Chapter 18 - Flesh Against Steel
Julian fought not like a refined heir, but like a predator trained in military hand-to-hand combat. He drove a vicious elbow into Marcus’s ribs, cracking bone and driving the breath from his lungs. Marcus gasped, tasting copper, but locked his forearm around Julian’s throat in a desperate guillotine choke.
"You think... you're real?" Julian wheezed, clawing at Marcus’s eyes with manicured fingernails. "You're a Xerox copy... of a dead man!"
Marcus shoved Julian backward into the master console. Monitors smashed, sparks searing through their clothes. "I am the man who's ending you," Marcus growled, his fist crashing into Julian’s jaw with bone-splintering force.
Julian stumbled, spitting blood, but snatched a heavy bronze bust of Alistair Montgomery from an alcove and swung it wildly. The metal caught Marcus across the temple. The world exploded into white stars. Marcus hit the floor hard, his Glock sliding away over the edge of the catwalk, tumbling forty feet down into the flooded floor below.
Julian stood over him, chest heaving, his face smeared with blood and grease. The crimson emergency lights cast demonic shadows across his identical features.
*NITROGEN FLOOD IN FOUR MINUTES,* the automated voice droned.
Above the roar of the klaxons, the elevator at the far end of the mezzanine chimed. The reinforced doors slid open.
Standing inside, clad in an immaculate trench coat and holding a suppressed Sig Sauer P320, was Chief Inspector Eleanor Wright.
Julian exhaled a ragged laugh, wiping his mouth. "Eleanor. You're late. Help me secure him before the gas vents."
Eleanor stepped out of the elevator. Her eyes were sunken, heavy with the weight of thirty years of corruption, but her weapon was raised with steady, professional discipline. She didn't look at Julian. She looked directly at Marcus, who was struggling to push himself up on one elbow, blood pouring from his temple.
"Eleanor..." Marcus croaked, his voice thick with betrayal. "Tell me it's not true."
Eleanor’s hand trembled slightly, but the muzzle never wavered. "A mother does what she has to do to keep her child alive, Marcus. You never had a child. You don't know the price of a life."
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"He's a monster!" Marcus yelled. "He's breeding people like cattle!"
"And they save thousands," Eleanor replied coldly. "A few drops of blood to buy decades of miracles. You should have stayed in the precinct, Marcus. You should have let Julian-3 take the fall and closed the folder."
