Chapter 40 - The Fall of the Architect
Alarms shrieked through the medical theater. Strobe lights bathed the room in violent flashes of crimson.
The telemetry monitor registered the catastrophic pressure drop in Arthur’s carotid artery. The plasmapheresis machine chimed a sharp, high-pitched warning sequence: *CRITICAL SYSTEM DISCONNECT — INITIATING AUTOMATED PURGE IN 60 SECONDS.*
"Daniel! The baby!" I screamed, dropping my weapon and throwing myself across the incubator.
"I've got the bypass valve!" Daniel roared, throwing the lead surgeon violently aside. He grabbed a pair of surgical hemostats from the tray, clamping the plastic line leading to the infant's umbilical catheter, inches before the toxic back-siphon could drain his tiny body. With his other hand, he sheared the main umbilical lead with trauma shears, severing the connection between my child and the dying monster on the bed.
The acrylic dome popped open. I reached in with trembling, bloody hands, lifting the screaming newborn against my chest. His skin was warm. His heart was beating furiously against my collarbone. He was alive.
On the gurney, Arthur Vance was drowning in his own blood. He clamped his hands against his neck, his eyes bulging as he stared at me holding the child. With his dying gasp, he reached out with his left hand, slapping a red emergency panel recessed into the headboard of the surgical frame.
A mechanical voice echoed from the overhead intercom, chilling and synthetic:
*FACILITY FAILSAFE PROTOCOL OMEGA ENGAGED. STRUCTURAL DEMOLITION IN FIVE MINUTES. EVACUATE ALL SECTORS.*
"He triggered the scuttle charges," Daniel yelled, grabbing his carbine from the floor. "He wired the main support pylons with thermite! This whole platform is going down into the sea!"
Heavy gunfire erupted outside the shattered blast door. Arthur’s mercenary security force had reached Level Three, their automatic rifles chewing through the composite walls.
"Chloe, get up!" I yelled, turning to my sister who was slumped against the gurney, her eyes glazed with shock as she stared at our dying father. "Chloe, we have to run!"
Chloe looked up at me, then down at the baby in my arms. A terrible, broken smile crossed her pale lips.
"I toasted to his death, Liz," she whispered, blood dripping from her lips onto her torn silk blouse. "I sat in that chair and I cheered when they said your womb was barren."
"I don't care! Get up!" I begged, reaching out my hand to her. "We have to go!"
"I'm already dead, Elizabeth," she said softly, pulling a heavy tactical grenade from the tactical vest of the dead guard beside her. She pulled the safety ring with her teeth. "Take him. Run."
"Chloe, no!"
Daniel grabbed my jacket, physically hauling me backward through the secondary emergency fire exit as the mercenary strike team breached the primary doors.
Behind us, Chloe stood erect, facing the armed men with the live grenade pressed against her chest.
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"Welcome to the Vance family!" she screamed.
A massive, deafening explosion ripped through the surgical suite, blowing the blast doors shut and cutting off the corridor behind us in a roaring wall of fire.
