Chapter 12
The holographic projection flickered out of existence, leaving a faint smell of ozone in the air between Julian and Jennifer. Julian turned on his heel, his calm demeanor entirely shattered, replaced by the frantic energy of a man watching his empire unravel from the inside out.
"Stay here with Leo," Julian commanded, his voice tight as he began jogging toward the central transit tube at the edge of the garden.
"No," Jennifer said, running after him. "If the federal committee has the secondary ledger, they know about the distribution network. They know that Aegis-1 isn't just a private sanctuary—it's connected to every major power grid on Earth."
Julian stopped at the entrance of the translucent capsule elevator, grabbing Jennifer by the shoulders. "Listen to me, Jennifer. If they trace the data packets back to the core processor, they won't just shut down the station. They'll trigger the atmospheric venting sequence. Everyone in this dome—including Leo—will suffocate within ten minutes."
Jennifer stared into Julian’s eyes, seeing the raw terror hidden beneath his cold exterior. All the anger, betrayal, and resentment evaporated, replaced by the fierce, primal instinct shared by two parents protecting their child.
"Then let me at the terminal," Jennifer said firmly. "You built the engine, Julian, but I wrote the encryption algorithms. You locked yourself out of the master firewall two years ago when you stopped trusting your own code."
Julian hesitated for a fraction of a second before nodding sharply. He punched the security code into the transit pad, and the capsule door slid open with a hiss. They stepped inside together, the glass chamber launching upward into the dark, humming core of the station with terrifying speed.
Within seconds, they arrived at the central command deck—a massive, circular room suspended in the zero-gravity center of Aegis-1. Hundreds of holographic displays floated in mid-air, casting a flickering, blood-red glow across the metallic floor. At the center console, the man with the scarred eyebrow was frantically typing commands into a glowing keyboard, his forehead beaded with sweat.
"We're losing the primary firewall," the man barked without looking up. "The DOJ strike team on Earth has uploaded a parasitic worm directly into our power routing protocol. They're draining the station's solar batteries to flood the lower-city water grids."
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Jennifer pushed past him, dropping into the pilot chair before the master console. Her fingers flew across the holographic keys with lightning speed, her eyes scanning lines of cascading binary code that scrolled past at blinding rates.
"They aren't draining the batteries," Jennifer said, her voice eerily calm as she isolated the incoming data stream. "They're transferring the four hundred and fifty-five billion dollars back to the global treasury."
