Chapter 8 - The Antidote Protocol"Can you isolate the wipe?" Rafael asked, leaning in close, his hand resting firmly on the back of my chair.
"The code is cascading too fast," I said, sweat beading on my forehead as I watched the deletion progress bar tick upward: 42%... 43%... "If I try to firewall the main server, the encryption will lock me out permanently. I need a physical terminal with direct hardware-level access to the primary relay station."
"Where is the relay?" Vincenzo demanded.
I checked the server location metadata flashing in the corner of the screen. "St. Mercy General Hospital. The basement server room of the research wing. That's where our original fellowship databases were archived."
Rafael straightened up immediately, turning to his men. "Damon. Get the tactical transport ready. We're going back to Boston."
"Boss, the feds have every hospital in Boston staked out looking for Nell," Vincenzo warned. "If we walk into St. Mercy, we're walking straight into a federal trap."
"Then we don't walk in," Rafael said coldly. "We take the service elevators."
Forty-five minutes later, a heavy commercial supply truck bearing the logo of a hospital linen service rolled through the underground loading dock of St. Mercy General Hospital.
I sat in the passenger seat wearing a white lab coat over my clothes, an ID badge clipped to my lapel bearing the name of a retired pathology technician. Damon drove with terrifying calm, flashing fake credentials at the security gate as we slipped past the night guards without a second glance.
We parked in the sub-basement delivery bay, right beside the industrial laundry chutes.
"The server room is down Corridor B," I whispered, pulling a specialized hardware bypass tool from my tactical bag. "If Alan’s security team has a remote uplink active, they'll know we're inside the network the moment I plug this into the main mainframe."
"Let them look," Rafael said, drawing a suppressed pistol from his jacket holster and checking the slide with a sharp metallic click. "They won't live long enough to tell anyone."
We moved down the sterile, white-tiled corridors like ghosts. The hospital at 2:00 AM was eerily quiet, broken only by the occasional hum of automated medical equipment and the distant chime of an infusion pump.
We reached the heavy reinforced door of the server room. The keypad lock blinked red, indicating active remote lockdown.
"Step aside," Damon murmured.
May you like
He pulled a small electronic device from his vest, pressed it against the keypad, and punched a button. With a soft click, the magnetic seal released.
We slipped inside.
