Chapter 65 - The Sister’s Final Confession
Water was already swirling around our knees as we sprinted down the narrow, industrial access corridor of Fort Vance. The emergency lighting flickered between harsh crimson flashes and total darkness. Every metal beam around us groaned under the catastrophic pressure of the deep sea pressing down on the damaged citadel.
Miller carried Victoria, who had regained a fraction of consciousness, her head lolling against his shoulder. Her hand weakly reached out, catching my sleeve as I ran beside them, cradling Leo inside my waterlogged coat.
"Liz..." Victoria choked out, spitting blood onto the concrete floor. "Liz... stop..."
"Save your breath, Victoria! We’re getting out of here!" I screamed over the roar of rushing water.
"No... you don't understand..." She dug her fingernails into my arm, forcing Miller to halt before an iron bulkhead stairwell that led up toward the sub-dock. "The elevators... they're programmed to flood. Mother... mother set the Dead Hand lock from the terminal in Boston before we ever boarded the ship."
Miller set her down against the bulkhead door. Her face was ashen, the color of wet chalk, her breathing wet and rattling. The fall against the centrifuge had crushed her ribcage; internal hemorrhage was drowning her from the inside out.
"Where is the bypass?" Miller demanded, kneeling beside her and pressing a sterile pad against her chest wound. "Victoria, give me the override code!"
"There is no code..." Victoria whispered, her gaze drifting toward baby Leo, whose small fist reached out toward the flickering red emergency lights. A single tear cut a clean path through the grime on her cheek. "Eleanor... she didn't just want eternal life. She wanted... the sovereign registry. Every judge, every senator, every black-market asset... all encrypted in the server core beneath Cape Disappointment."
She looked directly into my eyes, and for the first time in thirty years, I saw no jealousy, no venom, no theatrical arrogance. I saw only the broken little girl our mother had spent decades twisting into a weapon.
"Mother didn't push you off the balcony to kill Leo," Victoria rasped, her hand trembling as she touched the edge of the blanket wrapping my son. "She pushed you... because the clinic's blood test came back. She realized you had father's pure lineage... and I was just the bastard of an offshore investor. She wanted you dead so she could forge the inheritance deeds in my name... before butchering me too."
The floor beneath us buckled with a violent shudder. Down the hallway, a torrent of icy seawater was racing toward us, carrying twisted metal debris and the floating remains of laboratory cages.
"Take this," Victoria choked, tearing a heavy, tarnished silver pendant from her neck. It wasn't jewelry; it was an encrypted hardware key shaped like the Vance family crest. "The emergency pod... on Deck Two. It's single-burn. It will shoot you to the surface... but only two adults can fit."
She let her hand drop into the freezing water pooling around our boots.
"Victoria, get up!" I screamed, grabbing her jacket. "Get up, damn you!"
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"I toasted to his death, Liz," she smiled faintly, blood bubbling at the corners of her lips. "Let me do one thing... that isn't entirely vile."
Before either of us could stop her, Victoria shoved the bulkhead emergency door shut from the inside and pulled the mechanical deadbolt down with the last ounce of her dying strength, sealing herself on the lower level as the wall of ocean water reached the glass viewports behind her.
