Chapter 8 - BLOOD IN THE GLASS TOWER | "I Returned to the Man Who Killed Me to Return the Favor."
The corporate headquarters of Vance BioTech soared eighty stories above the Chicago skyline—a towering monolith of black glass and chrome illuminated by the neon glow of the city below.
At 2:00 AM, the top-floor executive suite was silent. Arthur Vance sat behind his massive mahogany desk, sipping a twenty-year-old scotch as he reviewed the financial projections for the global launch of Project Lethe.
The private elevator doors behind him chimed, opening with a smooth, pneumatic slide.
Arthur didn't turn around. He simply smiled, raising his glass toward the reflection in the panoramic glass window. "I knew you’d come home, Seven. Or should I call you Clara?"
Clara walked into the office, covered in rain, grease, and dried blood. She carried no rifle, no body armor. Just a small, silver thumb drive held between her fingers.
"Subject Eight is a terrible replica, Arthur," Clara said, her voice dripping with ice as she stopped five feet from his desk. "She smiles too much. She doesn't hold her glass with her pinky finger extended like I do. And she certainly doesn't know the master override code to the Vance BioTech server infrastructure."
Arthur turned his chair around, his face hardening slightly. "You shouldn't be here, Clara. Julian failed to contain you, but my private security detail is currently ascending the express elevator. You have thirty seconds before six armed men put a bullet in your synthetic spine."
"They won't make it to the twentieth floor," Clara replied calmly, pulling up a chair and sitting down opposite him, crossing her legs with immaculate elegance. "I uploaded a localized neuro-EMP virus into the building's main power grid three minutes ago. The elevators are dead. The security doors are locked. And the life-support systems in your underground backup vault have just been set to purge."
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Arthur dropped his glass. The crystal shattered on the hardwood floor, spilling amber liquid across the rug. "You... you destroyed the backups?"
"I destroyed your army of puppets," Clara corrected him, her eyes burning with a fierce, terrifying intelligence. "I destroyed Subjects One through Six. I wiped Subject Eight's memory bank five minutes ago—she's currently sitting in the lobby with the cognitive capacity of a newborn infant. There are no more clones, Arthur. There is only me."
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