Chapter 35 - The Devil’s Choice
|
The room fell into a suffocating silence, broken only by the soft opera music playing in the background and the rain lashing against the glass dome.
"If I kill you, the world burns," Dad said, his finger resting lightly on the trigger of his gun. "If I let you live, you control my daughter for the rest of her life."
"Precisely," Gabriel smiled, walking toward us with total confidence. "You see, Marcus? You lost thirty years ago when you chose to be a father instead of a ruler. Love makes you weak. It makes you predictable."
"Love isn't a weakness, Gabriel," I spoke up, stepping directly between my father's gun and Gabriel Vance.
Gabriel stopped, frowning slightly at my sudden movement. "Step aside, child. Let your father make his choice."
"I don't need my father to make my choices for me," I said, pulling my tablet out and holding it up to face him.
The screen wasn't showing Vance Dynamics' security logs. It was showing a live schematic of Gabriel's own biometric chip.
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed, his confident smile wavering. "What is that?"
"Protocol Zero didn't just trace your location, Gabriel," I explained, a cold, triumphant smile spreading across my face. "It mapped your local hardware network. Including the Bluetooth relay connected to your medical pacemaker."
May you like
Gabriel’s hand flew to his chest, horror dawning in his eyes. "You... you couldn't have bypassed the military encryption on that chip!"
"Your encryption was designed thirty years ago," I said, taking a step toward him. "Lovely software... but hopelessly outdated compared to what I built while nursing my daughter this morning."
