Chapter 7 - The Trust in the Dark
The sudden blackout was accompanied by a heavy, mechanical hum as the garage's perimeter security shutters slammed downward with a deafening crash, sealing the heavy steel doors shut from the outside.
"Ambush!" Henderson roared, raising his weapon into the darkness, sweeping the laser sight across the shadowy corners of the room.
"Don't shoot!" Marisol yelled, her voice cutting through the panic as she scrambled backward, keeping her pistol aimed at the spot where Julian Sterling had been kneeling a second ago.
"Sterling's moving!" I shouted, lunging forward through the dark toward the worktable. My hand grazed empty air. The sound of rapid, sliding footsteps echoed toward the back utility corridor.
"Marcus, cut the backup power!" I barked.
"Working on it!" Marcus’s voice snapped from across the room, the bright blue light of his ruggedized tablet illuminating his face as his fingers flew across the glass interface. "Someone just triggered an emergency system lockdown from an external terminal. They're locking us inside the bunker."
A sharp hiss of compressed air filled the room.
"Gas!" Henderson yelled, coughing as a thick, sweet-smelling white vapor began pouring from the ceiling ventilation grates. "Hold your breath! It's aerosolized knockout agent!"
I slammed my sleeve over my nose and mouth, the pungent, chemical burn instantly stinging my throat and eyes. Around us, the room began to spin into a surreal blur of shadows and flashing blue tablet light.
"Marcus—the tablet—" I choked out, stumbling against the cold stone wall as my knees began to buckle under the weight of the toxin.
"I've got the data cached..." Marcus coughed violently, his frame slumping against the edge of the worktable as his digital interface flickered. "The trust... Uncle Arthur... the primary beneficiary of Sterling's entire embezzlement portfolio isn't Meridian Group... it's—"
His voice cut off into a ragged gasp. His legs gave out, and he collapsed heavily onto the concrete floor beside the shattered glass.
Across the room, I saw Marisol drop to her knees, the pistol slipping from her limp fingers with a dull clatter. Henderson went down hard against the steel rolling shutter, his weapon sliding out of reach.
My own vision was greying at the edges. The world narrowed down to a tiny, pinpoint tunnel of light centered entirely on Marcus's tablet, which lay face-up on the floor just three feet away, its screen still glowing with the name of the mysterious trust.
I crawled forward, dragging my heavy limbs across the grit and broken glass, my fingers clawing desperately at the smooth linoleum. My heart thudded wildly against my ribs, a frantic, slowing drumbeat as the knockout gas saturated my lungs.
Just an inch...
My fingertips grazed the hard plastic edge of the tablet. I hooked my index finger under the frame, pulling it toward me just as my forehead hit the cold concrete.
The screen flared brightly in the dim light. The decrypted beneficiary profile popped up in bold white text against a dark background:
BENEFICIARY: JULIA VANCE-STERLING.
My breath caught in my throat, choking off the last remaining oxygen in my chest.
Julia.
My daughter—the girl who had walked out on me three years ago, the girl I thought was a victim in all of this—wasn't a hostage. She wasn't an innocent bystander caught in corporate crossfire.
She was Julian Sterling's partner.
Before I could process the shattering revelation, heavy combat boots stepped into my field of vision. A gloved hand reached down, effortlessly snatching the tablet out of my weak grip.
I forced my heavy eyelids upward, squinting through the haze. Standing over me wasn't Julian Sterling. It was a tall, unfamiliar woman in a sleek tactical turtleneck, her face half-hidden by a dark communications headset. She looked down at me with cold, professional indifference, tucked the tablet into her tactical belt, and keyed her comms.
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"Package secured," she spoke into the receiver, her voice calm and chillingly polite. "Tell Ms. Vance that her father has officially checked into the system."
That was the last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me whole.
