Chapter 11 - Ninety-Eight Percent
Emergency lights flickered on.
Amelia crawled to Charles. The bullet had entered below his collarbone. Blood soaked his shirt, but he was conscious.
“Stay with me,” she said.
His hand found hers. “The girls?”
“Alive.”
“Good.”
Across the chamber, tactical officers restrained Kane. Derek had disappeared through a maintenance exit during the blackout. Grace freed Lily and held her while technicians were ordered to step away.
Marcus reached the central server. “The upload stopped at ninety-eight percent. Someone severed the external relay.”
Rachel entered with paramedics. “How much was released?”
“Enough to expose shell companies and several officials. Not enough to identify the command structure or the successor sites.”
Two percent of the truth remained hidden.
It was enough.
Charles was taken into surgery under federal guard. The hospital filled with reporters. News outlets published pieces of the archive before injunctions could stop them. A senator resigned. Two defense executives were detained at the airport. The philanthropist denied involvement and claimed she had attended the demonstration to expose it.
Aegis’s public shell cracked, but its center held.
Amelia sat between Grace and Lily in a secured hospital room. Lily clung to her sister’s hand even while sleeping. Grace watched the door, unable to relax.
“You saved her,” Amelia said.
Grace looked down. “You came for both of us.”
“I will always come for both of you.”
“You cannot promise that.”
“I can promise I will try.”
Grace considered the difference. “That is better.”
Rachel arrived with bad news. Derek had accessed a DKM emergency fund before the accounts were frozen. He likely had passports, vehicles, and safe houses. Worse, forensic analysis showed someone inside the federal task force had deleted the final two percent of the archive before Marcus’s upload began.
“There is a mole,” Rachel said.
“Who had access?” Amelia asked.
“Thirty-seven people.”
“Then narrow it by who knew the final files mattered.”
Grace spoke from the window. “Kane knew.”
“Kane was in the chamber.”
“He did not need to delete them himself. He would have prepared a fail-safe.”
“What was in the final files?”
Grace’s face closed. “Names of active children.”
Amelia understood why she hesitated. Releasing those records could expose victims as well as perpetrators.
“Maybe stopping the upload protected them,” Amelia said.
“Or protected the people controlling them.”
Charles survived surgery. When Amelia visited, he was pale and connected to three monitors. For once, no attorneys or guards stood between them.
“You followed us,” she said.
“I did.”
“You promised to trust me.”
“I failed.”
“You took a bullet.”
“That does not erase the rest.”
The honesty left her without an easy target for anger.
Charles looked toward the dark window. “Elias is alive.”
Amelia sat straighter. “How do you know?”
“The message in the archive used a phrase he repeated during the original trials: keep the bloodline asleep. No one else knew it.”
“Margot might.”
“Margot is dead.”
“We saw someone who looked like her.”
“Aegis used surgical reconstruction and behavioral training for infiltration. The woman may have believed she was Margot.”
The thought was horrifying.
Charles continued, “Elias survived the shooting. Kane removed him before I could confirm the body. For years, I believed he died later from the wound. I was wrong.”
Amelia looked through the glass at Grace and Lily sleeping in the next room. “Then he built all of this while we lived inside his plan.”
“Yes.”
“What does he want now?”
“To prove his system works.”
“He already proved it.”
“No. A demonstration predicts behavior under controlled conditions. Elias wants a live event large enough to change nations.”
Rachel entered with a tablet. A global financial market had experienced an unexplained six-minute collapse before recovering. Billions changed hands during the fluctuation. The trades originated through Northstar Children’s Foundation.
Julian’s shell company.
At the same moment, hospitals in four cities reported receiving anonymous software updates to neonatal monitors—updates based on Amelia’s original design.
The devices predicted three infant emergencies and saved lives.
Attached to every update was the same message:
THE SYSTEM CAN PROTECT OR CONTROL. AMELIA MUST DECIDE.
May you like
Julian was not merely hiding.
He was inviting her into the war.
