Chapter 54 - The Autopsy of an Empty Coffin
The smell of damp rot, dead crabs, and diesel fuel filled the abandoned salmon cannery at Tillamook Bay.
Julian lay propped against an overturned wooden forklift pallet, his teeth clenched so hard against a leather belt that blood seeped between his molars. Beatrice knelt over him, her tactical flashlight held between her teeth as she used surgical scissors to peel away the melted nylon of his shirt from his left shoulder and ribcage.
The skin beneath was a sickening landscape of second-degree burns and purple contusions. Three of his ribs were displaced, visibly protruding against the skin like broken bows.
"Breathe through your nose, Julian," Beatrice muttered through clenched teeth. "If I don't set this third rib now, you’re going to suffer a tension pneumothorax before we reach the airstrip."
"Just... do it," Julian grunted, his fingernails digging into the rotting cedar floorboards.
Beatrice didn't hesitate. She placed her palms over the displaced bone, took a breath, and leaned down with the full, ruthless weight of a combat medic.
*CRACK.*
Julian’s scream was muffled by the leather belt, a raw, strangled animal sound that echoed off the corrugated tin roof of the cannery. He arched his back, veins standing out on his forehead like thick blue cables, before collapsing back onto the pallet, panting violently, cold sweat drenching his pale face.
In the corner of the damp room, sitting on an empty fifty-gallon drum, Lily watched. Her hands rested politely in her lap. Her gaze was unblinking.
"Better?" Beatrice spat the flashlight out into her palm, wiping Julian’s forehead with a saline-soaked rag.
"Like a walk... in the park," Julian wheezed, spitting out the leather belt. He coughed, a spray of dark, deoxygenated blood speckling his chin. He wiped it away with the back of a trembling, blistered hand. "Lily... come here."
Lily hopped down from the barrel. Her movements were smooth, strangely balanced, completely unlike the awkward, cautious steps of the terrified child who had hidden under the dining room table at Blackwood Manor. She walked to Julian’s side and knelt down on the dirty concrete.
"Daddy," she said softly.
Julian reached out with an agonizing effort, his burned fingers trembling as he touched her cheek. "Are you in pain, sweetheart? Does the shoulder burn?"
"It doesn't hurt anymore, Daddy," she said. Her voice was terrifyingly calm. "It’s warm. Like when you sit near the radiator in winter. She’s calling me."
"Who is calling you, Lily?" Beatrice asked, leaning forward, her hand resting on the grip of her holstered Glock.
"My sister," Lily answered simply. "She’s across the water. In the tall glass house. She says Claire didn't die in the fire. Claire is coming with the iron men."
Julian traded a horrified, exhausted look with Beatrice.
"The drainage tunnel," Julian rasped, struggling to sit up against the forklift pallet despite Beatrice’s hands trying to hold him down. "When the floor collapsed... Claire fell into the storm surge. But she didn't scream when she hit the water. She... she grabbed a sub-aquatic maintenance ladder. Her right arm—Beatrice, her right arm was entirely reinforced titanium. The flesh burned off, but the servos were still functioning. She survived the drop."
"That's impossible," Beatrice said, though her voice wavered with doubt. "A thermobaric purge produces heat exceeding three thousand degrees. Her lungs would have been seared shut in seconds."
"Unless she wasn't breathing human air," Julian said, the horrifying realization clicking into place like the tumbler of a vault. "Claire was never just a sociopathic stepmother trying to murder Lily for an inheritance. The inheritance was a cover story. The Board didn't put Claire in my house to be my wife. She was an operational warden. She was a prototype of whatever they’re building in Tokyo."
Suddenly, the rusted corrugated tin doors at the far end of the cannery groaned under a sudden gust of wind.
Except it wasn't the wind.
The rhythmic, low-frequency chop of twin turbine blades vibrated through the damp air, rattling the tin roof until the dust of fifty years shook down like gray snow. High-intensity infrared searchlights sliced through the cracked windows, painting the decaying cannery in grids of ghostly, emerald-green light.
A voice, amplified through a high-decibel directional acoustic cannon, cut through the night, echoing off the water of Tillamook Bay:
*"Julian Vance. You are in possession of corporate property. Surrender Subject Four immediately, or the sector will be neutralized under executive sanction."*
Julian grabbed his assault rifle from the floor, his eyes burning with lethal determination despite his broken body.
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"They aren't here to negotiate," Julian whispered. "They’re here to wipe the slate."
***
