Chapter 110 - The Shattered Bastion
The kinetic field shattered like crystalline glass.
The concussive wave blew the observation windows outward in a tidal wave of diamond shards. I was thrown forward, but this time I didn't fall to the ground—I lunged forward, caught Clara out of the air as she dropped, and slammed our bodies to the floor, rolling behind the reinforced titanium pedestal of the terminal.
The central pillar was melting.
The amber serum, the maternal counter-frequency, and the black drive’s seismic virus collided within the quantum processor simultaneously.
"Seismic override confirmed," the computer system groaned, its calm feminine tone decaying into distorted, mechanical static. "Geothermal coolant containment breach in sixty seconds. Total structural vaporization imminent. Evacuate immediately."
Around us, the massive subterranean chamber began to tear itself apart.
Cracks the size of roads ripped through the granite ceiling. Huge boulders crashed down into the chasm, smashing through the rows of pods. But the lights inside the remaining pods were no longer silver.
They were powering down. The children inside were entering natural, harmless metabolic sleep, severed from the network forever.
Arthur’s empire of sleepers was broken before it could ever awaken.
"Eleanor!" a voice coughed from the smoke.
I spun around, my knife raised.
It was Julian.
He was clinging to the shattered doorframe, his face the color of wet chalk, a tourniquet wrapped tightly around his midsection, his clothes completely drenched in his own blood. He had dragged himself through the maintenance ducts, following the sound of the singing.
"Julian?!" I breathed, stunned that he was still drawing breath.
"The service lift..." he gasped, pointing a shaking, blood-covered hand toward an industrial elevator at the end of the catwalk. "Leads... to the upper helipad. The prototype extraction bird is there. Go... now!"
"You can't walk," I said, holding Clara, who was conscious now, breathing softly against my neck, her skin completely cool, the silver traceries gone forever.
"I’m not coming," Julian said with a faint, peaceful smile that cut straight through the smoke. "My work... ended the moment she sang back to you."
He reached behind him and slammed the manual hydraulic emergency lever, lowering the reinforced blast door between the observation room and the elevator corridor.
"Julian, wait!" I shouted, banging on the reinforced viewport.
Through the thick glass, Julian looked at Clara one last time. He raised a trembling, bloody hand, pressing it against the transparent barrier.
"Take care of our daughter, Eleanor," he mouthed through the sound of collapsing granite.
Then he turned, picked up an abandoned assault rifle from the floor, and faced the burning corridor where the last squad of synthetic Purifiers was breaching the rubble.
"Mommy..." Clara whispered, looking at the man behind the glass. "Who is that?"
Tears blurred my vision. I pressed my hand against the glass over his, then pulled Clara back toward the elevator shaft.
"That was a soldier, baby," I whispered, choking back a sob. "Just a soldier making sure we get home."
I slammed the elevator's ascent button.
The heavy platform surged upward through the vertical rock shaft just as the geothermal core beneath the mountain reached critical mass.
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A monstrous roar of white-hot steam and expanding tectonic fire detonated below. The concussion pushed the elevator upward at terrifying speed, rocketing us out through the mountain’s summit ventilation hatch and into the open mountain air.
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