Chapter 25 - The Signal in the Static
Claire stood over the dead man, her chest heaving, the pistol trembling slightly in her hand. Blood dripped steadily from her fingertips.
"Good hit, David," she murmured, her voice breathless, her eyes wide with shock that I had intervened.
"He was going to kill you," I said, my hands shaking uncontrollably as I looked at the blood on the iron spike. I dropped it into the snow, feeling an overwhelming wave of nausea. "Emily is by the signal box. We need to get inside."
We dragged the operative’s body into the brush, stripping him of his tactical radio, his ammunition, and a field trauma kit. Claire quickly injected herself with a dose of battlefield coagulant and wrapped her shoulder tightly with pressurized gauze, barely flinching as the chemical burned into her flesh.
Inside the pump station, the air was dank and smelled of diesel fuel and wet concrete. An old commercial emergency radio sat on a metal workbench in the corner, its vacuum tubes humming faintly, hooked up to an old solar auxiliary battery that had somehow survived the elements.
Claire picked up the dead mercenary’s encrypted radio. A green light was blinking on the frequency display.
She pressed the transmit button. "Arthur."
Static hissed over the small speaker for three long seconds. Then, an older, gravelly voice, utterly calm and devoid of emotion, filtered through the receiver.
"You're late, Helena."
The sound of her father's voice sent a visible shudder through Claire's spine, but she squared her shoulders, her jaw clenching tight. "Call off your sweep teams. You don't get Emily. Not now. Not ever."
A dry, chilling chuckle crackled through the static. "You always were sentimental, my child. It is your only fatal defect. Do you honestly believe you escaped me ten years ago? I knew the day you bought that house in the suburbs. I signed off on your wedding license, Helena. I allowed you to live that pathetic little domestic illusion because I needed an incubator that wasn't contaminated by the Directorate's stress compounds. Emily was born pure."
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My blood ran cold. I stepped toward the radio, my voice thick with fury. "You bastard! She is my daughter! I raised her!"
"Hello, David," Arthur Cross said casually, as if greeting a neighbor over a white picket fence. "I applaud your bravery, truly. Most civilians break during the initial abduction phase. But you are a footnote in this equation. Emily carries the Cross legacy. She belongs to the future. Step aside, or Helena will watch you bleed out in the snow before the sun comes up."
