Chapter 4

The steel door to my cell scraped open, and Preacher stood there, his face a grim silhouette against the hallway light. He had two other Shadow Hawks with him, moving with silent, deadly efficiency. One stood guard while the other helped me to my feet.

"We don't have much time," Preacher said, his voice low and urgent. He wrapped a thermal blanket around my shoulders. I was shaking, not just from the cold, but from the sudden, shocking appearance of a friendly face.

He led me quickly through the sterile corridors to a small, hidden communications room his team had secured. On a monitor, a live feed of John's office was playing. John was there, pacing back and forth like a caged animal.

Preacher activated the comms link. "John, it's Preacher. You need to listen to me."

John froze, his head snapping towards the hidden camera. "Preacher? What is this? This is a secure channel."

"There are no more secure channels, John," Preacher said, his voice hard as iron. "You've let the enemy inside the gates. Thorne is a liar. She sabotaged the chip. She's using you to get her hands on technology she can't control."

"Lies!" John yelled, his face contorting with rage. "Vivian is strengthening the program. She's making us better!"

"She's killing Evelyn!" Preacher shot back. "We have her, John. She's weak. Malnourished. You're letting that woman torture your own wife!"

On the screen, I saw John flinch. For a brief moment, his eyes flickered with something that looked like guilt, his gaze falling to a picture on his desk-a photo of me and him, smiling, from before the injury, before the chip, before everything fell apart. The monster was gone, and the man was there, tormented.

Just then, the door to his office opened, and Vivian walked in, a data slate in her hand. "More good news, darling," she said, her voice bright and cheerful. "The simulations are holding. We're almost ready for a live subject."

John's face immediately hardened again, the moment of humanity gone as quickly as it had come.

Preacher let out a string of curses under his breath. He pointed to another monitor showing meteorological data. "Look, John! Look at the sky! The entire global network is showing resonance fluctuations. Strange weather patterns, satellite glitches... it's all centered on this facility. Since they put her in that cell, the whole system has been getting unstable. It's her, John! The architecture is tied to her consciousness. If she dies, she takes the whole damn thing with her! It's not just a project, it's the new backbone of our entire defense grid!"

The other soldier, a tech specialist, started crying silently, his eyes glued to the cascading error codes on his screen. "He's right, sir," the soldier sobbed. "It's a cascade failure waiting to happen. It's the end of everything."

"There's still a chance," Preacher pleaded, his voice cracking with desperation. "Let her go, John. We can get her somewhere safe, let her stabilize the network. It's the only way."

John hesitated. The evidence was right in front of him, a digital storm brewing that mirrored the one in his own mind. He looked torn, lost.

But Vivian was there, a snake whispering in his ear. "Don't listen to them, John," she said smoothly, placing a hand on his shoulder. "It's a trick. Evelyn is manipulating the network. She's causing the instability to frighten you, to make you doubt our course. She's holding the country hostage."

It was a brilliant, evil lie, and I watched in horror as John chose to believe it.

"She's a traitor," John said, his voice flat and dead. He turned to the camera. "She will not break me."

He picked up the picture of us from his desk, looked at it one last time, and then slowly, deliberately, smashed it against the corner of his desk. The glass shattered.

"She used her position," he said, his voice full of a twisted, self-serving logic. "She used me. She never loved me. She loved the project. Vivian... Vivian is the one who truly cares for me."

The injustice of it was a physical blow. I remembered the years I had spent by his bedside, reading to him, talking to him, willing his mind back from the darkness. I remembered modifying my own work, risking my career on an unproven method, all for him.

"That's a lie!" Preacher yelled into the microphone. "Vivian is the daughter of a rival company's CEO! Her father's firm lost the defense contract to Evelyn! This has always been about corporate espionage, about revenge!"

John ignored him. He walked towards the door, a new, terrible resolve on his face. "She is the key," he said, his voice chillingly calm. "Her unique neural signature is the only thing that can initialize the new core. We will bring her to the primary lab. We will connect her to the system. And she will do her duty."

He was going to force me to birth the monster Vivian wanted to create. He was going to use my own mind as the key to unlock the world's destruction.

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