Chapter 7 - The Scarred Hand
The low-frequency hum of the Daedalus Cylinder escalated into a high-pitched mechanical scream. The glass displays around the library began to shatter, raining crystal shards onto the stone floor. Red emergency lights bathed the room in a bloody, flashing glow.
"Stop the broadcast, Viktor!" I yelled, stepping toward him.
"It cannot be stopped, Leo," Viktor yelled back over the deafening noise, holding the pocket watch tightly. "The sequence is locked! This is justice!"
"Justice?" I screamed. "My grandmother is in this building! Lily is in this building!"
Viktor’s face twitched. For a second, the fanaticism cracked, revealing the desperate, broken man underneath. "They are in the reinforced bunker. They will survive the blast."
"You're lying!" Elias shouted from the iron cage, coughing as thick, acrid smoke began to vent from the floor grates. "The geothermal reactor is directly beneath the medical wing! If it overloads, the bunker will be the first thing vaporized!"
Viktor’s eyes widened in horror. He looked down at the pocket watch, his thumb hovering over the dial. The certainty that had anchored him was rapidly unraveling.
"He's trying to manipulate you, Viktor," I said, my voice cutting through the panic. "But you know he's right. You built this fortress. You know where the reactor is."
Viktor looked at his scarred hand holding the watch. The scar was jagged and deep—an old burn mark.
"How did you get that scar, Viktor?" I asked, stepping closer.
He swallowed hard, tears finally welling in his cold eyes. "I got it pulling Elara from the fire when Elias's father burned our workshop in Dresden. I swore I would never let her be hurt again."
"Then turn it off!" I demanded, holding out my hand. "Give me the watch. Let me use the Cylinder to broadcast the ledger, but bypass the reactor overload. My grandmother taught me the rhythms. I can stop the explosion."
Viktor hesitated, the weight of a lifetime of vengeance warring against the love for his mentor and his child.
Slowly, his scarred hand opened. He extended the pocket watch toward me.
Before my fingers could brush the cold silver, a gunshot rang out.
The sound was deafening in the enclosed space. Viktor gasped, a bloom of dark red spreading across the shoulder of his white wool coat. He stumbled backward, dropping the pocket watch, and collapsed against the steel table.
I spun around.
Standing on the other side of the library, holding a smoking, suppressed pistol, was Lily.
No, not Lily.
It was a woman in her late thirties, dressed in identical white winter camouflage, her face hard and merciless. It was Sarah, the captain of Viktor's guard. And in her other hand, she held the little girl by the scruff of her neck.
"Enough of this sentimentality," Sarah snarled, tossing Lily roughly to the floor. The little girl scrambled away, sobbing, clutching her clockwork bird. "Viktor has gone soft. I've spent ten years freezing on this mountain waiting for the payoff."
She stepped into the red emergency light, aiming the pistol squarely at my chest.
"Pick up the book, Leo," Sarah commanded. "The Black Ledger."
"You're working for Elias?" I asked, my mind reeling.
"Elias?" Sarah laughed harshly. "Elias is a dead man in a cage. I'm working for myself. That ledger is worth billions in blackmail alone. I'm taking the book, and I'm letting this mountain turn to ash with all of you inside it."
Viktor groaned, pressing his good hand against his bleeding shoulder. "Sarah... you're a fool. The blast doors are sealed. You can't get out."
"I have the override codes," Sarah smiled, pulling a remote from her vest. She pointed the gun at my head. "The book, janitor. Now."
I looked at the Black Ledger resting inside the glowing Daedalus Cylinder. I looked at Elias, trapped and terrified. I looked at Viktor, bleeding on the floor. And I looked at little Lily, crying in the corner, clutching the brass bird my grandmother made.
My grandmother. The woman who gave up everything so I could live.
I reached into the Cylinder and picked up the heavy leather book.
May you like
"Good boy," Sarah sneered, holding out her hand.
I didn't hand it to her. I gripped the spine with both hands, looked her dead in the eye, and threw the Black Ledger directly into the roaring flames of the library’s massive fireplace.
