Chapter 60 - The Sovereign Override
Caleb lay on the floor, convulsing as his nervous system struggled against the shock, his white shirt scorched and smoking.
Above them, Eleanor stood up abruptly from her desk, her calm facade shattering into furious panic. "Caleb! Get up! Kill him!"
Julian rose to his feet, wiping blood from his split lip. He didn't look at Caleb. He walked directly to the central terminal of the server core, inserting the primary encryption key into the master console.
*ADMINISTRATOR RECOGNITION: MERCER, JULIAN (ORIGINAL ROOT).*
*ENTER AUTHORIZATION PHRASE.*
Julian looked up through the glass partition at his mother.
"Vanessa," Julian spoke into his comm unit. "Are you in the bridge auxiliary?"
"I'm here," Vanessa’s voice came back, sharp and clear. "Miller cleared the control room. I have the master ballast controls."
"Vent the sea chests," Julian ordered. "Flood the outer containment tanks. Ground this ship."
"What?!" Eleanor’s voice shrieked over the intercom. "Julian, you fool! If you flood the lower decks, the quantum core will submerge! Thirty billion dollars of infrastructure—"
"It's not infrastructure, Eleanor," Julian said, his fingers flying across the terminal with blinding speed. "It's a cage. And you built it out of our lives."
On the bridge above, Vanessa slammed the emergency ballast override levers forward.
A monstrous groan reverberated through the length of the *Aegis Sovereign*. Millions of gallons of Atlantic seawater flooded into the auxiliary ballast tanks. The ship listed violently to the starboard side, throwing equipment, screens, and furniture across the staterooms.
In the observation suite, Eleanor lost her footing, crashing against the reinforced window with a cry of pain.
On the server console, the progress bar hit one hundred percent:
*GLOBAL CHIMERA LATTICE: TRANSFERRED TO PUBLIC DOMAIN / OPEN ACCESS PROTOCOL.*
*MERIDIAN EXECUTIVE SHARES: DISSOLVED.*
*OFFSHORE ACCOUNTS: FROZEN BY FEDERAL MARITIME AUTHORITY.*
Caleb dragged himself up from the floor, his face twisted in a mask of primal, unprogrammed hatred. He pulled a concealed ceramic blade from his boot, lunging toward Julian’s exposed back.
Julian didn't turn around.
*BANG.*
A single, deafening gunshot echoed through the server vault.
Caleb’s momentum halted. He looked down in disbelief at the neat hole punched through his chest, then collapsed onto the server rack, sliding down to the floor as his life pooled around the cooling vents.
Standing in the vault doorway, the smoking barrel of Miller’s sidearm lowered, was Vanessa.
Her hands were steady. Her breathing was slow. She looked down at the dead duplicate, then met Julian’s eyes.
May you like
"I told you," Vanessa said quietly. "Nobody gets to replace my brother."
***
