Chapter 5 - The ExtractionFive minutes later, Dr. Marcus Vale was strapped securely into a high-backed ergonomic testing chair with heavy-duty zip-ties, sweating profusely as Jax stood over him holding a modified medical laryngoscope and a pair of long titanium surgical forceps.
"You can't do this!" Vale shrieked, thrashing against the restraints. "This is kidnapping! This is assault! I'll sue you for everything you're worth, Cross!"
"You're welcome to try," Ethan replied coldly, watching from behind the primary console where Lily was furiously typing out a secondary bypass script. "Assuming you survive the next sixty seconds of cross-examination by a ten-year-old."
Lily didn't look up from her screen. "Jax, hold his jaw steady. If the micro-token shifts into his lower esophagus, we'll have to cut him open ourselves, and I don't think Mom has her mop bucket bleach ready for a surgical sterilization."
Maria turned around, covering her eyes with both hands, though she couldn't bring herself to walk away from her daughter. "Lord help us," she muttered under her breath.
"Steady... steady now," Lily muttered, her small fingers flying across the keyboard as she synchronized the lab's diagnostic equipment with the security terminal. "Ready, Jax. Go in on three. One... two... three!"
With practiced, ruthless efficiency, Jax pried Vale's mouth open, inserted the laryngoscope, and thrust the forceps into the screaming scientist's throat. Vale let out a muffled, gurgling shriek of pure terror.
A second later, Jax pulled the instrument back out. Clamped securely between the jaws of the titanium forceps was a tiny, sleek black micro-chip no larger than a grain of rice, covered in stomach acid and saliva.
"Got it," Jax grunted, dropping the token onto a sterile metal tray next to Lily's hand.
Lily picked up the tiny chip with a pair of tweezers, rinsed it under a bottle of sterile saline solution from the emergency kit, and walked over to the main terminal. Without a moment's hesitation, she slotted the chip directly into the console's hidden peripheral port.
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Access Granted: Master Administrative Override Accepted.
On the main screen, the unauthorized data transfer progress bar instantly froze at ninety-nine percent, hovered there for a agonizing second, and then shattered into a cascade of digital shards as the system executed an emergency purge.
