Chapter 46 - The Bargain of the Patriarch
The shockwave blasted through the grand rotunda, blowing out several lighting panels and sending showers of sparks raining down from the ceiling. Alarms began to wail—a harsh, rhythmic klaxon that bathed the entire chamber in strobing crimson light.
Julian spun around, his face twisting in sudden rage. "Who authorized an external breach? What is happening at the gate?"
A static-choked voice crackled through the radio on the lead guard's vest: *"Command, we are under heavy assault! It’s not local police! It’s the Blackwood tactical unit—they tracked the truck's transponder! They’re using thermite breaching charges! Perimeter has fallen!"*
"The Highway Ambush," David realized, his mind racing. The black SUVs that had run them off the road—they weren't Julian's men. They were a rival retrieval squad, sent by someone else who wanted the assets.
"Fools," Julian snarled, his voice trembling with fury. "The Board of Directors has grown impatient. They want to liquidate the facility and claim the patents before the federal authorities trace the highway casualties back to our front door."
Julian turned back to David, the laser sights of the armed guards wavering as gunfire erupted in the outer corridors. The heavy staccato of automatic weapons fire echoed through the mansion's walls, drawing closer with terrifying speed.
"Listen to me, David," Julian hissed, stepping within arm's reach, ignoring the tire iron entirely. "If Blackwood takes this room, they will not harvest Asset 409 to save Maya. They will slaughter you, Leah, and both children, seize the hard drives, and burn this facility to ash. That was their protocol from the moment you escaped the safehouse."
"Why should I believe you?" David shouted over the screeching klaxons.
"Because I need Maya alive!" Julian yelled back, his eyes wide with desperate urgency. "She is the only living repository of the completed telomere sequence! Without her, thirty years of research vanishes into nothing! My life's work dies with her!"
Heavy rounds began punching through the reinforced drywall of the foyer, sending plumes of plaster and dust into the rotunda. A guard near the perimeter collapsed with a bloody spray as a high-caliber bullet tore through his chest plate.
"Here is the bargain, Subject Alpha," Julian shouted, pointing his cane toward a heavy blast door set into the rear wall of the rotunda. "That elevator leads to a subterranean rail shuttle that runs four miles south to a private airfield. You help my security hold this room for six minutes while the pod completes Maya's immediate stabilization, and I will give you the override codes to the shuttle. You take Leah, you take both children, and you disappear. But leave me the genetic telemetry data from the pod."
David looked at the approaching shadows moving through the smoke of the foyer. Men in black tactical gear, firing suppressed weapons with ruthless, military efficiency.
"David, look at Maya!" Leah screamed from the pod.
The monitor above Maya’s cradle was flashing red. The oxygen level in her blood was dropping again. The pod’s automated system had paused, frozen by the facility-wide security lockdown.
*SYSTEM LOCKED. BIOMETRIC OVERRIDE REQUIRED TO RESUME LIFE SUPPORT.*
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David looked at Julian, then down at the tire iron in his hand. "Unlock the pod," David said, his voice deadly calm amidst the chaos. "Unlock it now, or none of us leaves this room alive."
***
