Part 2 By three that afternoon, while death waited inside my mansion, a penniless woman stood outside my gates refusing to leave5 005

The rhythmic, ground-shaking thud of an industrial excavator clawing at the rubble vibrated through the floorboards, traveling up my spine like an electric shock. Dust rained down from the ceiling in a constant, gray drizzle.

"They've brought in heavy machinery," I said, getting to my feet, my muscles screaming in protest from exhaustion. "They’re clearing the collapse. How long before they breach the wall?"

Dr. Sethi frantically checked the remaining power reserves on the backup generator. "An hour, maybe less. The structural integrity of this partition is already compromised. Once they clear the heavy girders, they can punch through the brick with a hydraulic ram."

Clara stood by Blythe’s cot. While Jonah’s fever had broken, Blythe was still trapped in the vicious throes of the cellular rewrite. Her temperature was hovering dangerously at 104, her small chest rising and falling in rapid, shallow jerks.

"We can't move them," Clara said, her voice laced with panic. "Even if there was a way out, disconnecting Blythe from the monitors now would kill her. She’s not stable."

"We aren't moving," I stated, walking over to the scattered remains of the tactical gear from the explosion. The force of the blast had blown one of the Vanguard fixers' assault rifles through the shattered plexiglass of the airlock, landing it near the decontamination showers.

I picked up the weapon. It was a customized M4 carbine, heavy and cold. I popped the magazine, checking the rounds. Full. I chambered a round with a sharp, metallic clack that echoed in the red-lit room.

I had never fired a weapon at a human being in my life. I was a man of boardrooms and hostile takeovers, not gunfights. But looking at my children, lying defenseless in the dark, a primal, violent instinct overrode every civilized nerve in my body.

"Lawson, you can't fight an entire tactical squad," Clara said, stepping toward me. "They will slaughter you."

"They are going to slaughter us anyway, Clara!" I snapped, my eyes locking onto hers. "Vanguard cannot afford to leave survivors. If they breach that wall, they will put a bullet in your head, Sethi's head, and then they will smother my children with pillows to make it look like they succumbed to their illness. I am not going to sit here and wait to die."

Sethi walked over to a heavy steel cabinet in the corner of the room, pulling a set of keys from her pocket. "If you are going to make a stand, Mr. Mercer, you should know that Vanguard's fixers are wearing Level IV ceramic body armor. Your rifle rounds will not penetrate center mass. You have to aim for the joints, the neck, or the face."

She opened the cabinet. Inside, stacked in neat, terrifying rows, were dozens of heavy glass vials filled with a clear liquid, and small, remote detonators.

"What is that?" I asked, staring at the cache.

"When Vanguard seized my lab fourteen months ago, I knew they would eventually track me down," Sethi said, her voice eerily calm. "I am a chemist, Mr. Mercer. This is liquid thermite, rigged with a highly unstable chemical catalyst. I wired the outer support columns of this room with charges. If they breach, I can drop the ceiling on top of them."

"You'll drop the ceiling on us too!" Clara cried out in horror.

"Only the front half of the room," Sethi corrected. "The structural supports above the cots are independent. It will create a barrier. It might buy us the time we need for Blythe's fever to break."

The excavator outside roared, its massive hydraulic arm smashing into the rubble with terrifying force. The brick wall separating us from the hallway bulged inward, a spiderweb of cracks appearing in the masonry.

"They're through the main debris," I yelled over the noise. "Get behind the cots! Keep your heads down!"

I took cover behind the heavy steel surgical table in the center of the room, resting the barrel of the M4 over the edge. I leveled the sights directly at the bulging center of the brick wall.

"Seventy hours," Clara whispered from the floor, clutching Blythe’s limp hand. "Just two more hours, baby. Please."

A deafening CRACK split the air.

The center of the brick wall exploded inward. Dust and masonry blasted into the room like shrapnel. The emergency red lights flickered wildly. Through the gaping hole in the wall, the blinding white beams of heavy tactical flashlights pierced the gloom, cutting through the thick dust.

"Breach successful! Target room is open!" a harsh voice barked through a radio outside.

"Execute sanitize protocol. No survivors," came the chilling, clinical reply.

Two men in heavy black armor stepped through the breach, their rifles raised, sweeping the room.

I didn't hesitate. I didn't think. I pulled the trigger.

The M4 roared in my hands, the recoil brutal and jarring. I aimed high, as Sethi had instructed. The first burst of rounds caught the lead tactical officer in the throat, just below the edge of his Kevlar helmet. He went down instantly, blood spraying across the rubble.

The second officer pivoted, firing blindly into the room. Bullets sparked and ricocheted off the steel surgical table, deafening me, showering me with sparks. I ducked down, my ears ringing violently.

"Sethi! Do it!" I screamed over the gunfire.

From the corner of the room, Sethi pressed the detonator.

The thermite charges wired to the front support columns ignited with a blinding, terrifying flash of pure white heat. The steel girders holding the front half of the ceiling instantly melted.

With a roar like a dying beast, the entire front half of the ceiling collapsed. Tons of concrete and steel slammed down onto the breach point, crushing the second tactical officer and completely sealing the hole the excavator had created.

A massive plume of dust choked the room. I coughed violently, blindly reaching out to find the table.

Silence descended again, broken only by the hum of the backup generator.

"Is everyone alright?" I gasped, trying to clear the dust from my eyes.

"We're alive," Clara coughed from the back of the room.

Suddenly, Blythe’s monitor emitted a long, sustained, terrifying tone.