Chapter 64 - The Synchronization Protocol
"Take the southern tunnel!" Miller shouted, firing three rounds through the reinforced steel plate of the cellar ceiling where heavy bootsteps were pacing. "The drainage culvert runs three hundred yards down to the creek bed. My unmarked SUV is stashed under the camouflage net by the old sawmill!"
"I am not leaving you behind, Miller!" I shouted back, strapping Chloe into an old hiking carrier on my back and wrapping Clara tightly against my chest with a tactical sling.
The weight of both children pressed against my lungs, but my adrenaline was surging, drowning out the ache in my muscles.
"If both vessels die, Arthur’s network wins!" Miller roared, kicking open the iron grate that led into the damp, hand-dug escape tunnel beneath the foundation. "They need Clara’s node destroyed so the biometric key to the offshore trusts remains locked forever! Julian’s will had a failsafe: if Vessel Zero is confirmed deceased by biometric ping, five billion dollars in contingency capital transfers directly to the shadow board!"
The oak door above buckled with an ear-splitting shriek of tearing metal. A canister dropped down the stairs, hissing violently as white phosphorus smoke billowed into the cellar.
"Go!" Miller shoved me toward the dark mouth of the culvert. "I’ll buy you three minutes!"
I plunged into the tunnel.
The culvert was slick with mud, ice-cold runoff soaking through my boots and trousers as I crawled on my hands and knees through the tight, corrugated pipe. Clara’s small arms were locked around my neck, her breath hot against my collarbone, while Chloe sobbed quietly into my hair from the pack behind me.
*Beep... Beep... Beep...*
Inside the pipe, the acoustic resonance of the children’s implants became deafening. The curved steel walls acted as an amplifier, bouncing the electromagnetic frequencies between them until the air tasted like ozone and copper.
"Mommy, it hurts!" Chloe cried, her little hands clutching at my shoulders. "My head is buzzing! Make it stop!"
"Hold on to me, Chloe! Keep your eyes shut tight!" I scrambled faster, my knees scraping against exposed bolts in the culvert floor. Blood seeped through my jeans, but I felt no pain.
Suddenly, Clara stiffened in my arms. Her back arched violently against the fabric of the carrier sling.
"Warning," Clara muttered in that terrible, flat, mechanized voice. "Proximity alert. Transponder 0-4-Alpha detected within fifty meters. Commencing remote shutdown sequence."
"No, no, no!" I gasped, dragging myself out of the pipe’s exit into the freezing mud of the creek bed.
The night air hit us like a slap. Rain was pouring down now, turning the forest floor into a churning slurry of black mud and decaying leaves. Above the treeline, two miles back toward the cabin, flames were licking the sky—our sanctuary was completely engulfed in fire.
In the creek bed, Clara’s breathing grew shallow. Her lips were turning an alarming shade of blue.
I set Chloe down on a dry patch of gravel beneath a sandstone outcrop and tore open Clara’s soaked gown.
The cybernetic node beneath her sternum was glowing an unstable, flickering purple. The synthetic skin around the edges of the titanium housing was blistering, as if an immense electrical current was overloading the circuits.
"They're using an EMP pulse rifle," I realized with mounting dread. "They aren't just hunting us with lead. They're transmitting a kill-code on Arthur’s private frequency!"
Across from her, Chloe collapsed onto her side, clutching her temples, her body convulsing in synchronized agony.
The two girls were dying in front of me. The kill-code was jumping from Clara to Chloe through the resonant loop Arthur had engineered into their blood. If Clara’s heart stopped, the feedback loop would instantly detonate Chloe’s dormant node, frying her central nervous system in micro-seconds.
"Think, Claire, think!" I screamed at myself, ripping my medical field kit from my belt.
I didn't have a neuro-surgical suite. I didn't have Arthur’s decryption terminals. All I had was a field suture kit, a pair of insulated wire cutters, and two vials of pure epinephrine.
"Mommy..." Clara whispered, looking up at me through rain-matted lashes. Her small hand touched my cheek. Her skin was freezing. "Turn me off. If I sleep... Chloe gets to play in the sun."
May you like
My heart shattered into a million jagged pieces. The sheer, monstrous cruelty of what Julian and his father had done to this innocent child rose up in my throat like bile.
"No," I growled, tears streaming down my face to mix with the freezing rain. "Nobody sleeps tonight. You are my daughter. Both of you live. Do you hear me? BOTH OF YOU LIVE!"
