Chapter 11 - The Room Beneath Queens
The office smelled of dust, damp concrete, and burned wires.
The orchids were fresh.
Matthew had placed them there recently.
Marcus ordered two officers to search the upper floor.
I followed him toward the basement.
My father remained outside with federal agents.
He hated the arrangement, but he finally understood that protecting me did not mean imprisoning me.
The basement door creaked open.
A single bulb illuminated the room.
The original NexusCore prototype sat on a workbench beneath a plastic sheet.
I remembered building it with Matthew during the first winter of our marriage.
We had slept on the office floor.
We ate instant noodles because we could not afford restaurants.
I believed those memories proved he had once loved me.
Now I understood that shared hardship did not transform possession into love.
Marcus scanned the room.
“No visible devices.”
I removed the plastic covering.
The server was connected to a battery pack.
Someone had accessed it recently.
A message waited on the monitor.
HELLO, CLARE.
The basement door slammed shut.
The light went out.
Gas hissed through the ventilation grate.
Marcus fired at the lock.
The reinforced door did not move.
I covered my mouth.
A timer appeared on the monitor.
Five minutes.
Matthew’s voice came through the speakers.
“You always needed to prove you were smarter than me.”
“Come inside and prove me wrong.”
He laughed.
“You still think this is about winning an argument.”
The gas smelled sweet.
Marcus began coughing.
I searched beneath the workbench.
Years earlier, the basement had flooded.
I installed a manual emergency vent because Matthew called the repairs too expensive.
He had forgotten.
I had not.
I crawled behind the server and found the rusted lever.
It refused to move.
Marcus helped pull.
The vent opened with a metallic scream.
Cold air rushed into the room.
The gas began clearing.
The timer continued counting.
It was not measuring the gas.
It was measuring the deletion of the server.
I connected a portable drive.
Files moved slowly.
Four minutes.
Three minutes.
The transfer stalled at sixty-eight percent.
A hidden program was corrupting the archive.
I recognized the code.
It used a recursive pattern I had designed in graduate school.
Matthew had copied my technique.
He had never understood the weakness inside it.
I entered a single command.
The deletion reversed.
The entire archive duplicated itself onto the federal evidence drive.
The basement door unlocked.
We carried the server outside.
My father embraced me before the agents secured it.
Then an explosion sounded from the street.
Our armored vehicle burst into flames.
A second vehicle accelerated toward us.
Marcus pushed me aside.
The car missed me by inches and crashed through the office entrance.
The driver’s door opened.
Lauren stumbled out.
Blood ran from her forehead.
“They have my daughter,” she gasped.
I stared at her.
“You said you did not have a child.”
“I lied.”
May you like
She collapsed at my feet.
“Victor has her.”
