Chapter 14: One Percent
99%.
The glowing numbers on every monitor seemed to pulse in unison.
No one breathed.
No one blinked.
Amelia Voss aimed her pistol directly at Lucas.
Her finger tightened against the trigger.
Lucas didn't move.
He simply looked back at her with quiet resolve.
"If you shoot me now," he said, "you'll only make sure the whole world believes the files."
Amelia's expression remained unreadable.
"You assume the upload finishes."
Lucas smiled faintly.
"It already has."
She frowned.
"The screen says ninety-nine percent."
Lucas nodded.
"It does."
"But that's not the upload."
A ripple of confusion spread through the room.
Richard looked from Lucas to the monitors.
"Then... what is it?"
Lucas took a slow breath.
"It's the decryption."
Victor stared at the screen.
Then realization struck him.
"No..."
Lucas looked at him.
"Arthur encrypted every file before he died."
Victor whispered,
"With a delayed release."
Lucas nodded.
"So if someone intercepted the transmission..."
"They'd receive nothing but unreadable data."
Richard's eyes widened.
"And the last one percent?"
Lucas looked at Amelia.
"The key."
For the first time since entering the archive...
Amelia looked genuinely alarmed.
"You don't have the key."
Lucas smiled.
"I don't."
She exhaled, relieved.
Then he added,
"Emily does."
Every head turned toward the little girl.
Emily blinked in surprise.
"Me?"
Lucas nodded.
"You've had it your whole life."
She looked down at the old silver key hanging from a ribbon around her neck.
"The one Grandma gave me?"
Lucas smiled.
"It was never just a key."
Victor closed his eyes.
"Arthur..."
He finally understood.
"The metal wasn't important."
Lucas nodded.
"The pattern engraved inside it is."
Dr. Brooks stepped closer.
"You mean..."
Lucas carefully took the silver key from Emily's hand.
Under the flashlight, tiny grooves inside the shaft shimmered.
Not scratches.
Not wear.
Microscopic engravings.
Richard leaned closer.
"They're... numbers."
Lucas nodded.
"An encryption sequence."
Arthur hadn't hidden the decryption code in a computer.
He had hidden it inside something no one would think to steal.
A child's keepsake.
Protected for seven years by the girl he trusted most.
Amelia slowly lowered her pistol.
Not because she had given up.
Because she was thinking.
Richard noticed immediately.
"She's planning something."
Victor answered quietly.
"She always is."
Without warning...
Amelia pressed another hidden switch on the remote.
The archive lights turned blood red.
A computerized voice echoed through the chamber.
Emergency containment initiated.
Heavy steel doors began sliding shut around the room.
One corridor.
Then another.
Richard looked toward the staircase leading back to the ballroom.
A steel barrier was descending.
"We're being sealed in!"
The guards rushed toward it.
Too late.
The barrier slammed into place with a thunderous boom.
Sophia grabbed Emily's hand.
"Are we trapped?"
Emily looked at Lucas.
He smiled reassuringly.
"Not forever."
Amelia stepped backward toward the deepest tunnel.
"You've won the files."
She laughed softly.
"But you've forgotten one thing."
Richard frowned.
"What?"
She looked at Eleanor.
"You taught me this yourself."
Eleanor's face turned pale.
"No..."
Amelia pressed her thumb against the remote again.
Another voice filled the archive.
Archive self-destruct sequence armed.
Richard's heart stopped.
Victor shouted,
"She's going to destroy everything!"
A timer appeared on every monitor.
15:00
Fifteen minutes.
Margaret looked around in horror.
"The records..."
"The evidence..."
Emily whispered,
"The toys..."
Lucas looked at the shelves containing the lives of hundreds of children.
Everything would be gone.
Decades of proof.
Reduced to ash.
Richard turned to Amelia.
"You'll die too."
She smiled.
"I accepted that years ago."
"You'd murder your own mother?"
Amelia looked at Eleanor.
"She stopped being my mother..."
"...the day she chose guilt over greatness."
Eleanor slowly rolled her wheelchair forward.
"No."
She reached into the blanket covering her lap.
Everyone tensed.
Instead of a weapon...
she produced a worn leather notebook.
Richard recognized it immediately.
Arthur Sinclair's handwriting covered the first page.
Eleanor held it toward Amelia.
"He left this for you."
Amelia froze.
"My father?"
Eleanor nodded.
"I never let you read it."
For the first time, Amelia's perfect composure cracked.
"My father wrote to me?"
"He wrote every day before he died."
Eleanor's voice trembled.
"I hid every letter."
Amelia stared at the notebook.
Her pistol lowered another inch.
"You lied..."
Eleanor nodded, tears filling her eyes.
"All your life."
"I told you he abandoned you."
"He didn't."
"He begged me to let him take you away."
Silence swept through the archive.
Lucas looked at Richard.
"So Arthur..."
Richard finished the thought.
"...was Amelia's father."
Victor closed his eyes.
"He tried to end Project Legacy."
"And paid for it."
Amelia's hand began shaking.
She looked at the notebook.
Then at Eleanor.
"You forged his signature."
"Yes."
"You told me he chose the project over me."
"Yes."
"You made me hate him."
Eleanor whispered,
"I did."
A tear rolled down Amelia's cheek.
Perhaps the first in decades.
The countdown continued.
12:41
12:40
Richard looked at Lucas.
"We have to stop the self-destruct."
Lucas nodded.
"I know where the control room is."
"It's below us."
Richard frowned.
"There's another level?"
Lucas smiled weakly.
"The last one."
Level Five.
He looked at Emily and Sophia.
"You stay here."
Emily immediately shook her head.
"No."
"I'm coming."
"So am I," Sophia said.
Richard opened his mouth to object.
Then stopped.
The two girls had already endured more than most adults ever would.
Lucas looked at them.
Then smiled.
"All right."
"But we finish this together."
The five of them turned toward the final tunnel.
Behind them, Amelia remained frozen, staring at the notebook her father had written decades earlier.
The self-destruct timer continued its relentless countdown.
11:59
As Richard reached the entrance to Level Five...
a loud mechanical click echoed through the chamber.
The massive vault door slowly began to open.
Inside...
there was no laboratory.
No computers.
No machinery.
Only a small nursery.
Three empty cribs.
Still decorated with faded balloons.
Exactly as they had been left...
May you like
seven years ago.
End of Chapter 14
