly in the fog. Two of Marcus's private security operatives stood guard with rifles low, scanning the perimeter.
"We need to get you and Noah to an off-grid medical facility immediately," Marcus said, stepping off the trolley and scanning the tree line. "We wipe your identities, set up a blind trust in Zurich, and vanish. With Eleanor dead, the local authorities will take weeks to dig out the bodies."
"We can't vanish," I said, stepping onto the wet asphalt, clutching Noah against my heart. "Not while that entity is looking for him."
"Clara, look at him," Marcus urged gently, pointing to Noah's sleeping face. "He survived. You won. You gave him a life."
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"I gave him a pause," I replied grimly. "As long as those files exist on that floating citadel, they will never stop sending teams for him."
Suddenly, the encrypted tablet in my pocket emitted a high-pitched, harmonic ping.
