Chapter 9 - The Hostile Takeover
Armed with frequency scramblers and system override keys Marcus had spent years developing, they infiltrated the sub-basement of the Vance NeuroTech headquarters under the cover of a torrential midnight storm. The facility, supposedly decommissioned, was humming with industrial power generators.
They breached the central server vault—a cavernous, freezing chamber dominated by towering banks of black-glass server racks that glowed with an eerie sapphire luminescence.
In the center of the room sat two medical immersion chairs.
Sitting in the left chair was Chloe, connected to the mainframe via a dense umbilical of fiber-optic cables plugged directly into a surgical port behind her ear. When the vault doors slid open, her eyes snapped open, glowing faintly with reflected light.
Standing around the perimeter were three armed private security operatives, their rifles trained on the entrance. Before Marcus could raise his shotgun, a high-frequency acoustic weapon discharged from the ceiling grid, dropping him to his knees as blood gushed from his ears. Samantha was tackled to the freezing steel floor, her Faraday helmet ripped away.
"You're right on time, Samantha," Chloe’s voice rang out, but it was harmonized with a secondary, synthetic audio feed that echoed from the facility's overhead speakers. It was Arthur Vance.
Operatives dragged Samantha to the vacant chair, strapping her wrists and ankles into pneumatic restraints. A metallic headset lowered from the gantry above, its needle-fine electrodes aligning precisely with the laceration on her temple.
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"The transfer protocol is at eighty-two percent," Arthur’s digitized voice boomed through Chloe’s lips. "Your resistance was factored into the timeline, daughter. The biological brain fights hardest just before surrender. But when this night ends, Vance NeuroTech will have its architect back, clothed in flesh that will endure for another sixty years."
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