Chapter 8: The Midnight Exodus
Oakhaven was no longer a city of marble; it was a hive of static and smoke. The broadcast had acted like a chemical catalyst, turning the citizens into a volatile mixture of protestors, royalists, and opportunists.
Lulan, Silas, and the four children moved through the palace's secondary service tunnels—a damp, labyrinthine network that smelled of lime and ancient dust. Silas led the way, his tactical light cutting through the gloom, while Lucian and Kael flanked their younger siblings.
"We have four minutes before the Sentinels override the manual locks on the North Gate," Silas muttered, checking his HUD. "Lulan, your heart rate is climbing. The King's monitors are going to start alarming the medical staff."
Let them alarm," Lulan replied, her hand gripping Elara's. "Panic is a distraction I can use. Kael, status on the extraction?"
Kael was walking blindly, his eyes fixed on a transparent tablet. "The automated transport is two blocks away, but it's stuck in a civilian bottleneck. They're overturning cars near the square. And Mother... there's something else."
He stopped, his face going pale in the glow of the screen.
"Leonard's failsafe isn't political. It's physical. He's initiated 'The Scuttle Protocol' for the Lascourine Memorial Hospital."
The Scuttle Protocol
Lulan felt a chill sharper than any surgical blade. The hospital wasn't just a building; it was the vault for her research, her wealth, and the cryogenic backups for her most advanced medical tech.
"Explain," she commanded.
"He's activated the thermal-overload in the server basement," Kael said, his voice trembling. "He can't take the hospital back, so he's going to burn it. If those servers go, the digital keys to the Swiss accounts and the King's life-support encryption go with them. We'll be billionaires on paper and ghosts in reality."
"He's trying to lobotomize us," Bastian whispered, his usual cheer replaced by a sharp, focused anger.
Lulan looked at Silas. "We can't go to the extraction point. We have to go to the hospital."
"That's a suicide mission," Silas countered. "The hospital is surrounded by Leonard's loyalist militia. They're waiting for you to show up."
"Then we don't show up as guests," Lulan said, her mind already three steps ahead. "We show up as the cure."
The Siege of the Cliffside
They emerged from the tunnels into a rain-slicked alleyway. The Lascourine Memorial Hospital sat on the distant cliff like a burning crown, smoke already beginning to plume from its lower levels.
Silas hijacked a blacked-out security van, tossing the driver out before the children could even buckle in. They tore through the streets of Oakhaven, the van's sirens screaming a defiance that mirrored Lulan's own.
As they approached the hospital gates, the militia opened fire.
Thud-thud-thud. Bullets sparked against the armored plating.
"Elara, now!" Lulan shouted.
The youngest Lascourine opened her notebook—not for drawing, but to reveal a hidden interface. She tapped a sequence. Above them, the hospital's automated defense turrets—designed to stop drones—recalibrated. They didn't fire bullets; they fired high-intensity sonic pulses.
The militia outside the gates collapsed, clutching their ears as the invisible waves shattered their formation.
"Clear!" Silas yelled, ramming the van through the gates.
The Heart of the Machine
The lobby was a chaos of red emergency lights and hissing halon gas. Lulan and Kael raced toward the server room while Silas and the other three held the elevators.
Inside the server hub, the heat was stifling. The cooling fans had been reversed, pumping heat into the processors.
"I can't stop the override from here," Kael shouted over the roar of the machines. "The physical kill-switch is inside the central core! It's shielded by $300$ kg of lead-lined steel!"
Lulan looked at the core. She didn't have tools. She didn't have a team. She had the hands of a surgeon.
"Lucian, I need the localized liquid nitrogen from the cryo-lab," she said into her comms. "Bastian, get me the emergency defibrillator from the trauma bay. Now!"
Within minutes, her children were there, working with the precision of a seasoned surgical team.
Lulan poured the liquid nitrogen over the steel hinges of the core. The metal groaned, turning a brittle, ghostly white. "Bastian, the shock. Maximum joules on my mark."
She placed the defibrillator paddles against the frozen metal.
"Clear!"
The massive electrical discharge hit the super-cooled steel. With a sound like a lightning strike, the door shattered. Lulan reached into the smoking machinery, her hands protected only by her thin silk sleeves. She found the primary fiber-optic lead—the "nerve" of the hospital—and severed it with a manual override key.
The screaming alarms died. The heat
began to dissipate.
The Final Move
Lulan leaned against the cooling server rack, her breath ragged. She looked at her four children and Silas, who stood in the doorway, his gun smoking.
"The data is safe," Kael whispered, checking his tablet. "But Mother... Leonard just went live on the national emergency frequency. He's declaring martial law. He's telling the people you've assassinated the King."
Lulan stood up, straightening her midnight-blue dress, now stained with soot and grease. She looked at the camera in the corner of the room.
"He thinks he's the only one who can broadcast," Lulan said. She looked at Kael. "Can you give me the whole country? Every screen, every phone, every radio?"
"In five seconds," Kael replied.
"Good." Lulan stepped into the light. "Let's show Belgravia what happens when you try to kill a ghost twice."