Chapter 96 - The Sovereign Kill-Switch
I lunged through the churning foam, grabbing Richard by the harness and dragging him upward onto the narrow catwalk that led toward the secondary maintenance conduit.
Behind us, the primary blast chamber of Sector Zero was obliterated in a roaring whirlpool of shattered quartz and iron as the full weight of the Atlantic Ocean crashed through the broken hull. Steel support columns bent like straws under the unimaginable hydraulic load.
We tumbled through the pressure-seal hatch into the dry, air-locked maintenance spine, slamming the manual wheel shut just as thousands of tons of water slammed against the opposite side of the titanium door.
We collapsed onto the grated walkway, both of us heaving, soaked, and freezing.
*"Julian! Julian, are you there?!"* Victoria’s voice crackled through my earpiece, shrill with desperation.
"We made it out of Sector Zero," I wheezed, wiping saltwater and blood from my eyes. "Eleanor is dead. The sector is flooded. Where are you?"
*"Sub-level Four... the Auxiliary Command Bridge,"* she gasped, her breathing shallow. *"Croft locked the external escape pods from the master terminal. He's powering up the Archangel’s primary rail-cannons. He’s targeting the mainland, Julian! He’s targeting Vance Ridge!"*
My stomach dropped into a bottomless pit of cold dread. "Vance Ridge? Why target an abandoned mountain estate?"
Richard hauled himself up against the wall, clutching his bleeding side, his voice trembling with a mixture of terror and awe. "Because the house isn't just an estate, Julian. It's the surface relay for the global orbital defense network. Arthur built Vance Ridge on top of the Project Archangel command uplink. If Croft destroys the ridge with an abyssal strike, the global satellite defense system defaults to autonomous kill-mode. He won't just control the syndicate—he'll control every defense grid in the western hemisphere!"
"How do we stop the Archangel from launching?" I asked Victoria.
*"There's a manual kill-switch,"* Victoria replied, her voice breaking under the physical toll of her injuries. *"Arthur installed a redundant analog override in the station’s Core Study. It’s located at the very heart of the facility... right above the reactor shaft."*
"The Core Study," I repeated.
A grim smile touched my lips. Arthur had rebuilt his study twice—once on the mountain, and once down here in the dark. He never changed the layout. He never changed the locks.
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"Hold on, Victoria," I said, checking the sidearm at my hip. "We're coming to finish this."
***
