Chapter 65
CHAPTER 65 — THE PRICE OF TRANSITION
Lord Edward waved his hand, and the security guards opened fire from the catwalk. The concourse erupted into a storm of glass and pressurized gas as the cryo-tubes shattered under the hail of bullets, releasing gallons of freezing gel and the pale, lifeless forms of the failed iterations onto the floor.
Victoria Lane returned fire with a heavy automatic weapon, her bullets shattering the glass catwalk beneath Lord Edward’s feet, sending one of his augmented guards plunging forty feet down into the machinery below.
"Get to the central core!" Alexander yelled, using his tactical scanner to override the pneumatic locks on the service elevator. "The signal from Lily’s biometric lock is coming from the reservoir deck beneath the water line!"
They scrambled into the elevator just as the doors were hit by a volley of high-caliber rounds. As the lift descended into the depths of the floating platform, the temperature dropped rapidly, the walls transitioning from clean steel to rough, unpolished granite. The platform had been anchored directly over an ancient, submerged volcanic vent.
The elevator clicked to a halt, the doors sliding open to reveal a massive, circular chamber filled with a deep, boiling pool of black mineral water. In the center of the pool, suspended by four massive titanium chains, was the central terminal of the Monarch Grid.
Lily sat on the edge of the terminal, her small legs dangling over the boiling black water. The obsidian baby shoes were on her feet, but they were no longer solid; they had partially liquefied, crawling up her ankles like webs of dark, polished glass, their microscopic tendrils threading directly into her skin.
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Standing behind her, her hand resting heavily on the child's head, was Victoria Whitmore. Her shoulder was heavily bandaged from the wound she had received in Switzerland, but her face was entirely calm, her eyes fixed on the entrance of the vault.
"You brought the keys, Claire," Victoria Whitmore said, her voice echoing over the roar of the subterranean waters. "Good. Set the box on the altar. The final alignment is forty seconds away."
