Chapter 48 - THE ARCHITECT OF TEARS
The moment Vanessa hit the ground, the four private security operators hesitated for a single, fatal half-second—their programming torn between protecting their employer and protecting the valuable biological donor standing over her.
That half-second was all I needed.
I fired three rounds in rapid succession. The first guard crumpled backward into the velvet drapes, his weapon discharging harmlessly into the ceiling. I dove behind the massive mahogany grand piano as a hail of return fire chewed the instrument into a cloud of flying splinters and snapping steel strings.
Mia was already moving. Instead of retreating toward the front doors, she lunged toward the heavy reinforced door at the back of the salon marked with the international biohazard symbol. She had snatched the master keycard from Vanessa’s fallen purse in the chaos, swiping it through the digital reader with frantic speed.
The heavy electromagnetic lock clicked green.
"Mia, no!" I yelled, firing two rounds to suppress the advancing guards, rolling across the plastic-covered floor to clear the line of sight.
Mia slammed the door behind her, locking it from the inside.
"Damn it!" I snarled. I emptied my magazine into the remaining two operators, dropping one with a center-mass shot through his body armor, while the other ducked behind an antique marble bust.
On the floor, Vanessa was writhing in agony, clutching her shattered kneecap, blood seeping through her crimson silk gown. Her flawless mask of aristocratic composure was gone, replaced by a grotesque snarl of pure hatred.
"You won't leave this estate alive, Thorne!" she hissed, spitting blood onto the white plastic sheeting. "There are twenty men surrounding the perimeter! The Swiss police are in my pocket! You are nothing but an American felon trespassing on private property!"
I stepped over the fallen guards, walked directly over to Vanessa, and kicked her sidearm across the room into the shadows. Then I leveled my pistol directly between her eyes.
"Tell me how to open that door," I said, my voice dead and cold.
"Shoot me," Vanessa sneered, teeth bared like a rabid animal. "Shoot me and the door remains sealed forever. The life support systems in that basement run on an automated fail-safe. If my biometric pulse ceases, the decontamination gas is released into the clean rooms. Genevieve and Mia will die in five minutes."
A low rumble shook the floor beneath our feet. Through the reinforced observation glass set into the wall beside the biohazard door, an internal alarm began to flash amber.
Inside the subterranean laboratory, Mia stood in the center of a sterile, white-tiled room illuminated by cold ultraviolet tubes. In the middle of the room was a glass containment pod, inside of which lay Genevieve Sinclair.
The girl was connected to a labyrinth of clear plastic tubing, her face as pale as alabaster, her chest barely moving under the sterile hospital gown. Beside the pod, a console of monitors displayed a cascading series of red error codes.
*DONOR DETECTED. BIOMETRIC MATCH 99.8%.*
*HARVEST PROTOCOL INITIALIZING.*
The mechanical arms suspended from the ceiling above the pod began to whirr, lowering automated surgical needles toward Genevieve's chest. But Mia wasn't running. She had smashed the control console’s protective casing with the tire iron, ripping out bundles of multicolored wiring with her bare hands.
"Stop it!" Vanessa screamed from the floor, watching through the glass as her multi-billion-dollar medical facility began to spark and smoke. "She’s destroying the cryo-stabilizers! She’s killing them both!"
"Open the door, Vanessa," I whispered, pressing the hot barrel of my weapon against her temple. "Or we watch them die together."
Vanessa looked at the glass, her eyes wide with a sudden, suffocating realization. Mia wasn't trying to escape. Mia wasn't trying to save herself.
May you like
She was willing to destroy the entire machine, even if it meant burying herself in the wreckage.
***
