Chapter 17 - The Broken Lens
Marcus lowered the gun. He let his shoulders slump, his head tilting toward the floor in apparent defeat.
"Twenty minutes until nitrogen purge," Marcus muttered, his voice ragged. "What happens to the girl on the gurney from the video?"
Julian smiled, sensing victory. "Julian-3’s final mistake. She is carrying a pure embryo—the original Alistair sequence. Once the child is extracted, she will be incinerated along with the lower levels. A clean harvest."
"And Eleanor?"
"She receives her final shipment tomorrow morning. Then, the Montgomery lineage recedes into the private sector, completely untouchable."
Marcus began walking toward the steel staircase leading to the mezzanine. Each step rang out like a funeral bell against the iron grating. Julian watched him with the smug satisfaction of a god welcoming an unruly creation back into the fold.
"Good," Julian murmured. "Drop the weapon at the base of the stairs."
Marcus reached the first landing. He bent his knees, placing the Glock on the steel grate. But as his fingers left the polymer grip, his other hand dipped into his inner jacket pocket and pulled out the miniature tactical flare he had grabbed from the nursery's forensic kit.
He struck the ignition pin with his thumb.
A 2,000-degree magnesium flame erupted in his palm with a blinding, white-hot hiss. Marcus didn't throw it at Julian; he hurled it with all his strength into the electrical conduit feeding the tank array behind him.
The magnesium flare burned instantly through the heavy copper trunk lines. A deafening series of electrical explosions ripped through the console, sending showers of blue sparks into the air and triggering the automated fire suppression systems.
Alarms wailed across the rotunda. The overhead LED lights died, replaced by flashing crimson emergency beacons that painted the cavern in visceral, pulsating blood.
"You idiot!" Julian screamed, his composure shattering as the PA system blared an automated warning: *CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE. AIRLOCK SEALED. NITROGEN FLOOD IN SEVEN MINUTES.*
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Marcus didn't hesitate. He scooped up his Glock, sprinted up the stairs, and threw his entire body weight into the acrylic panel Julian stood behind. The tempered plastic had already been fractured by Marcus's earlier gunshots; under the kinetic impact of two hundred pounds of bone and muscle, it shattered outward into a shower of crystalline shards.
Marcus and Julian crashed onto the mezzanine floor, rolling across broken glass and pooling hydraulic fluid.
