Chapter 18 - Two Minutes to Zero
The vault was filled with the deafening wail of emergency sirens and the blinding flash of red strobe lights.
Sterling was crawling across the steel floor, gasping for breath, clutching his injured ribs as he dragged himself toward the main terminal console.
"You idiot!" Sterling shrieked at Marcus. "You sealed us in here! The thermite is hardwired into the ceiling! When that timer hits zero, the magnesium charges will heat this room to four thousand degrees! We will literally vaporize!"
Marcus ignored him. He ran to the main console, where a high-resolution touch terminal displayed the master files of Project Chronos.
"Ethan! Where is the download sequence?" Marcus yelled over the roar of the siren.
Ethan stood beside the console, his eyes scanning the rapid lines of code. "My mother told me that if I ever had to shut down Chronos, I had to use her employee override code from Courtroom 7B: *0-7-1-4-A-B-I-G-A-I-L.*"
Ethan's fingers flew across the mechanical keyboard, entering the alphanumeric sequence.
**TIMER: 01:15... 01:14...**
*SCREEN PROMPT: "OVERRIDE CODE ACCEPTED. BROADCASTING PROJECT CHRONOS TO ALL PUBLIC AND FEDERAL DOMAINS."*
A progress bar appeared on the screen, uploading petabytes of video evidence, banking documents, and judicial transcripts directly to the Department of Justice, the FBI main servers, and over forty major news organizations worldwide.
**UPLOAD: 45%... 62%... 80%...**
"Stop it!" Sterling screamed, lunging at Ethan with a heavy steel fire extinguisher raised above his head. "Stop the upload!"
Marcus stepped between them. He caught the descending fire extinguisher with one hand, ripped it from Sterling’s grasp, and drove a thunderous straight punch directly into Sterling's jaw.
Sterling crashed onto the floor, spitting blood and teeth, completely incapacitated.
**UPLOAD: 100% COMPLETE.**
**TIMER: 00:30... 00:29... 00:28...**
"Marcus, the thermite is going to blow!" Ethan shouted, looking up at the ceiling canisters glowing with pre-ignition sparks.
Marcus grabbed the fire extinguisher, slammed the high-pressure CO2 nozzle directly into the primary electrical junction box controlling the ceiling charges, and discharged the entire freezing blast of carbon dioxide into the circuits.
Frost covered the wires. The sparks sizzled.
**00:05... 00:04... 00:03...**
The junction box short-circuited with a loud pop, cutting power to the ceiling charges.
The red strobe lights shut off. The countdown timer died.
The vault went dead silent, replaced by the steady, humming glow of the green server lights.
Above them, through the heavy reinforced walls, the sound of explosive breaching charges tore through the mansion as hundreds of federal tactical agents finally overwhelmed the compound.
Marcus leaned back against the console, sliding down to the floor, panting with exhaustion. He looked at Ethan.
Ethan sat down beside him, his small hands finally trembling as the adrenaline washed away.
Marcus wrapped his arm around Ethan’s shoulders, pulling the boy close.
May you like
"It's over, Ethan," Marcus whispered. "Your mother won."
Ethan buried his face into Marcus's tactical vest and wept, releasing six years of terror, sorrow, and loneliness into the arms of the man who had fought through hell to protect him.
