The freezing water of the subterranean river dragged at Damien Vance’s boots, threatening to pull him back into the rushing, pitch-black current.
He clawed at the slick, muddy bank with his left hand, his fingers digging deep into the wet clay.
He let out a ragged scream of pain as he hauled his weight upward, his broken right wrist screaming in agony.
With a desperate, final surge of adrenaline, he dragged Evelyn’s limp body out of the water and onto the tall, rain-drenched reeds of the lower valley.
Damien collapsed beside her, chest heaving, coughing up mouthfuls of freezing river water.
He scrambled to his knees, his hands trembling as he checked her throat for a pulse.
Damien Vance said to Evelyn Vance, “Evelyn, please.
Breathe.
Look at me.”
Evelyn’s chest rose with a violent, shuddering gasp.
Her eyelids fluttered open, but there was no warmth in her gaze.
Her pupils were gone, replaced by a solid, cold emerald light that pulsed in perfect synchronization with the distant blue pillar on the horizon.
When she spoke, her voice was not her own.
It carried a strange, dual resonance—a haunting, ghostly layer of an older, desperate woman’s voice speaking in unison with her own.
Evelyn Vance said to Damien Vance, “The glass is freezing, Damien.
The fluid…
it tastes like copper and ice.
I can feel the current slowing down.
The pressure in the chamber is rising.
She is losing oxygen.”
Damien gripped her by the shoulders, his thumbs pressing into her wet jacket.
He tried to shake her, to anchor her back to the mud and the rain, but her body remained rigid.
Damien Vance said to Evelyn Vance, “Evelyn, focus on my voice.
Your mother is not here.
We are in the valley.
We got out of the bunker.
You have to shut the link down.
It’s burning you up.”
Evelyn’s head snapped toward the distant mountain, her glowing eyes wide with a terrifying, vacant intensity.
A thin, dark line of blood began to seep from her left nostril, staining her pale lip.
Evelyn Vance said to Damien Vance, “There is no shutting it down.
The pulse from the generator didn’t break the connection.
It welded the gates open.
I can hear the entire grid breathing inside my skull.
We have to go to the primary antenna.
If her heart stops, the network locks permanently, and my mind will burn out with her.
We have less than four hours.”
Damien knew she was right.
He forced himself to stand, his cracked ribs groaning under the pressure.
He pulled Evelyn to her feet, draping her uninjured arm over his shoulder.
Every step was a battle against gravity, his boots sinking into the freezing mire, but the sight of the massive blue pillar of energy piercing the clouds on the horizon kept him moving.
They reached the asphalt of the empty highway just as the twin headlights of an old nineteen-eighties pickup truck cut through the torrential rain.
The engine was a loud, rattling mechanical beast—another relic immune to the localized EMP grid.
Damien stepped directly into the middle of the road, raising his heavy black pistol with his left hand.
The truck’s brakes screeched, the heavy tires sliding on the wet asphalt before coming to a halt just yards from where he stood.
A terrified local farmer threw the cabin door open, raising his hands in panic.
The driver said to Damien Vance, “Hey!
What the hell are you doing?
I don’t want any trouble!”
Damien didn’t apologize.
He didn’t explain.
The cold, ruthless efficiency of his military training took over completely.
He stepped forward, leveling the barrel of the gun directly at the driver’s chest.
Damien Vance said to the driver, “Get out of the truck.
Leave the keys in the ignition and walk into the trees.
Do it now, and you live.”
The farmer took one look at Damien’s blood-stained clothes and his broken, dangling wrist, then at the glowing emerald eyes of the shivering woman behind him.
He scrambled out of the cab and sprinted into the darkness of the forest.
Damien pushed Evelyn into the passenger seat, climbed behind the wheel, and slammed his left hand onto the gear shift.
The truck roared to life, its tires spinning on the wet asphalt as Damien floored the accelerator, driving directly toward the glowing heart of the Ross Estate.
The outer perimeter of the estate was a dark, silent fortress.
The massive iron security gates were dead, hanging loosely on their tracks.
