Chapter 19: The Breach of the Black Site
The heavy steel door of the interrogation room shuddered under a massive, crushing impact from the outside.
Bang! Bang!
"They're breaching the facility!" Agent Vance yelled, instinctively dropping into a tactical crouch despite having no weapon.
Alejandro didn't hesitate.
He lunged across the table, grabbed the heavy brass key Miller had just placed down, and swept his arm protectively around my waist, pulling me backward into the shadows of the corner.
"Miller! Who has clearance to override a federal holding facility?" Alejandro demanded, his voice sharp and commanding.
Assistant Attorney General Miller didn't look panicked.
He stood up slowly, pulling a small, encrypted override detonator from his briefcase with chilling calm.
"Not the Department of Justice," Miller said, his eyes fixing on the heavy steel door as the electronic keypad on the exterior began to spark and smoke under a high-voltage override charge.
"That is a Department of Defense black-ops extraction squad. The Pentagon didn't want to quarantine you, Captain... they wanted to secure the biological asset for themselves."
My blood ran cold.
"Betrayed by the government," I whispered, the bitter irony tasting like ash on my tongue.
"There is no safe house, is there? It was all a trap to get us into a controlled perimeter."
"Not a trap, Elena—a tactical necessity," Miller replied, his fingers hovering over the detonator button.
"The world outside is collapsing. If the syndicates don't get your baby, the military-industrial complex will. The only way to protect your child is to destroy the genetic baseline entirely."
Alejandro stared at Miller with sheer disbelief.
"Destroy it? What the hell are you talking about?"
"Project Genesis wasn't just a data file, Captain," Miller said, his voice dropping into a solemn, heavy whisper.
"It was coded directly into your wife’s DNA during the experimental trials twenty-five years ago when Dr. Julian Vance tried to protect her. To break the cycle... the carrier must undergo a synchronized genetic reset."
BOOM!
The interrogation room door blew completely off its hinges, crashing inward in a cloud of twisted steel and gray smoke.
Through the billowing fog stepped three operatives in advanced, matte-black military exoskeleton suits, their heavy assault rifles raised and locked directly onto us.
And stepping right behind them, flanked by two armed guards, was a man wearing the crisp uniform of a three-star Pentagon General.
"Captain Alejandro Ruiz," the General announced, his voice booming coldly through the ruined doorway.
"Step away from the asset. This is a direct order from the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
Alejandro didn't move an inch.
He stood like an immovable wall in front of me, his jaw set, his eyes burning with a dark, lethal fury.
"Go to hell, General," Alejandro snarled.
May you like
Before the General could raise his hand to give the order to fire, Miller slammed his thumb down hard onto the detonator button in his hand.
A blinding white flash filled the room, followed by a deafening subterranean roar that shook the very foundations of the earth beneath us.
