Chapter 65 - The Sanctuary Breached
The wet crunch of tactical boots on gravel snapped my head around.
Through the heavy rain, three figures in matte-black combat gear emerged from the shadows of the hemlock trees along the creek. They wore night-vision optics and carried suppressed carbines, their movements fluid, disciplined, lethal. These weren't corporate mercenaries; these were former Tier-One operators funded by the Sterling shadow accounts.
"Target acquired," the lead operator said into his throat mic, his voice chillingly calm over the rush of the creek. "Two vessels. One maternal host. Clear to engage with non-lethal on the specimens, lethal on the host."
I didn't cower. I didn't beg.
I picked up Miller’s backup weapon—a modified short-barreled shotgun he had strapped to the bottom of the child carrier before pushing me into the culvert.
I stepped out from beneath the sandstone shelf, placing my body squarely between the barrels of their rifles and my two daughters.
"Step away from the children, Mrs. Sterling," the point man said, his carbine leveled directly at my forehead. "The Board has issued a complete recall of all Genesis assets. You've caused fifty-four million dollars in operational disruptions. Your role as primary maternal baseline ended the night Julian cut them out of you."
"My role doesn't end until I'm in the ground," I said, my voice dead and steady. "And unlike my husband, I don't miss."
I pulled the trigger.
The 12-gauge slug hit the lead operator square in the chest ceramic plate, throwing him backward into the swollen creek with a violent splash. The concussive blast in the narrow ravine was deafening.
The second operator fired instantly. A 5.56 round grazed my left bicep, tearing through the flesh like a branding iron. The shock sent me staggering back against the rock face, but the fury coursing through my veins completely eclipsed the pain.
Before the third man could acquire his sight picture, a burst of automatic gunfire erupted from the ridge above!
Rounds tore through the leaves, shredding the second operator’s gear and sending him collapsing into the mud.
Miller dropped down from the six-foot embankment, his face blackened with soot, his jacket torn to ribbons, blood streaming from a shrapnel wound across his temple. He slammed his rifle butt into the remaining operator’s jaw, dropping him instantly into the current.
"I told you... three minutes," Miller wheezed, coughing up dark phlegm as he leaned heavily against a boulder.
"You're late," I panted, clutching my bleeding arm.
"Traffic was hell," he rasped, looking down at the children. "We have to move. That was only the advance scout team. Their extraction bird is inbound from a private airstrip in Virginia. When they realize the sweep team is down, they’ll level this entire valley with thermobaric munitions."
"The girls can't run," I said, kneeling back down beside Clara and Chloe.
Both children were now completely unresponsive, their breathing reduced to shallow, rattling gasps. The dual nodes in their chests were pulsing in a frantic, uncoordinated strobe—purple and red, clashing like two dying stars.
"Their implants are cascading," Miller said, his tactical composure cracking into sheer panic. "The kill-code is already ninety percent loaded. If we don't sever the radio-frequency tether within twenty minutes, their nervous systems will shut down simultaneously."
"Where do we sever it?" I demanded, lifting Clara into my uninjured arm while Miller gently scooped up Chloe.
Miller looked toward the dark spine of the mountains rising to the west.
May you like
"Arthur’s first facility," Miller said, his eyes hollow. "The Blackwood Sanitarium. It was decommissioned thirty years ago, before Julian was even born. It’s where Arthur developed the prototype Faraday isolation chambers. If we can get them inside the vault, the lead-lined walls will cut the external kill-signal."
"Then we run," I said, setting my jaw against the agony in my arm. "Move!"
