Chapter 17 - The Blackout Begins
Emergency power activated.
Vale stood beside the primary transmitter.
Congressman Voss was with him.
Evan’s father had escaped the estate using the private tunnel and reached the factory first.
The congressman held a pistol near Richard’s chief engineer.
Vale entered the activation code.
The system requested Richard’s engineering sequence.
Without it, only a partial blackout could occur.
Vale triggered it anyway.
Across Connecticut, emergency radio channels filled with interference.
Hospital communications failed.
Police dispatch screens froze.
The emergency ward where Rachel waited lost external contact.
Marcus’s agents entered the control room from two sides.
Congressman Voss fired once.
The bullet struck a console.
Agents returned no uncontrolled fire because workers remained nearby.
Evan tackled his father.
Both fell behind the equipment racks.
Jessica reached the upper platform.
Vale saw her.
“You were always the easier sister.”
Jessica answered:
“You never understood either of us.”
She threw the access card over the railing.
Vale instinctively turned toward it.
That distraction allowed the lead agent to seize his arm.
Vale broke free and moved toward the manual detonation switch.
Rachel saw everything through Jessica’s camera.
She recognized the control design.
It contained a failsafe based on the original component Richard and Vale created.
Only Richard knew the code.
But Rachel remembered a sequence her father used as the password to every family device when she was young.
Jessica’s birthday.
Rachel transmitted it.
The factory system rejected the first attempt.
Rachel reversed the digits.
The transmitter shut down.
The communications interference ended.
Vale stared at the console.
Richard had embedded his daughters’ birthdays into the original design.
Even while committing crimes, he had unknowingly created the key that stopped them.
Marcus’s team restrained Vale.
Congressman Voss was arrested.
Evan remained on the floor beside his father.
May you like
Jessica looked at him without warmth.
His final helpful act did not erase everything before it.
