Chapter 53 - The Ghost of Archipelago X
Daniel moved with a savagery that defied human anatomy.
His bare hands shredded the composite armor of the patrol boat. The soldiers raised their rifles, but to Daniel’s hyper-accelerated perception, the muzzle flashes bloomed in agonizing slow motion. He ducked beneath a burst of armor-piercing rounds, caught the lead contractor by the tactical vest, and threw the two-hundred-pound man twenty feet through the air into the churning propeller blades behind the stern.
The second soldier reached for a grenade. Daniel closed the distance in a fraction of a second, his fingers closing around the man's throat.
"Who gave the order?" Daniel's voice roared, laced with the terrifying electronic resonance of the silver cipher.
The soldier gagged, his eyes bulging as he stared into the swirling silver vortex of Daniel's pupils. "The... the Director... she’s already at Archipelago X... you’re too late! The synchronization... is complete!"
Daniel snapped the man's neck with a flick of his wrist and tossed the body into the sea.
He vaulted from the smoking wreck of the boat, landing squarely on the titanium rim of Lily’s escape pod. The sudden impact rattled the pod, and Julian instantly leveled his rifle at the hatchway, his finger squeezing the trigger—until he saw the face of the demon boarding them.
"Daniel?!" Julian gasped, his weapon lowering as his jaw dropped in utter disbelief. "How... how the hell are you alive? The pressure at that depth—"
"Get her inside the cabin," Daniel cut him off, his voice raw, his breath smoking in the cold sea air despite his body radiating unnatural heat.
"Daddy!" Lily cried out, breaking from Julian’s grip and throwing her small arms around Daniel’s waist.
The moment her hands touched his skin, an audible electrical spark snapped between them. Daniel flinched as an agonizing jolt shot up his spine, but he clamped his jaw shut, wrapping his muscular, scarred arms around his daughter. He pressed her head against his chest, shielding her from the carnage on the water.
"I’ve got you, baby," he whispered, his human heart battling desperately against the cold, machine-like instincts flooding his brain. "I’ve got you. Nobody touches you."
"Daniel, look at your arms," Julian whispered, horrified.
Underneath Daniel’s lacerated flesh, complex glowing circuitry of silver nanites was visibly pulsating, knitting his torn muscle fibers back together in seconds. The bleeding had completely stopped.
"Claire did this to me," Daniel said, his eyes scanning the horizon where the gunship was banking hard for an attack run. "She didn't just want Lily’s blood. She wanted my brain. I am the biological transmitter. Archipelago X... that’s where her main command relay is located."
"Archipelago X is an urban myth among maritime black-ops," Julian shouted over the rising wind. "A decommissioned nuclear test atoll completely erased from all satellite maps in 1984!"
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"It’s not a myth," Daniel said, turning his gaze toward the stormy north. A set of encrypted oceanic coordinates was flickering across the retina of his left eye, automatically fed by the signal pulsing through his veins. "It’s where Claire was born. And it’s where I’m going to end her."
***
