Chapter 10 - The Architect's Ghost
The door swung inward with a prolonged screech of rusted hinges. Julian raised the carbine, his finger tightening on the trigger, but lowered it an inch as the silhouette stumbled over the threshold.
It was Mara. Her leather jacket was shredded along the left shoulder, blood soaking through the torn fabric, her face blackened by soot and soot. She was dragging her left leg, leaning heavily against the doorframe to keep from collapsing.
""They... they have the perimeter completely sealed,"" she choked out, sliding down against the wall until her knees struck the floor. ""Reinforcements from Fort Meade. They aren't trying to contain us anymore. They've deployed an airstrike authorization to level the entire industrial zone.""
Julian rushed to her side, tearing open a sterile pressure dressing from the first-aid kit and pressing it against the jagged shrapnel wound in her shoulder. ""You're bleeding out. The shrapnel severed the lateral thoracic artery.""
""Leave it,"" she hissed, grabbing his hands with bloodied fingers. ""Look at the terminal. How much time do we have?""
""Twenty-eight minutes,"" Julian said, applying a rapid tourniquet around her upper arm with a clean strip of rubber hose. ""The key to aborting the sequence is at the Chiron sub-basement. My retinal scan is the only override.""
""Then we go now,"" she said through gritted teeth, forcing herself to stand by leaning against the workbench. She looked down at Leo, who had opened his eyes, staring at his mother's blood with silent, terrifying comprehension. ""Leo... baby, you have to be brave for a little longer.""
""Mommy's hurt,"" Leo whispered, his lower lip trembling.
""Mommy's fine,"" she lied, forcing a smile that was immediately betrayed by a spasm of agony across her pale face. ""Your dad... your dad is going to fix everything. Just like he used to.""
Julian looked at the two of them—the broken remnants of a family he had forgotten he possessed, standing in the middle of a grease-stained industrial workshop while a nuclear countdown ticked toward zero. A deep, cold calm settled over him, the pure, surgical detachment that had made him the best trauma surgeon in the state.
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He scooped Leo into his left arm, wrapped his right arm around Mara’s waist to support her weight, and kicked open the maintenance bay's service tunnel access.
""Stay close,"" Julian said, stepping into the dark descent. ""If they want a war, they're going to have to fight it on my terms.""
