Chapter 46 - Zero Ground at Blackwood Manor
A blinding flash of blue-white light erupted from Lily’s chest, accompanied by a deafening electric pop that shattered the lightbulb hanging overhead.
Julian was thrown backward, landing hard against an iron support pillar. The scalpel flew from his fingers, clattering across the concrete floor.
For two agonizing, breathless seconds, the world went dead silent.
The red light on Lily’s chest was out.
The violent thrashing stopped. Her small body went completely limp on the steel table, her head rolling to the side. The swelling veins along her neck collapsed, fading back to their normal pale hue.
"Lily?" Julian gasped, scrambling on his hands and knees through the dark, pulling himself back up to the bench. "Lily!"
Claire pressed two trembling fingers against the girl’s carotid artery.
One second. Two seconds. Three seconds.
"Sinus rhythm detected," Claire whispered, let out a choked, half-hysterical laugh. "Pulse is slowing... one hundred... eighty-five... normal sinus. She’s breathing on her own!"
Lily’s chest rose and fell in a slow, rhythmic, natural cadence. The synthetic fluid oozing from the incision congealed rapidly, sealing itself into a dull, silvery scar that looked almost identical to the old soup burn on her shoulder.
*BOOM!*
The steel door of the generator room gave way with a screech of shearing bolts.
Julian didn't hesitate. He grabbed the dropped Glock from his holster, spun toward the breaching entrance, and raised the weapon.
Through the cloud of concrete dust and tactical smoke, two figures stepped forward. But they weren't the carbon-armored assault troops from the gunships.
They were dressed in tailored, charcoal-gray three-piece suits. Neither carried an assault rifle. Instead, the man in front—tall, silver-haired, with cold gray eyes and an immaculate silver pocket watch chained to his vest—held a slender black umbrella with a polished bone handle.
Behind him stood an older woman with sharp cheekbones, wearing a pearl necklace that Julian recognized with an icy plunge of his gut.
It was the necklace Beatrice had worn on their wedding day.
"Put the gun down, Julian," the silver-haired man said, his voice the exact cultured baritone that had whispered through the dead telephone line. "You've caused an extraordinary amount of financial depreciation this morning."
"Dr. Vance," Julian growled, his finger tightening against the Glock’s trigger until the slack was entirely gone. "Or should I call you 'The Architect'?"
The man smiled faintly, stepping into the dim light. "You can call me what you've always called me behind closed doors, nephew. Uncle Arthur."
Julian’s brain seized. *Uncle Arthur?* The patriarch of the Vance family trust, the reclusive philanthropist who had funded Julian’s medical schooling and paid for Elena’s medical treatments when she was dying of leukemia.
"You built this," Julian hissed, venom dripping from every syllable. "You turned my daughter into a laboratory animal!"
"We didn't turn her into anything, Julian," Arthur Vance replied smoothly, resting both hands on the umbrella handle. "We created her. She is the fourth iteration of our distributed cognitive network. And you... you were simply the incubator’s guardian."
The older woman stepped forward, her eyes cold as polished marble. Julian recognized her now—Evelyn Vance, Arthur’s sister and the Chief Executive Officer of Blackwood Pharmaceuticals.
"Beatrice did you a disservice, Julian," Evelyn said, her voice dripping with aristocrat contempt. "She gave you the illusion that you could be a father. A butcher cannot be a father to a masterpiece."
"Step back," Julian warned, sweeping the barrel between the two of them. "I will paint these walls with your brains before you lay a finger on her."
Arthur chuckled softly. "Look behind you, Julian."
Julian didn't turn his head, but his peripheral vision caught Claire’s movement.
Claire was no longer standing beside Lily’s bench.
She had backed away toward the rear exit, her hand inside her coat. When she withdrew it, she wasn't holding a medical kit.
She was holding a silenced Sig Sauer 9mm pistol.
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And the barrel was leveled directly at Julian’s head.
***
