Chapter 8 - The Broadcast of Truth
Caleb fired two precision shots into the ceiling, disarming the second guard with terrifying efficiency before securing the bunker exit.
"You're standing," Caleb breathed in disbelief, catching Ivy before her trembling knees could buckle. "Both of you... you're really standing."
"We have to help Mom," Esme said, her voice ringing with unbreakable determination as she held onto the edge of the operating table, testing her weight. "The rooftop transmitter. Thorne is up there."
Meanwhile, on the wind-swept, rain-lashed rooftop helipad eighty floors above the city, Celeste stepped out onto the wet asphalt.
The skyline of New York stretched around her like an ocean of cold electric stars. Standing near the edge, his tailored overcoat whipping in the gale, was Victor Thorne. He was speaking into a satellite phone, his helicopter idling nearby, rotors slicing through the low-hanging clouds.
"The board has accepted the emergency transfer of authority," Thorne said into the phone. "By morning, Voss Genitech will be liquidated into the Ares Defense Group. The mother and daughters will be listed as casualties of a rogue scientist's bombing."
"Hang up the phone, Victor," Celeste said, her voice cutting through the roar of the helicopter blades.
Thorne turned around slowly, lowering the phone. He smiled with cold amusement. "Celeste. I must admit, your stamina is impressive. But you're eighty floors too late."
Celeste held up the black hard drive, slotting it directly into the open terminal of the emergency rooftop satellite relay tower. "I don't need to stop you, Victor. I only needed to let the world see who you are."
Thorne’s smile vanished. "What did you do?"
"Julian was always three steps ahead of you," Celeste said, pressing the master execution switch. "This relay doesn't just broadcast to the local grid. It overrides the global neural-network stream of every media outlet, hospital consortium, and regulatory agency subscribed to Voss Genitech."
Across the world—from Times Square billboards to trading desks in Tokyo and London—the screens switched instantaneously.
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A crystal-clear video recorded four years ago began to play: Victor Thorne tampering with the brake lines of Julian Voss's vehicle, followed by encrypted audio logs of Thorne negotiating the price of poisoning two eleven-year-old twin girls to seize their father's life's work.
Thorne drew his sidearm, his eyes wild with feral rage. "You ruined everything! I will blow you off this roof!"
