Chapter 38 - Vanessa at the Gate
"Julian!"
Vanessa’s tether dropped lower, wrapping around his arm. Julian didn't look back at the thrashing, smoking shell of the man who wore his father’s face. He grabbed the braided cable with both hands, wrapping it twice around his forearm, and kicked off the sliding floor just as the explosive bolts detonated with the force of an artillery barrage.
The entire sub-level sixty capsule dropped away into the abyss.
A rush of cold, damp subterranean air surged upward as thousands of tons of steel and concrete plummeted into the flooded drainage caverns beneath the city. Julian swung through the empty air of the vast silo, slamming against the outer concrete wall of the shaft before the automated winch on the mezzanine kicked in, dragging him upward through the shattered observation window.
He spilled onto the floor of the transit lounge, coughing violently, his lungs burning with every breath.
Vanessa dropped the winch control and stood over him. Her hands were covered in blood and grime, her tailored coat torn at the shoulders. In her right hand, she held a small, suppressed sidearm.
Julian lay on his back, the crystalline drive clutched tightly against his ribs, staring up at his sister through sweat-stung eyes.
"Are you going to shoot me, Vanessa?" he whispered, his voice raw and broken. "Or do you need me to decrypt it first?"
Vanessa stared down at him. Her chest rose and fell in rapid, shallow breaths. The cold, calculating mask she had worn on the comm monitor flickered, cracking for a fraction of a second to reveal the terrified girl who had watched their family disintegrate a decade ago.
"You idiot," she breathed, her voice trembling. "You absolute idiot. You think I wanted this?"
"You took their money," Julian said, not moving. "You tore up my offer. You put a tracking aerosol on my skin."
"Because if I didn't, Mom was going to sell your location to Sterling’s wet-work team that very night!" Vanessa hissed, dropping to her knees beside him, her fingers digging into the fabric of his torn jacket. "You think Mom is some helpless victim? She was the one who introduced Dad to the syndicate in 2010! She was their handler, Julian! She’s been their handler since before you were born!"
Julian felt the room stop spinning. The silence that followed her words was heavier than the collapse of the bunker below.
"What?"
"Dad discovered what she was doing," Vanessa said, tears finally cutting clean tracks through the dust on her cheeks. "That’s why he ran to Geneva. That’s why he staged his own death. He wasn't running from the board—he was running from her. And when he died, she needed another architect. She spent ten years molding you, pushing you, starving you of affection so you would bury yourself in the code, so you would build the very thing Dad refused to finish!"
The elevator doors at the end of the transit corridor chimed.
A soft, elegant chime that seemed obscenely polite amidst the devastation.
The brushed-steel doors slid open smoothly.
Standing in the center of the elevator car was their mother, Eleanor Mercer. She was dressed in an impeccable pearl-gray wool suit, her silver-streaked hair pinned in an elegant chignon. In her gloved left hand, she held a slim leather purse. In her right hand, she held a cellular detonator.
Behind her stood four private security operators in sterile, unmarked tactical gear, their assault rifles raised and leveled at Julian and Vanessa.
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"Vanessa, darling," Eleanor said, her voice dripping with the effortless, aristocratic poise that had defined Julian’s entire childhood. "You talk entirely too much. Step away from your brother, please. And bring me the drive."
***
