Chapter 81 - The Titanium Core
The counterweight struck the floor between Jared and the two mercenaries with the concussive violence of a falling meteor. The heavy steel plating of the floor buckled instantly, sending shockwaves through the concrete foundation that threw Graves off his feet and sent both contractors stumbling backward into the instrument panels.
Jared didn't wait for the dust to clear. He dropped to one knee, firing two controlled shots through the rising cloud of pulverized concrete. The muzzle flash illuminated the cavern in sharp, violent strobes. The contractor on the right dropped his weapon with a howl of pain as the lead caught him in the shoulder, his submachine gun clattering across the floorplates.
The second mercenary swung his weapon around, firing wildly on full automatic. Rounds tore through the wooden crates behind Jared, splintering fifty-year-old pine and sparking violently against the iron framing of the command dais.
Jared rolled behind a secondary reinforced support pillar, bringing his rifle up through a gap in the conduit piping. One breath. Two. He squeezed the trigger.
The second contractor crumpled, his weapon falling silent as his body hit the deckplates with a heavy, final thud.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Graves screamed from behind the lead-glass partition of the core chamber. He was crawling on his hands and knees, his designer suit torn to ribbons, his face bleeding where flying shards of concrete had sliced his forehead. He had reached the manual cycle valve on the core cylinder, his trembling hands wrapped around the red emergency release wheel.
"Stay back, Jared!" Graves shrieked, his voice cracking into high-pitched terror. "If I turn this valve, the liquid helium coolant vents straight into the atmosphere! The thermal shock will crack the containment glass and vaporize this entire facility! We’ll both be carbon dust before we can reach the lift!"
Jared stepped out from behind the pillar, his rifle resting at his hip, his boots crunching steadily over the broken glass and shattered concrete. He didn't rush. He didn't raise his voice. He walked toward Graves with the absolute, deliberate composure of a man who understood the tolerances of steel and pressure far better than a corrupt venture capitalist ever could.
"Turn it," Jared said quietly.
Graves froze, his white-knuckled grip slipping slightly on the red wheel. "What?!"
"Turn the valve, Graves," Jared repeated, stopping ten paces away. "Go ahead. Spin it counter-clockwise."
Graves looked from Jared’s impassive face to the heavy red wheel beneath his fingers. "You think I'm bluffing?! I'll kill us both! I'll take this entire mountain with me!"
"You're not a mechanic, Victor. You're an accountant who wears Italian suits and steals deeds from elderly men on their deathbeds," Jared said, pointing the barrel of his rifle at the copper piping running from the valve housing into the floor. "That's not the coolant bypass. That’s the high-pressure nitrogen backflush for the sediment trap. If you turn that wheel, you aren't venting helium. You're venting sixty pounds of compressed air into an empty drainage trench."
Graves’ face drained of whatever color remained. He looked down at the markings stamped into the brass casting of the valve: *DRAIN PURGE ONLY — DO NOT OPERATE UNDER LOAD.*
His knees gave out completely, and he slumped against the base of the cylinder, his hands falling limp to the floorplates.
"It was never about the money, was it?" Graves whispered, his voice trembling as he looked up into the barrel of Jared’s weapon. "Your grandfather... he didn't hide this to get rich."
May you like
"He hid it so men like you couldn't use it to turn people like my children into beggars," Jared said.
He stepped forward, swung the butt of his rifle with short, clinical efficiency, and struck Graves across the jaw, sending him sprawling unconscious onto the cold titanium deck.
