“He was going to lock the doors, Mark,” Elena said flatly. “He was going to seal us all down here to complete Phase Two.”
Then she turned the gun on him. “David was going to shut the power down completely. He knew what it would do to her. He said it was better for her to die peacefully in her sleep than to become whatever Sterling was growing inside her mind.” She had killed David herself — dumped him in the sump, then used his identity to buy the house at auction so she could monitor the array herself. “I did what a mother has to do!”
Before Mark could answer, every terminal in the room lit up with a red banner: OVERRIDE ACCEPTED. REMOTE PROTOCOL INITIATED BY EXTERNAL FACILITY: CADMUS PRIME. COMMENCING FULL ARCHIVAL EXTRACTION.
EXTERNAL PROTOCOL
Mark wrested the gun away. On the security feeds: four unmarked black SUVs at the curb, tactical teams pouring out — no badges, only a small triangular silver insignia. Cadmus.
“They used the secondary isotope ping,” Elena gasped. “When you inserted the new core, it broadcast an activation beacon. They were waiting for someone to stabilize the power so the data wouldn’t corrupt during transit.”
Lily had walked to Sterling’s terminal, small hands flat on the glass, eyes dilated into black pools. “They aren’t coming for the hard drives, Mark,” Elena whispered. “They’re coming to harvest the receiver.”
THE BLACKOUT
The strike team breached the front door upstairs. Mark shot the padlock off the main breaker and threw the switch. Total darkness swallowed the bunker. He carried Lily and dragged Elena down to Level Four, into the four-foot drainage conduit — as the nitrogen failsafe vented freezing gas through the chamber behind them.
THE SURFACE OF TOMORROW
They tumbled out of the pipe into the tall grass behind the municipal reservoir, gasping clean night air. Above, the facility’s foundations trembled with a muffled explosion as the failsafe collapsed the reactor.