Chapter 22 - The Ghost of the ShipyardThe abandoned Boeing dry docks along the industrial edge of Duwamish Waterway looked like skeletal remains rising out of the black, oil-slicked tide. Salt spray mixed with the acrid scent of rusted iron and decaying timber.
Gideon’s armored sedan idled in the shadows of a towering crane, its headlights killed. Inside, Sienna sat in the passenger seat, her fingers flying across a mobile satellite terminal while her face was illuminated by the harsh blue light of decryption software.
"The signal from the obsidian box was a localized proxy ping," Sienna reported, her voice laced with sharp urgency. "It’s coming from inside the derelict administration building at Pier 42. But Gideon, the power grid to that entire sector has been offline for six years. If someone’s in there, they’re running on independent military-grade generators."
"They wanted us to find it," Gideon said, stepping out of the car into the biting wind. He adjusted his dark wool coat, his Sig Sauer pistol locked and loaded at his hip. "They want the girls. They think because they turned nineteen, the biological lock on Marcus Vance’s secondary vault is ripe for harvesting."
"We’re not staying in the car," Ren’s voice cut sharply through the heavy interior air.
Gideon turned to see both Ren and Nova stepping out onto the wet asphalt behind him. They weren't hiding behind his coat anymore. Nova wore a tactical utility jacket over her sweater, and Ren carried a ruggedized quantum-encryption deck slung across her chest like a bandolier.
"Ren, absolutely not," Gideon said, his protective instincts flaring with the force of a tidal wave. "This is a trap. I go in, I extract the threat, you stay here with Sienna."
"The obsidian box was encrypted with a dual-strand genetic signature," Nova said, her eyes flashing with a fierce, independent fire that reminded Gideon painfully of their shared history. "If we aren't within fifty meters when the local proxy fires its handshake protocol, it triggers a dead-man wipe on the after-school network we built. They didn't just target us, Gideon—they targeted everything we've built for the kids."
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Gideon stared at them for three agonizing seconds. He saw the reflection of his own stubbornness, his own refusal to surrender, burning in their eyes. He gave a sharp, definitive nod.
"Stay behind me. Every second. No exceptions."
