Chapter 16 - THE IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE
Vale Technologies’ emergency center filled within minutes.
Engineers attempted to locate the primary MirrorSight server.
The countdown appeared on every connected screen.
Damien refused to provide the location.
His attorney arrived and demanded immunity.
Rebecca rejected the demand.
Damien smiled.
“Then enjoy the release.”
Adrian studied the archive architecture.
MirrorSight divided information across hundreds of cloud systems.
The primary server held the index.
Without the index, the stolen files would become unreadable fragments.
To stop the release, they needed to destroy the index before the countdown ended.
There were thirty-eight minutes remaining.
Elena stood beside Sophie.
The child had been brought to a secure room after the garage operation.
She did not understand the technical danger.
She understood that Celeste had said cruel things about her.
“Was I bad?” Sophie asked.
Adrian knelt.
“No.”
“Then why didn’t she like me?”
“Because some people only value what they can take.”
Sophie looked toward Elena.
“Elena likes me.”
“Elena loves you,” Adrian said.
Elena’s eyes met his.
He had said the word without hesitation.
A technician interrupted.
They found a repeating temperature pattern inside Damien’s server traffic.
The server was cooling itself with industrial water.
Only three facilities in Los Angeles matched the energy consumption.
One belonged to Vale Technologies.
An old research campus had been closed two years earlier.
Damien still possessed internal access from his employment.
Marcus sent teams toward the campus.
Twenty-five minutes remained.
Adrian prepared to leave.
Elena caught his arm.
“Stay with Sophie.”
“I know the building.”
“Marcus knows the plans.”
“The server may have physical fail-safes.”
“You have engineers.”
“He designed the system around my company’s technology.”
Sophie reached for his hand.
“Please don’t go.”
Adrian stopped.
The old version of himself would have explained why the company needed him.
He would have promised to return.
He would have chosen the crisis because crises made his absence feel necessary.
This time, he sat beside his daughter.
He called Monica.
“You are acting CEO until this is finished.”
Monica understood immediately.
“Are you resigning?”
“I am prioritizing.”
Marcus reached the research campus with Rebecca’s team.
They found the data center behind a sealed laboratory.
The server racks were surrounded by a cooling pool.
Damien had connected the index to a pressure system.
Removing the server would trigger immediate release.
Cutting power would activate battery backup.
Seventeen minutes remained.
Vale engineers analyzed the mechanism through Marcus’s camera.
There was no safe shutdown.
Then Elena noticed the Rolex in Rebecca’s evidence photograph.
Arthur had built the recovery code.
Perhaps he had also built a deletion code.
“Set the watch to the time Sophie was born,” Elena said.
Adrian looked at her.
Arthur’s code used Adrian’s birth time because it was something Adrian would recognize.
A destruction code might use the next generation.
Sophie was born at 4:42 a.m.
Rebecca positioned the watch hands at 4:42 and placed it beneath blue light.
A second password appeared.
PURGE THE MIRROR.
Engineers entered the phrase.
The archive requested biometric authorization.
ARTHUR VALE OR DIRECT DESCENDANT.
Adrian pressed his thumb against the secure reader.
Access denied.
Sophie was Arthur’s grandchild.
She placed her tiny thumb on the reader.
The system accepted it.
The screen asked one final question.
DELETE ALL MIRRORSIGHT DATA?
Sophie looked at her father.
“Will it make the bad cameras stop?”
“Yes.”
She pressed the red button.
The countdown froze at four minutes and eleven seconds.
The archive began deleting.
Across the research campus, server lights went dark one row at a time.
Damien watched from federal custody.
His smile disappeared.
May you like
For years, he had believed power belonged to whoever held the most secrets.
A six-year-old girl erased his empire with one finger.
