Chapter 12 - The Brother Who Came Back
Julian should have been in a hospital bed.
Instead, his voice travelled through the ship’s speakers.
“Release Clarissa,” he said.
Arthur looked toward the ceiling.
“You always were desperate for attention.”
“I learned from you.”
“How did you get aboard?”
“Your crew still thinks I’m chief operating officer.”
Arthur walked to the control console and searched the internal cameras.
Julian appeared on a feed near the engine-control room.
He wore hospital trousers beneath a borrowed jacket. One crutch supported him. His injured leg was wrapped in a brace.
“You can barely stand,” Arthur said.
“I only need to stand long enough.”
Julian held up a small device.
The corporate executive override key.
“I can shut down the transmission array.”
“You don’t have the encryption code.”
“Grandpa did.”
Arthur’s face changed.
Julian entered a sequence.
The five-minute countdown stopped at 3:42.
Then restarted.
3:41.
3:40.
“Wrong code,” Arthur said.
Julian smiled weakly.
“That’s because I wasn’t trying to stop the upload.”
A new message appeared on the screen.
TRANSMISSION ROUTE REDIRECTED.
Arthur moved toward the console.
Julian had redirected the archive away from public release and into a secured Department of Justice evidence server.
Every blackmail file.
Every hidden payment.
Every secret Arthur possessed.
He had just lost his leverage.
Arthur fired at the camera.
The image vanished.
“You ruined everything!” he shouted.
“No,” I said. “He ended it.”
Arthur turned the gun toward me.
The control-room door remained sealed.
The Navy team was less than two minutes away, but Arthur knew the ship better than they did.
He pressed the barrel beneath my chin.
“Tell them to withdraw.”
“No.”
“I will kill you.”
“You’ve been killing pieces of this family for years.”
His hand shook.
“You think you’re brave because men salute you?”
“No. I’m brave because I stopped needing you to.”
Something broke in his expression.
He struck me with the pistol.
Pain exploded across my cheek.
I fell against the console.
Arthur turned to the microphone.
“Julian, open the lower engine hatch or I shoot her.”
The speaker remained silent.
“Do you hear me?”
Julian’s voice returned.
“Yes.”
“Open it.”
“That hatch floods the auxiliary corridor.”
“It creates an escape route.”
“It could sink the ship.”
“Do it.”
Julian hesitated.
The pattern had returned.
Arthur demanding that one child sacrifice others to protect him.
“Julian,” I said, “don’t.”
Arthur pressed the gun against my head.
“Open the hatch.”
“No,” Julian replied.
Arthur stared at the speaker.
“What did you say?”
“I said no.”
“You owe me everything.”
“You gave me a job so you could control me. You hid my addiction so you could own me. You lied about Clarissa so I wouldn’t realise she escaped.”
“I protected you.”
“You preserved me like evidence.”
Arthur raised the gun toward the speaker as though he could shoot Julian through the wall.
I moved.
I caught his wrist, drove it upward, and the weapon fired into the ceiling.
Arthur struck my injured cheek with his elbow.
I lost my grip.
He shoved me onto the floor and aimed again.
Before he could fire, the ventilation panel behind him burst outward.
Naomi Keller dropped into the control room.
She carried no gun.
Only a heavy wrench.
She swung it into Arthur’s forearm.
The pistol fell.
I kicked it beneath the console.
Arthur tackled Naomi.
They crashed against the server rack.
“You killed Daniel!” she screamed.
“Marcus sealed the hatch!”
“You erased him!”
Arthur wrapped both hands around her throat.
I pulled him backward.
He struck me, but Naomi drove her knee into his stomach.
The sealed door shook as the Navy team began cutting through it.
Arthur reached for the transmission console.
The upload had reached eighty-six percent.
He pulled a manual destruction lever.
Red lights flashed across the servers.
“Thermal purge initiated,” the system announced.
“He’s going to burn the archive,” Naomi said.
The server room temperature began climbing.
Smoke drifted from the upper vents.
Arthur ran toward a secondary escape hatch.
I followed.
He opened it and disappeared into the lower corridor.
Naomi remained at the console, trying to preserve the upload.
I chased my father through the ship.
The passage narrowed toward the old testing compartment.
The same type of lower chamber where Daniel Keller had died.
Arthur reached the final hatch.
Beyond it, a maintenance boat waited outside the hull.
Julian stood in front of the release controls.
His face was pale with pain.
“Move,” Arthur ordered.
“No.”
“Julian.”
“For once, say you’re sorry.”
Arthur stared at him.
Water pounded against the outer hull.
The ship rolled heavily.
“Move.”
“Tell Clarissa you delayed the rescue.”
Arthur raised his hand.
Julian did not flinch.
“Tell Mom you used her.”
“Do not call Victoria your mother in front of me.”
“She raised me.”
“I gave you my name.”
“And made me ashamed of it.”
Arthur grabbed Julian’s injured leg and twisted.
My brother screamed and collapsed.
Arthur reached for the hatch controls.
I threw myself into him.
We struck the wall.
The outer hatch warning began flashing.
Arthur had partially released the seal.
Water sprayed through the edges.
The lower corridor started flooding.
Arthur tried to climb toward the escape boat.
Julian caught his coat.
For one second, my brother could have released him.
Arthur might have escaped.
Or drowned.
Instead, Julian pulled our father back inside.
“I’m not becoming you,” he said.
The Navy boarding team reached us moments later.
Arthur was handcuffed on the flooding floor.
He looked at me as agents dragged him away.
“You think this ends with me?” he said.
I believed it was one final threat.
Then Naomi’s voice came through the radio.
Only ninety-two percent of the archive had uploaded.
The missing eight percent contained a private program called Nightingale.
According to the index, Nightingale involved experimental medical evacuation systems.
The authorised clinical officer was listed as:
Colonel Clarissa Vance.
May you like
I had never heard of the program.
Yet the files contained my digital signature.
