Chapter 63 - The Ruptured Transfusion
The snap of severed fiber-optic cables sparked violently, spewing a cascade of blue-white electrical fire directly into Eleanor's face. The guidance arm shuddered, its calibration scrambled by the surge, and the heavy bore jerked erratically to the side.
Instead of puncturing my sternum, the high-speed drill slammed directly through the mechanical housing of my left wrist clamp, shearing the titanium latch clean in half.
Pain exploded up my arm as the metal shrapnel tore into my forearm, but the release was instantaneous. With my left arm freed, I did not hesitate. Driven by instinct that bypassed conscious thought, I drove my fist upward, slamming the jagged edge of the broken clamp directly into Eleanor’s throat.
The reanimated matriarch shrieked—a sound that was half human, half machine—stumbling backward as dark, chemically treated blood sprayed across the operating theater. She clutched her torn neck, but she did not drop. The unnatural compound flooding her vascular system was already closing the wound, clotting in thick, tar-like ribbons while her eyes flared with psychotic fury.
"You insolent wretch!" Eleanor roared, raising the extraction tool like a bludgeon.
Before she could strike, a heavy medical cart crashed violently into her ribs.
It was Victoria.
My sister stood there, shaking violently, her face streaked with tears and smearings of our mother’s blood. She had used every ounce of her remaining strength to ram the steel trolley into the grandmother who had used her as an expendable incubator.
"You lied to me!" Victoria screamed, her voice cracking into madness. "I ruined my life for you! I tried to kill my own sister for you! And you were going to butcher us both!"
"You were always worthless, Victoria," Eleanor hissed, backhanding my sister with terrifying, augmented strength. Victoria flew backward, crashing into a bank of glass centrifuge cabinets with a sickening crunch, slumping motionless to the floor amid a hail of shattered ampoules.
That distraction bought me the two seconds I needed.
I lunged to the side, reaching the release mechanism on the mechanical neck clamp, and wrenched it open. The moment my throat was free, I rolled off the table, scooped Leo into my left arm, and caught the heavy steel scalpel rack with my right.
Behind the reinforced blast door, a muffled detonation shook the foundation of the room. The seams warped outward. Miller had placed breaching charges.
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"You cannot run from the deep, Elizabeth," Eleanor snarled, stepping forward, her body contorting as the unstable serum accelerated her muscle mass, bulging grotesquely beneath her withered frame. "This installation sits three hundred feet below the storm. There is no surface for you. There is only the grave!"
She lunged at me with hooked fingers, moving faster than any eighty-year-old human had ever moved.
