Chapter 12 - The Vote of Eight
Bank security sealed the floor.
Victoria held Daniel near the elevator, one arm wrapped around his throat and a pistol pressed beneath his jaw.
Her fractured ankle had been stabilized with a black medical brace.
She seemed more irritated by the injury than weakened by it.
“Open the custodial chamber,” she ordered Helena.
“There is no chamber.”
Victoria smiled.
“Your predecessor said the same thing.”
Helena’s face changed.
Victoria knew she had won that exchange.
Emily stepped into the corridor.
“Let him go.”
“You dismissed him fifteen minutes ago,” Victoria said. “Surely you are not attached.”
“I don’t have to trust him to value his life.”
“That weakness came from Margaret.”
“No. It came from being human.”
Victoria pushed Daniel forward.
“Humanity is a luxury supported by systems people like me maintain.”
“You mean systems people like my father created.”
“And failed to control.”
Garrett’s voice came through the elevator speaker.
“Mother.”
Victoria looked toward the panel.
Garrett was in the security command room below. He had insisted on accompanying federal investigators to the bank after learning Victoria had escaped.
“You should have left the country,” she said.
“You should have told me who my father was.”
“I told you enough.”
“You taught me that anyone without Lawson blood was worthless.”
“You had Lawson blood.”
“Not the blood you claimed.”
Victoria’s expression hardened.
“You inherited Stephen’s weakness. He also became emotional when facts stopped serving him.”
Garrett pressed a control.
The elevator doors opened behind Victoria.
No one stood inside.
She glanced back.
Daniel drove his elbow into her ribs.
The pistol fired.
The bullet struck the ceiling.
Emily ran forward.
Victoria shoved Daniel into Helena and entered the elevator.
Garrett appeared from a maintenance hatch above the elevator cab and dropped behind her.
Victoria spun.
Garrett seized her wrist.
They struggled inside the confined space.
Emily reached the doors just as Victoria fired again.
Garrett jerked backward.
Blood spread across his shirt.
“Garrett!”
He fell against the control panel.
Victoria pushed him out of the elevator and aimed at Emily.
The doors began closing.
Emily caught Garrett beneath the arms and pulled him clear.
The elevator descended.
Claire called for paramedics.
Garrett pressed one hand against his upper chest.
The bullet had passed through his shoulder.
“Why did you do that?” Emily asked.
He managed a strained smile.
“I’m experimenting with consequences.”
She applied pressure to the wound.
“You could have been killed.”
“I’m aware.”
Helena recovered and entered a code on the wall.
“The elevator is heading to sublevel thirty.”
“You said the bank had thirty underground floors,” Claire said.
“It does.”
A second indicator appeared.
SUBLEVEL THIRTY-ONE.
Helena stared at it.
“That level does not exist.”
Garrett looked up at Emily.
“My grandfather built private vaults beneath several banks.”
Emily stood.
“Where does it lead?”
“To the custodial chamber,” Helena said.
The floor beneath them vibrated.
The walls of the conference room separated, revealing a circular steel doorway that had been hidden behind the paneling.
The divided-circle symbol illuminated above it.
A recorded voice spoke.
“Custodial vote required.”
The map displayed eight active signals.
Emily’s signal pulsed.
Seven remote figures appeared on the screens, their faces obscured by shadow.
Victoria appeared on the eighth screen from the hidden chamber below.
She had activated the vote.
“The office of North American custodian is vacant,” a voice said.
Emily looked at Victoria’s image.
Robert was dead.
Or Meridian had declared him dead.
Victoria nominated herself.
Another custodian seconded the nomination.
The system requested Emily’s vote.
“I reject her.”
Victoria smiled.
“A rejection requires an alternative nominee.”
Emily looked at Claire.
“Nominate Daniel,” Claire whispered.
Daniel shook his head.
“That is what Victoria expects.”
Garrett, pale from blood loss, spoke from the floor.
“Nominate me.”
Emily stared at him.
Victoria’s smile disappeared.
“You are not eligible,” she said.
Garrett looked directly at the screen.
“I am a direct descendant of Richard Lawson through Stephen. I led a Meridian-controlled corporation for eleven years. And I am the father of a registered successor.”
The system processed his statement.
ELIGIBILITY CONFIRMED.
Victoria’s face twisted with fury.
“You would betray your own mother?”
Garrett laughed weakly.
“You taught me that power matters more than family.”
Emily understood what he was offering.
If Garrett became custodian, he would gain access to Meridian.
He could help expose it.
Or he could become exactly what Victoria had trained him to be.
The system requested Emily’s vote again.
Garrett looked at her.
“You don’t have to trust me.”
“I don’t.”
“Good. You were terrible at it.”
Despite everything, Emily almost smiled.
She cast her vote for Garrett.
The seven other custodians voted.
Three supported Victoria.
Three supported Garrett.
One abstained.
The system announced a tie.
A final message appeared.
THE SENIOR REED SUCCESSOR HOLDS DECIDING AUTHORITY.
Emily stared at the screen.
Victoria leaned toward the camera.
“Choose carefully. Whichever candidate you reject will be marked for removal.”
“Removal?” Claire asked.
Daniel answered quietly.
“Execution.”
Emily looked at Garrett bleeding on the floor.
Then at Victoria standing safely beneath the bank.
She entered her decision.
“I choose neither.”
The chamber lights turned red.
The obscured custodians began speaking at once.
SYSTEM ERROR.
VALID CANDIDATE REQUIRED.
Emily lifted Thomas’s letter.
“Then I nominate the architect.”
A ninth image appeared.
May you like
Thomas Reed sat in his hospital bed.
Someone was standing behind him with a gun.
