Chapter 17 - The Crown Goes Dark
Level eight was colder than the floors above.
The physical backbone ran through a chamber filled with fiber trunks and power systems.
Celeste pointed toward three manual isolation switches.
“They must be pulled simultaneously.”
Dad took the first.
Celeste took the second.
I took the third.
Torres’s voice came through my earpiece.
“Jonathan is moving toward you.”
“How long?”
“Two minutes.”
I looked at Dad.
“If we do this, what happens to Vale Dominion?”
He understood.
“The Crown Archive will remain separate.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Dad stared at me.
I continued.
“After this.”
“What happens to Vale Dominion?”
He looked toward the cables.
Then at me.
“That should be your decision.”
“No.”
“Yours.”
Dad seemed surprised.
I took a breath.
“You built it.”
“You decide whether you’re willing to make it accountable.”
His eyes lowered.
For years, Elias Vale had believed secrecy protected justice.
Perhaps sometimes it had.
But secrecy had also protected him.
“I’ll open the relevant archives to independent investigators.”
He said.
“All of them?”
“Everything involving crimes.”
“Including October 17?”
His jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
I nodded.
“Then we pull.”
Jonathan reached the chamber entrance.
“Stop.”
He held a pistol.
Blood marked one sleeve.
Celeste turned.
“You killed him.”
“He was already dying.”
“You killed him.”
Jonathan smiled.
“You should thank me.”
Celeste lunged.
The gun fired.
She fell.
I screamed.
Dad tackled Jonathan.
They crashed into a console.
I ran to Celeste.
The bullet had struck her shoulder.
She was conscious.
“Pull it.”
She gasped.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Claire.”
She grabbed my wrist.
“For once in my life, let something end correctly.”
Jonathan shoved Dad away.
He raised the gun toward me.
Agent Torres appeared in the doorway.
“Drop it!”
Jonathan fired.
Torres fired back.
Jonathan spun and fell.
His weapon slid across the floor.
Silence.
Torres kicked it away.
“Clear.”
Dad returned to his switch.
Celeste struggled upright beside hers.
I gripped mine.
“Three.”
I said.
“Two.”
“One.”
We pulled.
The building seemed to inhale.
Then every server light went dark.
One row after another.
One floor after another.
Meridian disappeared.
Monitors went black.
Network connections died.
Jonathan’s entire plan vanished into silence.
Dad stared at the dark systems.
Celeste began laughing through her pain.
“What?”
I asked.
“My father spent eighteen years rebuilding this.”
“And you destroyed it in eight seconds.”
“No.”
I said.
“We stopped it.”
There was a difference.
Above us, federal agents secured the facility.
Victor Sloane was pronounced dead.
Jonathan Mercer survived.
Barely.
Celeste was taken into surgery under federal guard.
The Meridian Circle was finished.
But the consequences were just beginning.
May you like
Because three days later, my father walked into a federal prosecutor’s office carrying the Crown Archive.
And voluntarily confessed to everything he had hidden since 2003.
