Chapter 13 - The Lawyer’s Last Document
Shaw aimed at Emily.
“Give me the blood sample.”
“It’s in the laboratory.”
His face twisted.
“You destroyed it?”
“Yes.”
“You have no idea what you have done.”
Peter leaned against the wall, one hand pressed to his wound.
“She ended my mother’s project.”
Shaw laughed.
“Helen’s project?”
He stepped out of the lift.
“Helen was only a custodian.”
Emily kept her eyes on the gun.
“For whom?”
Shaw smiled.
“The people who will still be here after Orison disappears.”
The sterilization countdown reached ten seconds.
Shaw forced them into the lift.
The doors closed as a deep explosion shook the facility.
The lift ascended.
Shaw removed a document from his briefcase.
“Your father understood that Eos was too important to remain under family control.”
“My father tried to expose it.”
“Daniel tried to renegotiate.”
“You are lying.”
“Everyone lies when the truth threatens the story they need.”
The lift stopped.
They emerged inside an underground loading bay.
A private ambulance waited with its engine running.
Shaw gestured toward it.
“Get inside.”
Peter stumbled.
Emily caught him.
“You need a hospital.”
Shaw nodded toward the ambulance.
“He will receive treatment after you cooperate.”
The rear doors opened.
Elaine lay strapped to a medical stretcher.
Emily’s breath caught.
“You took her from the cottage.”
“During the evacuation.”
Elaine opened her eyes weakly.
“Emily…”
Shaw pointed the gun at her.
“One bullet would end twelve years of expensive maintenance.”
Emily entered the ambulance.
Peter followed.
Shaw climbed in after them and locked the doors.
The vehicle began moving.
“Where is Maisie?” Emily asked.
“Safe with Beck, for the moment.”
“What do you want?”
“Your mother’s cooperation.”
Elaine laughed faintly.
“You never learned, Calvin.”
Shaw’s face hardened.
“You cost us billions.”
“I saved lives.”
“You buried the formula.”
“I buried a weapon.”
Emily sat beside her mother.
“What did you create?”
Elaine looked at her.
“The compound did more than preserve blood. In its final form, it could restore damaged cells to an earlier biological state.”
“Regeneration?”
“Limited regeneration.”
Shaw interrupted.
“Enough to reverse organ failure, radiation damage and certain degenerative diseases.”
“Then why hide it?” Peter asked.
“Because it could also cause uncontrolled replication,” Elaine said. “A person might heal. Or every cell in the body might begin growing until there was nothing human left.”
Emily remembered the mutation deaths.
“The biological key stabilizes it.”
“Yes.”
“And Maisie carries the complete sequence.”
Elaine’s eyes filled with grief.
“I believed I had destroyed E-19.”
“You knew they used it on me?”
“Not until you became pregnant.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I was already their prisoner.”
Shaw opened the document.
“This is the original Carter Vale ownership agreement. Elaine’s signature transfers all Eos-related rights to the Continuum Foundation upon confirmation of a viable descendant.”
Emily looked at the signature.
It appeared genuine.
Elaine closed her eyes.
“They forced me to sign after Daniel died.”
“Still legally valid,” Shaw said.
“Not without a witness,” Emily replied.
Shaw’s smile widened.
“I witnessed it.”
The ambulance slowed.
Through the small window, Emily saw aircraft hangars.
They had reached the private airfield.
A cargo plane waited on the runway.
Shaw’s phone rang.
He answered.
“Yes?”
His expression changed.
“What do you mean Beck has the child?”
Emily looked at Peter.
He understood immediately.
Shaw turned toward the rear doors.
Peter lunged.
The two men collided.
The gun fired.
Elaine screamed.
Emily struck Shaw with the metal buckle of the stretcher restraint.
The ambulance swerved.
Peter pulled open the rear door.
Wind rushed inside.
The aircraft runway flashed beneath them.
“Jump!” Peter shouted.
Emily released Elaine’s stretcher wheels.
Together, she and Peter pushed it toward the open doors.
The ambulance crashed through a security barrier.
The stretcher rolled onto the grass.
Emily jumped after it.
Peter followed a second later.
The ambulance continued forward and struck a fuel truck.
A fireball erupted across the runway.
Emily covered her mother with her body.
Peter lay nearby, unmoving.
Beck’s vehicles approached from the opposite gate.
Agents surrounded them.
Emily crawled toward Peter.
His eyes opened.
“Maisie?”
“With Beck.”
A faint smile touched his face.
May you like
“Good.”
Then he lost consciousness.
