Chapter 14 - The Tower Rooftop
The crowd surged forward, breaking past the thin line of private security. Clara used the resulting mayhem to guide the children through the revolving doors of the regional broadcast headquarters, barricading the lobby doors behind them with heavy brass stanchions.
""Security elevator is locked down!"" Clara shouted over the blaring alarm system. ""Stairs! We have to take the stairs!""
Twenty-two flights. Lily carried Mia until her legs turned to lead, then Mia walked three flights holding the handrail, coughing but fighting through the pain with quiet resilience. Clara guarded their rear, firing non-lethal deterrent rounds down the stairwell to delay the private operatives swarming the building’s lower levels.
When they finally burst through the heavy fire doors onto the rooftop, the wind hit them like a physical wall. The sprawling city lay below them, wrapped in autumn haze. In the center of the gravel roof stood the towering microwave antenna, its transmitter humming with immense electrical power.
Clara ran to the transmitter terminal, prying open the maintenance panel with a combat knife. She shoved the flash drive into the terminal's manual override slot, fingers dancing across a weather-sealed keyboard.
""Transfer initiating,"" Clara breathed, watching the progress bar tick upward: 20%... 40%...
A heavy bang blew the roof access door off its hinges. Stepping out into the rain was a tall man in a tailored charcoal suit, accompanied by two armed operatives with suppressors. He wasn't holding a weapon; he was holding an iPad.
May you like
""Turn it off, Clara,"" the man said with smooth, chilling calmness. ""Or your sister dies before this broadcast reaches the second server.""
He turned the iPad screen toward Lily. Live video feed displayed their mother, handcuffed to a steel chair in a soundproof room, a gun pointed squarely at the back of her head.
