Chapter 4 - The Underground Ward
Harrison didn't hesitate. He pulled Julian’s encrypted smartphone from his brother's unconscious body, bypassed the security lock using his master executive code, and dialed his private driver, Marcus—the only man in his personal detail he knew he could still trust.
Ten minutes later, an unmarked, bulletproof black van pulled into the dark alley. Marcus helped Harrison and Kael inside, tossing Julian into the rear cargo hold under heavy zip-ties.
"Where to, Mr. Vance?" Marcus asked, staring wide-eyed at the bloodied street child sitting on the leather seat next to his billionaire boss.
"Follow the boy's directions," Harrison ordered.
They drove deep into the industrial slums of the city, past abandoned factories and toxic runoff canals. Kael guided them to an overgrown, abandoned subway station that had been sealed off by the city council twenty years ago.
Inside the damp, vaulted concrete subterranean tunnels, lit only by crude battery-powered lanterns, lay a hidden sanctuary.
Harrison gasped as Marcus wheeled him down the rusty access ramp. Scattered across makeshift cots were dozens of young children, ranging from infants to teenagers. None of them were moving their limbs. Their skin had a strange, greyish, calcified hue—the exact same biological paralysis that Dr. Thorne’s experimental bio-dampeners had inflicted on Clara and the Lower District years prior.
"This is the Vault," Kael whispered, walking among the cots. A small girl with hollow eyes reached up her stiff, grey arm, touching Kael's ragged hoodie. "I bring them food when I can. But the grey rot is eating their lungs now."
"What is this disease?" Harrison asked, horrified.
"It's not a disease, Mr. Vance," Kael said, kneeling beside the small girl and gently warming her cold fingers with his touch. "It's a chemical byproduct. Your brother's company, Vance Bio-Tech, tested an experimental nerve-blocking weapon down here five years ago. They dumped the waste into the city water grid."
Harrison felt as though his chest were being crushed by an anvil. All his wealth, his luxury cars, his high-rise penthouses—they were built on the silent, agonizing torture of forgotten children underground.
"Julian..." Harrison whispered, turning his head toward the back of the room where Marcus was watching the prisoner. "You built our fortune on a graveyard."
Kael looked at Harrison with his fierce, dark eyes. "I don't care about your company, Mr. Vance. I don't care about your politics. I need a million dollars because Dr. Thorne’s lab has the counter-agent serum stored in their central vault downtown. They sell it on the black market for twenty-five thousand a vial."
May you like
Harrison looked from the dying girl on the cot up to the boy who had given him ten seconds of hope.
"A million dollars isn't enough," Harrison declared, his voice ringing through the damp tunnel with absolute authority. "We are going to take the entire lab."
