Chapter 16 - THE NETWORK
The sterile hum of the subterranean lab felt freezing against the back of Nathan’s neck. Through the reinforced glass of the observation deck, Dr. Marcus Vance didn't look like a man under arrest; he looked like an executive holding a winning card.
"Step away from the console, Vance!" Detective Miller bellowed over his loudspeaker, his weapon drawn and trained on the doctor. "The facility is completely surrounded!"
Vance reached down, casually tapping a red key on his touch-screen console before raising his hands. "You're too late, Detective. The remote wipe protocol was initiated twenty seconds ago. By the time your digital forensics unit bypasses my encryption, every server in this room will be reduced to melted silicon."
"The servers, maybe," Nathan spoke into the intercom microphone, his voice dead steady. "But not the physical manifold tracking."
Vance’s smug smirk faltered slightly.
Nathan stepped closer to the glass, holding up his structural tablet. "You relied on local server wipes, Vance. But when I surveyed this wing three weeks ago, I noticed the backup telemetry didn't run through the hospital's mainframe. You were routing live patient data and trial results through a satellite relay mounted on the old water tower outside."
Vance’s face drained of color.
"I gave Detective Miller the relay MAC address twenty minutes ago," Nathan continued cold-heartedly. "Federal agents seized the receiver hub in suburban Evanston ten minutes before we breached this door. Eleven minutes of missing hospital records... along with every unlicensed human trial you've conducted here for the last three years... are already sitting on an FBI server."
Vance stared at Nathan, his cool composure shattering into sheer, unadulterated hatred.
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"BREACH THE DOOR!" Miller commanded.
The SWAT team deployed a hydraulic door spreader against the heavy glass frame. With a screeching roar of twisting metal and shattered safety glass, the tactical unit flooded the control room, slamming Vance against his mahogany desk and dragging his arms back into heavy steel cuffs.
