The Escape Route
The rifle shot hit Vance's non-dominant shoulder, quickly neutralizing the immediate threat. The low hum of the second, underground generator served as a chilling reminder that deeper danger remained.
"Garrick is securing Vance's area," Zara's voice came through the earpiece, urgent. "I've deployed smoke. Head to the rear service hatch, south. Now, Maya!"
Maya held the cryo-vial and the heavy logbook tightly. The thick smoke, deployed quickly, served as a non-lethal barrier, providing much-needed visibility cover. She didn't press the EMP switch; Zara's shot had done better than the pulse would have.
She rushed past Vance's slumped form, ignoring his harsh curses. The heavy rear service hatch was bolted. She ripped a loose wire from the sputtering, older generator and used the metal hook of her field knife to pry the bolt open, scraping her fingers on the rust.
She plunged into the jungle, not taking the path she'd used before, but following a planned escape route mapped by Adrian's team: a narrow, steep path leading to the rendezvous point.
"They're deploying," Zara reported, her voice tense. "Two more hostile contacts are moving from the south. They're trying to cut you off from the water."
"I have the vial and the logbook," Maya gasped, scrambling over roots. "Adrian needs to know about the Scylla Agent it's a mind-altering bioluminescent organism."
"Relaying to Adrian now," Zara confirmed. "He is mobilizing the extraction team, but they will arrive in twenty minutes. You need to hold on."
Maya focused intensely. She wasn't just running; she was temporarily responsible for a global threat. She activated the silver cuff's recording function, beginning a verbal log of the Scylla Agent's properties, repeating what Vance had just informed her about the compliant agent and the EMP pulse it naturally created.
The Rendezvous and the Subterranean Hum
She reached a precarious ridge overlooking a small, isolated cove where the extraction boat was set to meet them. Garrick was already there, aiming a suppression rifle at the southern tree line.
"They're close," Garrick warned, his voice low. "Get ready to move!"
Suddenly, the air vibrated. The rhythmic hum from the Aethel station, five kilometers away, grew louder and deeper, a seismic groan. The water in the cove started to ripple violently, even though the air was still.
"What is that?" Maya yelled, gripping Garrick's arm.
"The pulse," Garrick realized, his eyes wide. "That's the Scylla Unit's EMP pulse. It's not contained!"
Maya recalled Vance's last warning: *"The unit is still down there! The pulse... don't let it out!"*
She quickly opened the logbook to the entry dated 20 years earlier, just days before Adrian's mother went missing. The handwriting was frantic.
Entry 19/08/2005 (E. K.): The culture is extremely unstable. It generates low-frequency electromagnetic pulses when stimulated by thermal shift. If the main cryogenic containment fails, the EMP will radiate outward, frying every electrical grid, every modern ship, and every communication system within a two-hundred-mile radius. It's a localized, massive geomagnetic storm event. It's a global disaster if it reaches the atmosphere.*
"Garrick! The EMP isn't just a security measure!" Maya shouted, pointing at the logbook. "It's a **biological consequence**! If that containment fails, it knocks out all power in the Galapagos!"
The hum spiked, becoming an unbearable, high-pitched whine. Suddenly, the lights on the approaching boat flickered and died. The boat drifted, powerless in the water.
The System Failure
"We just lost the boat!" Garrick yelled, throwing his suppression rifle down in anger. "The pulse hit its navigation and communication systems! We're stranded!"
Zara, who had just joined them, breathing hard, looked at the silver cuff on Maya's wrist. "Mr. King warned us about the EMP potential of the *cuff*! Not the *plankton*! We need to shut down that containment unit!"
"We can't," Maya said, her eyes locked on the logbook. "The containment is powered by the underground generator. It's isolated from the local grid. If we shut down the generator, the culture overheats, and the EMP releases immediately."
"Then what's the solution?" Zara demanded.
Maya's finger traced a faded diagram in the logbook—a drawing labeled Active Stabilizer.'
"His mother found a way to stabilize the pulse," Maya realized. "She engineered a frequency counter-pulse using high-grade copper coils. It needs to be delivered manually. We have to go back inside, find the stabilizer, and insert it into the containment unit before the culture breaches."
"That means going back to the station," Garrick said grimly. "And Vance is waiting."
At that moment, a sturdy, dark-haired man in tactical gear—one of Vance's security men—broke through the trees, firing a tranquilizer rifle.
"Go, Maya!" Zara yelled, pushing her toward the narrowest path. "Garrick and I will slow them down! You have to find that stabilizer! It's the only way to save the extraction!"
The Last-Ditch Effort
Maya ran back up the ridge toward the abandoned station, holding the pulsing cryo-vial and the heavy logbook tightly against her chest. Adrian's security had bought her time, but she was now completely alone, facing a man who had already tried to kill her.
She rushed back into the station. Vance was gone, taken by his men, but the main lab was a chaotic mess of shattered glass and overturned equipment. The underground hum was deafening.
The logbook said the Active Stabilizer was in a small, shielded lockbox labeled **'EK - Backup Protocol.'** She found the box embedded in the floor under a sheet of corroded steel. It needed a four-digit code.
Maya scanned the pages of the logbook, searching for any number combination. Her eyes landed on the dedication on the inside cover written by Elara King: *To my brilliant boy, always remembering the day you taught me numbers.*
The year her mother vanished.
3748: Adrian's birth year and the first four digits of his childhood phone number, a detail Maya had memorized from a King Industries history briefing.
12:15. The time of her kiss with Adrian, the moment the sonic pulse had opened the diary.
None of those felt right. They were too personal to be a security code.
Then she noticed a faint circular mark on the top page of the logbook, just the size of Adrian's gold Patek Philippe watch. Under it, in faint, nearly invisible pencil, was a single, cryptic phrase:
T-O-G
Maya recognized the acronym from her security briefing with Adrian: Time-of-Grief. It was the specific term Adrian used for the exact time, twenty years ago, when the police confirmed his mother's disappearance.
She found the time in the official police reports she'd reviewed in London: 04:17.
Shaking, she typed 0417.
The lockbox clicked open. Inside, resting on felt, was a small, elegantly coiled device, a high-grade copper coil stabilizer, designed to neutralize a specific frequency.
But as she reached for the stabilizer, a shadow fell over her.
"Going somewhere, Maya?" Sterling Vance stood in the doorway, favoring his wounded shoulder, his face pale with rage. He had a hunting rifle aimed at her chest. "The Scylla Agent is mine. You've just signed King's death warrant."
He took a slow step toward her, but his eyes focused on the open lockbox and the device inside.
"You won't get away with this, Vance," Maya whispered, her hand hovering over the stabilizer.
"Oh, I think I will," Vance hissed, shifting his weight. "You see, that stabilizer isn't just a frequency counter. Your future stepmother didn't just create a cure, Maya. She built a delivery system. And that small device you're about to grab? It activates with **thermal contact** and carries enough concentrated Scylla Agent to instantly make anyone holding it fully compliant after five seconds."
He grinned, pure malice on his face. "Now, pick up the stabilizer, Maya. Let's call Adrian King and talk about his *full and complete surrender."
Will Maya risk touching the stabilizer to save the island, or will she be forced to use the EMP pulse of the cuff, destroying the solution? What desperate move will Adrian make from afar to save her life?