Chapter 70 - The Unfinished Key
My hand hovered over the plastic connector. Lily stood beside me, her eyes wide, silent tears cutting tracks through the grime on her cheeks.
*00:03:15.*
"Mom..." Lily whispered suddenly, her voice cutting through the hum of the geothermal core. "Look at the screen."
I jerked my head toward the monitor.
The green terminal text had vanished. In its place, a live video feed flickered to life.
It was a sterile, brightly lit room with white tiled walls. Sitting in a metal folding chair in the center of the frame, his hands zip-tied behind his back, his face bruised and swollen, was Julian.
Standing behind him was a woman in an immaculate, blood-red cashmere coat.
Evelyn.
Her wedding dress was gone. Her hair was pulled back in a severe, immaculate bun. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't hysterically demanding the mic be turned off as she had in the ballroom. She was smiling—a cold, triumphant, serpentine smile that made my stomach drop into a bottomless void.
She stepped forward, leaning directly into the lens of the hidden camera.
"Hello, Claire," Evelyn's voice echoed through the observatory speakers, pristine and crystal clear. "Did you really think Arthur was the one who built the second verse?"
Arthur’s eyes snapped open in absolute, unadulterated horror. With the last ounce of his strength, he grabbed my wrist, pulling my hand away from the blue lead.
"Don't pull it!" he gasped, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips. "It's not an override! It’s the authorization!"
On the screen, Evelyn tilted her head, her smile widening as she pressed the barrel of a polished chrome revolver against the base of Julian’s skull.
"Turn the key, sister," Evelyn purred through the monitor. "Or watch his brains paint the wall before the world goes dark."
*00:01:00.*
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The counter hit sixty seconds. A klaxon began to wail deep within the granite walls. The terminal flashed red:
*AUTHORIZATION PENDING.*
