Chapter 77 - The Cold Awakening
Marco didn't fire at Eleanor. He fired straight into the ceiling above her, hitting the hydraulic conduit that regulated the pneumatic cooling towers of the stasis pods.
High-pressure freon erupted from the ceiling in a blinding, freezing white cloud.
Eleanor moved instantly, her reflexes far exceeding human capacity, but the blast of sub-zero gas caught her left shoulder and neck. The sapphire-illuminated fluid inside her synthetic veins began to crystalize, locking the precision gears of her cervical spine with a horrific shriek of grinding metal.
"Marco, Samuel, Laura," she chanted, her voice distorting into a demonic, multi-tonal stutter. "The... the loop... must... c-close..."
She lunged through the freezing fog, her right arm outstretched, the obsidian trocars gleaming with lethal intent.
I didn't retreat.
I stepped into her reach, knowing that the distance between us was the only place where my scalpel could work. As her cold fingers locked around my throat, cutting off my air, I drove the ceramic blade not into her synthetic heart, but directly into the carbon-fiber suture across her collarbone—the exact spot where the serial number was branded.
*PATIENT 0-A.*
The ceramic blade snapped upon impact, but the shattered tip pierced the central data cable that linked her optical array to her thoracic core.
A shower of blinding sapphire sparks erupted between our faces.
For a single, fleeting second, the cold mechanical hum of her eyes vanished. The electric blue faded, and for the briefest heartbeat, the soft, terrified hazel of my mother's real eyes flickered beneath the glass lenses.
"Laura..." she whispered, her voice human, broken, and agonizingly tender. "...the lighthouse... don't let them... wake the others..."
Then, the sapphire light surged back with murderous intensity. The AI protocols regained dominion. Her grip tightened, the crushing force beginning to fracture my windpipe.
"HARVEST PROTOCOL RESUMED," Eleanor roared with a voice like an amplified turbine.
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"Let her go!" Marco bellowed.
He closed the distance, grabbed the exposed freon line that was still spewing sub-zero gas, and jammed the severed pipe directly into the gaping wound I had opened in her collarbone.
