Chapter 2 - Shadows in the Marble
Before Harrison could demand an explanation, the heavy double-glass doors of the restaurant shattered inward in a rain of dangerous shards.
Three men dressed in dark, tactical body armor marched into the establishment. They wore high-tech neural-suppression helmets and carried silenced submachine guns. The dinner guests screamed, scattering in terror, knocking over marble tables and expensive crystal.
"Target identified," the lead operative growled through a vocoder. "Secure the biological anomaly. Terminate all witnesses."
"Harrison, get down!" shouted Julian Vance, Harrison’s younger brother and business partner, who had been sitting across the table. Julian grabbed Harrison's wheelchair, trying to pull him toward the kitchen exit.
"They're not here for my money," Harrison realized with a wave of ice in his stomach. "They're here for the boy!"
Kael didn't run. He stood his ground in the center of the chaotic dining room. As the lead operative raised his rifle toward Kael, the boy dropped to one knee and slammed his bare palm flat against the polished marble floor.
A localized bio-electric pulse rippled out from Kael’s palm through the metal foundation wires beneath the floorboards. The restaurant's massive crystal chandeliers violently flickered, then burst in a shower of sparks, plunging the entire room into darkness.
"Thermal vision on!" the operative barked.
"He's not a heat signature!" another operative shouted in panic. "The boy's bio-rhythm is masking itself!"
In the dark, Kael moved like a ghost. He slipped under the falling tablecloths, grabbing Harrison's left hand before Julian could tow him away.
"If you want to walk, Mr. Vance, you come with me," Kael said in the dark.
"I can't run, you fool!" Harrison yelled.
Kael didn't argue. He placed his hand on the battery compartment beneath Harrison's motorized wheelchair. A bright blue spark arced from Kael’s fingers into the chair's motor. The wheelchair shot forward at forty miles per hour, smashing through the kitchen doors like a battering ram, carrying Harrison with it.
"Julian! Stay behind me!" Harrison screamed as the motorized chair zoomed down the grease-slick kitchen hallway, chef staff diving out of the way.
Julian sprinted after them, his face pale with horror. "Harrison! That kid is a monster! He's drawing fire toward us!"
They burst out the back exit into the rain-slick alleyway. The cold night air hit Harrison's face like a physical slap. Kael was already waiting by an open storm-drain grate at the end of the alley.
"In here!" Kael called out.
"In the sewer?" Julian sneered, catching up, his tailored suit ruined by grease and rain. "My brother is a billionaire! We have security teams five minutes away!"
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"Your security teams work for the men in the helmets, Mr. Vance," Kael said, looking directly at Julian. "Ask your brother who bought the stocks in his medical company twenty minutes before his car crashed seven years ago."
Harrison froze, his breath catching in his throat. He turned his head slowly toward Julian. "Julian... you were the only one who had the key to my race car that morning."
