Chapter 46 - Venting the Core
I didn't think. The nurse in me, the survivor in me, the daughter of Arthur Vance took over every survival instinct in my body.
I didn't run toward the mezzanine stairs. I splashed through the freezing, churning water directly toward Marco.
*"You cannot sever what was bound before your birth, child,"* the creature that wore Samuel Bellini’s face hissed, turning its blind, milk-white gaze toward me. Its mechanical spine whirred, stepping between me and Marco. *"Arthur stole my design. He put the master key into your breast to keep it from me. But the code always returns to the ledger."*
"My father didn't steal your design, Samuel," I breathed, standing chest-deep in the freezing surge, my hands dipping beneath the surface of the water where the high-voltage lines lay severed. "He hid it because he realized what you were: a parasite."
Behind Samuel, Silas appeared on the gantry above.
"Catch, Laura!" Silas roared.
A heavy copper grounding rod, torn from the emergency lightning arrestor on the wall, came tumbling down through the air.
I caught it by the rubberized grip.
Samuel turned, his artificial sternum flashing an angry crimson as he realized the danger. He lunged toward me, his skeletal fingers reaching for the junction point at my collarbone to forcefully restart the neural siphon.
I didn't try to dodge.
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Instead, I dropped to my knees into the icy water, letting his metal-reinforced claws scrape across my shoulder, tearing through skin and fabric. As his body passed over me, I drove the copper rod directly into the exposed, spinning mechanical core in his open synthetic sternum.
And I shoved the other end of the rod into the severed main power terminal beneath the flooded water.