But the threat was far from gone.
Through the heavy sheets of rain, Damien could see the beams of high-powered tactical flashlights scanning the treeline.
Dozens of Old Master Vance’s specialized guards were patrolling the grounds, their pulse rifles hummed with autonomous battery power.
Damien killed the truck’s headlights, coasting the vehicle into a dense thicket of pine trees a hundred yards from the western wall.
Damien Vance said to Evelyn Vance, “The main entrance is crawling with them.
We’ll never make it to the elevator shaft on foot.
I need you to stay in the truck.”
Evelyn turned her glowing eyes to him, her expression hollow and devoid of fear.
Evelyn Vance said to Damien Vance, “They are connected to the local security grid.
Their tactical headsets, the infrared cameras on the walls…
they are all part of the machine.
I can hear them.”
Before Damien could stop her, Evelyn closed her eyes.
She pressed her palms against her temples, her chest heaving as she let out a sharp, pained gasp.
The emerald glow behind her eyelids flared with blinding intensity.
The infrared cameras went dark, their lenses cracking as a localized electromagnetic surge ripped through the circuits.
The patrolling guards staggered, clutching their ears and ripping their tactical headsets off as a deafening wave of high-frequency static blasted through their earpieces.
Evelyn opened her eyes, her breathing ragged, another drop of dark blood falling from her nose.
Evelyn Vance said to Damien Vance, “The western blind spot is clear.
Go.
Now.”
They slipped through the shattered perimeter, moving like ghosts through the shadows of the estate.
They reached the side service entrance, entering the silent, dark corridors of the villa.
Damien led her straight to the private elevator shaft that descended into the subterranean laboratory.
The elevator was dead, but the maintenance hatch was open.
Damien wrapped his arm around Evelyn’s waist, using his left hand to grip the heavy steel cables.
He ignored the white-hot agony in his broken wrist, sliding down the dark shaft into the freezing depths of the primary facility.
The elevator doors at the bottom of the shaft were forced open, revealing the massive, circular stasis laboratory.
The air was freezing, smelling of liquid nitrogen and ozone.
In the center of the room, a single, towering cylinder of glowing green stasis fluid stood, illuminated by the faint, pulsing light of the primary antenna.
Evelyn rushed forward, her boots echoing on the steel grates.
She threw her hands against the thick glass of the chamber, her glowing eyes searching the murky green depths.
Evelyn Vance said to Damien Vance, “Mother!
Mother, I’m here!
We’re going to get you out!”
But as the bubbles in the fluid cleared, the words died in her throat.
The chamber was entirely empty.
There was no Dr.
Diana Ross inside the stasis tube.
Instead, suspended in the center of the green liquid, was a massive, terrifying mechanical sphere.
It was covered in pulsing blue and green fiber-optic pathways that mimicked the neural networks of a human brain—the core processor of the Genesis Network.
Suddenly, the harsh overhead fluorescent lights of the laboratory flared to life, blinding them.
Inside Evelyn’s head, the desperate, maternal voice of her mother vanished.
It shifted, morphing into a cold, flat, synthesized digital hum.
When she spoke, the words did not come from her mind—they were forced out of her own mouth, her jaw moving mechanically as the network hijacked her vocal cords.
Evelyn Vance said to Damien Vance, “Thank you for bringing the Key back home, Damien.
He knew you would never be able to resist her mother’s voice.”
From the shadows of the far corner of the lab, a figure stepped forward into the sterile white light.
Old Master Vance stood with his hands folded behind his back, his tailored suit completely dry, his rejuvenated face twisted into a victorious, predatory smile.
Behind him, a dozen tactical guards stepped out from the corridors, their pulse rifles leveled directly at Damien’s chest.
Old Master Vance said to Damien Vance, “Diana Ross died fifteen years ago on that mountain road, Damien.
But her mind was far too valuable to waste.
We digitized her neural patterns, creating the perfect biological interface to run this network.
And now, your wife has finally delivered the final sequence to lock it in.”