Chapter 12 - The Bleeding Horizon
“Julian!” Arthur screamed, dropping to his knees and gathering the small, convulsing boy into his arms.
Julian’s cream-colored romper was stained with a spreading circle of dark crimson from his nose, his little body trembling violently as another high-pitched acoustic wave rippled outward from his chest, shattering every remaining glass panel on the rooftop penthouse structure.
Clara crawled across the freezing concrete, sobbing hysterically as she grabbed Julian’s tiny, ice-cold hand.
“We have to disconnect the municipal grid trunk line!” Clara screamed over the deafening whine of the overloaded transformers echoing from the streets below. “There’s a manual circuit breaker vault in the sub-basement beneath the parking lot! It’s the only way to kill the power before the downtown transformers blow!”
Alistair Vance laughed, coughing up dark blood as he slid down the metal casing of the dead satellite dish, his body failing rapidly as his neural connection severed.
“You... you can't reach the sub-basement in time,” Alistair wheezed, his blue eyes dimming as his chest stopped rising and falling with regular rhythm. “The automated lockdown... sealed every elevator shaft... and the surface streets are already gridlocked with police barricades.”
Arthur stood up, hoisting unconscious Julian securely into his arms while glaring down at his dying father with absolute contempt.
“I didn't survive thirty years of your corporate games to die in a parking lot,” Arthur said coldly.
He turned to Elena, who was frantically scanning the rooftop perimeter with wild, desperate eyes.
“Elena, take Julian and get to the maintenance stairwell exit,” Arthur commanded, his voice brooking no argument. “Find the emergency medical kit in the freight elevator and keep his core temperature stable.”
“Arthur, what are you going to do?” Elena cried out, grabbing the sleeve of his dark tailored suit. “You can't disconnect the municipal grid by yourself! The voltage in the primary vault will instantly vaporize anything organic!”
“I’m not going to disconnect it with my hands,” Arthur replied, his eyes hardening as he looked across the helipad toward the hovering black SUV parked three stories below on the open-air courtyard deck. “I’m going to drive the SUV directly through the transformer wall.”
Before Elena could argue, Arthur turned and sprinted toward the freight elevator shaft, smashing through the emergency service door and leaping down the spiral staircase three steps at a time with Julian safely cradled against his chest.
By the time he reached the ground-level courtyard, the municipal sirens were wailing across the city, and the sky had turned a sickly, glowing shade of radioactive green. Arthur wrenched open the driver’s door of the black SUV, tossed Julian safely onto the passenger seat, and slid behind the steering wheel just as the dashboard computer lit up with a flashing red countdown: 00:45 SECONDS TO SYSTEM DETONATION.
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Arthur slammed the gearshift into drive, revved the engine until the tires screamed against the pavement, and aimed the heavy vehicle directly at the reinforced concrete substation wall marked MAIN GRID POWER JUNCTION.
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