Chapter 13 - The Self-Destruct Protocol
The red emergency strobes painted the server corridor in a frantic, bloody pulse as the automated klaxons wailed overhead. Marcus Thorne spat a mouthful of blood onto the metal grating, letting out a harsh, rasping laugh that echoed above the alarm.
"You're too late!" Marcus wheezed, glaring up at Julian and Miller through bruised eyelids. "Arthur programmed the self-destruct charges the moment the data feed was interrupted. This entire rig goes up in five minutes, taking every shred of evidence, every server, and every single one of us down to the bottom of the Atlantic!"
Miller didn't hesitate. He brought the heavy butt of his carbine down hard on Marcus's shoulder, instantly rendering the COO unconscious with a dull thud. He looked up at Julian, his face grim and sweat-streaked. "He’s not bluffing. Arthur knows he's cornered. If he can't control Vance Global, nobody can."
"Elena and the boys," Julian gasped, the blood draining completely from his face. "They’re still in the lower holding bay near the drydock!"
"The holding bay elevators are dead on this lockdown level," Miller said, checking the digital readout on his tactical vest. "We have to use the emergency gantry stairs. Move, Vance! Now!"
Julian sprinted down the corridor, his boots pounding against the steel grating as he followed Miller toward the central stairwell shaft. The air was growing hotter already, the distant rumble of the rig's reactor core beginning to vibrate through the structural beams.
They burst through the heavy fire doors leading into the lower holding bay just as a plume of thick white steam hissed from a ruptured coolant pipe nearby. The area was deserted—the tactical guards had clearly abandoned their posts to evacuate toward the upper helipad.
"Elena!" Julian roared over the screaming klaxons, throwing open the door to the holding cell.
The room was empty. The twin strollers sat abandoned in the center of the concrete floor, neatly folded, with the white handbag resting on top of the cushion. But Elena and the babies were nowhere to be seen.
Julian rushed forward, grabbing the white handbag and unzipping it with frantic fingers. Inside wasn't money or makeup, but a small, hand-drawn map of the rig’s underwater maintenance docks, with a single circled note written in Elena’s handwriting: The escape sub is fueled. Meet us at Dock C.
"Dock C is on the sub-level below the drydock!" Miller shouted, joining Julian by the open doorway. "If Arthur took them down to the submarines, we have to cut through the active torpedo bay!"
Before they could take another step toward the secondary stairwell, the floor beneath them lurched violently with a sickening metallic screech, and a wall of thick, oily black water burst through the rusted bulkhead to their left, cutting off their path to the escape tunnel.
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Julian watched in horror as the rising tide swept across the concrete floor, swallowing the twin strollers whole in a swirling vortex of dark brine.
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