Chapter 38 - The Scalpel and the Skin
David sprinted across the slushy parking lot, his heart hammering against his ribs like a battering ram. He yanked the truck door open, his face pale as chalk.
"Leah! Strip Asset 409! Now!"
Leah jumped, startled, clutching both babies. "What? What are you doing? David, you’re scaring me!"
"They put a tracker inside her!" David yelled, climbing into the driver’s seat and slamming the door. "Subdermal transponder. In her left shoulder! That’s how they found the farmhouse in Pennsylvania! That’s how they knew where we were!"
Leah’s face drained of color. She looked down at the chubby, smiling baby resting on her lap. Asset 409 gurgled happily, reaching her tiny fingers toward Leah’s chin, completely oblivious to the electronic poison beneath her skin.
"Oh god... oh god, David, what do we do?" Leah sobbed. "We can't cut her! We don't have anesthesia! We don't have tools!"
"We don't cut her," David said, his jaw tightening into iron. "We can't perform surgery in a truck. But we can scramble the signal."
He dug into the glove box, pulling out a heavy roll of industrial aluminum foil and a commercial magnet from the truck’s emergency repair kit. He wrapped the baby’s left shoulder in thick layers of foil, securing it with duct tape, effectively fashioning a makeshift Faraday cage over the implant.
On the dash, David’s burner phone suddenly buzzed.
It had no SIM card. It had no service.
Yet the screen lit up with an incoming video call from an unlisted number.
David locked eyes with Leah. Her hand flew to her mouth. With trembling fingers, David swiped the green icon and set the phone on the dashboard.
The screen flickered through static before resolving into a dimly lit, high-tech hospital room.
Lying in an automated ICU bed, hooked to three separate life-support machines and an oxygen hood, was Evelyn Mercer. Her neck was encased in a carbon-fiber brace, her skin gray, but her eyes—those cold, predatory hazel eyes—were wide open, burning with venomous clarity.
May you like
"Hello, David," Evelyn rasped through the microphone, her vocal cords damaged by the smoke. "Did you really think... a few pounds of thermite... could erase forty years of investment?"
***
