Chapter 69 - The Fall of the Architect
Silence descended upon the bunker, broken only by the ragged sound of my own breathing and the heavy, irregular drops of blood falling from my scorched palms onto the floor.
"Bradley..." I wheezed, collapsing against the severed console, trying to steady my vision as black spots danced across my eyes.
"I'm here," Bradley’s voice answered from the dark. A flashlight beam clicked on, trembling slightly as he limped toward the dais, his left arm hanging limp, his face pale from blood loss. "Elena... you did it. The telemetry signals... they’re dead. The scramjet shroud failed to synchronize. Civilian satellite arrays are picking up the fail-safe protocols."
I pushed myself up, ignoring the blinding agony in my hands. "Where is she?"
Bradley swept the flashlight beam toward the rear of the chamber.
The armored escape module was sealed tight, but its pneumatic release had failed when the main power was severed. The thick, reinforced viewport was cracked from the inside.
I walked over to the module, dragging my boots through the shattered glass and spent shell casings.
Inside the small, circular observation cell, Eleanor Carter was sitting against the wall. The impact of the emergency system lock had severed the module's atmospheric scrubbers. She looked up at me through the cracked glass, her breathing shallow, her pristine gray suit covered in soot and hydraulic fluid.
She raised her head, looking at me not with anger, but with an eerie, hollow fascination.
"You really... broke the chain," she whispered, her voice barely audible through the emergency speaker grille. "Arthur... he broke so easily. Jake... Jake was broken before he was even born. But you..."
"Arthur is in federal custody," I said, my voice dead and empty. "Jake is facing treason charges that carry the death penalty. And you are going to die in a concrete box six hundred feet beneath the ground you tried to burn."
Eleanor gave a faint, chilling laugh that dissolved into a violent coughing fit.
"You think this was the whole machine, Elena?" she coughed, blood staining her lips. "You think I put all my eggs in one subterranean basket? Tartarus wasn't a weapon. Tartarus... was an invitation."
May you like
She leaned forward, pressing her trembling, manicured hand against the glass, directly opposite my scorched, bloodied palm.
"Look at the transponder board," she whispered. "Look at what's waking up."
