Chapter 6 - Iron and Water
Diana fell through the glare of the floodlights like a falling blade, using a severed heavy-duty power cable to break her fall twenty feet above the concrete. The rubber coating burned through her palms, but she absorbed the kinetic shock, swinging violently inward toward the upper deck of a shipping container. She landed in a low roll, drawing the suppressed weapon from her belt as sniper rounds pinged off the corrugated iron where she had been a microsecond before.
Chaos erupted in the yard. Marcus opened fire from the high catwalk, providing suppressing fire that pinned Alexander Vance’s personal guard behind their armored vehicles. Diana didn't waste ammunition. Moving with lethal, predatory efficiency, she leaped from the container roof onto the hood of an advancing patrol truck, kicking the driver through the shattered windshield before the man could draw his sidearm.
She sprinted through the crossfire toward the control booth. Every step was deliberate, an exquisite display of lethal martial art honed through years of clandestine operations before she had traded her weapons for a nursery. A security operative stepped into her path, raising a shotgun. Diana slid beneath the barrel across the wet pavement, sweeping his ankles, and drove the butt of her rifle into his temple as she rose.
Inside the glass booth, an engineer panicked, reaching for the lockdown override. Diana shattered the reinforced window with an elbow strike, lunging inside to grab the man by his tactical harness. She dragged him over the console, slamming his head into the override lever.
A deep mechanical groan reverberated through the foundations of the facility. The massive hydraulic floodgates separating the subterranean basin from the black waters of the river began to grind upward.
Outside, Alexander Vance’s calm demeanor vanished. “Kill her!” he roared, retreating toward his armored limousine. “Kill them all! Don't let the water breach!”
A wall of black, freezing river water poured through the rising gates, crashing into the lower yard with the force of an avalanche. It struck the front line of SUVs, tossing multi-ton vehicles like plastic toys and sweeping dozens of armed men off their feet in a violent torrent.
Diana hit the catwalk ladder, scrambling upward as the waterline rose exponentially below her. “Marcus! Lily! Move to the secondary gantry!”
She reached the gantry platform just as Marcus secured Lily in his arms. The child was silent, staring with terrified wonder at the wall of churning water consuming the vehicles below.
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Suddenly, a shot rang out—not from below, but from the shadow of the access gantry behind them.
Marcus grunted, a dark stain blossoming instantly across his chest plate as he stumbled, nearly dropping the child. Standing ten paces away on the iron platform, his tuxedo torn and his face twisted into a demonic mask of bruised fury, was Julian Vance.
