Chapter 5 - Counter-Measures
A metallic scraping noise echoed through the ceiling of the cell corridor. Marcus Vance was directly above us in the crawlspace, moving through the narrow utility gaps like a ghost who built the labyrinth himself.
"Officer," his voice came down through the ceiling vent, closer now, muffled by sheet metal and fiberglass insulation. "You are holding assets that do not belong to you. Aethelgard contractors are already surrounding this perimeter. When they break through those locked doors, they will not negotiate. They will purge this entire structure to recover Formula 9B."
"You put a military-grade chemical agent inside seven-year-old children!" I yelled back, stepping out into the cell hallway, my handgun trained on the vent cover above. "You used your own daughters as biological containers!"
"I saved them!" Vance shouted back, his voice cracking with unhinged conviction. "Aethelgard was going to liquidate my lab! They were going to eliminate my family to cover up the leak! The only way to keep Emma and Olivia alive was to make them indispensable! As long as the sequence is inside them, they have to be kept alive!"
"Olivia is dying right now!" I roared. "Her system is collapsing! Give me the counter-agent, Marcus!"
A long pause followed. The only sound was the low hum of the sub-basement generator and the rhythmic clicking of hot metal expanding in the ventilation shafts.
"The counter-agent is in my vest," Vance said slowly. "It is an automated auto-injector calibrated for her weight. But it requires the baseline sequence from the micro-vial Emma is holding to activate the electronic release valve. Give me the vial, Officer. Let me down into the block."
I looked at the micro-vial in my hand. The clear liquid inside shifted slightly under the amber emergency light. Vance was a master engineer, but he was also a desperate man trapped in his own trap. He couldn't access the cell block without the manual keys or blowing the concrete wall, and an explosion would risk destroying the very sequence he had ruined his life to create.
"I won't let you near them," I said. "Drop the auto-injector through the vent. I will upload the sequence code manually using the terminal in the guard station."
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"You don't know the entry protocol!" Vance spat. "One wrong digit and the injector destroys the chemical payload!"
"Then walk me through it," I said, stepping up to the small wall-mounted security console beside Cell 2. "Because if you don't, your daughter dies in three minutes—and your precious sequence dies with her."
