Chapter 92 Omega 2
Ariella showed the text to Aiden with pleading eyes, hoping he'd consider their daughter's safety.
“No,” he said immediately. “We don’t negotiate with…”
“We are surrounded by armed teams willing to kill everyone in this room, Maybe we should…”
“If we confess to fabricating evidence, everything we exposed gets discredited, Everyone who died today died for nothing, The network wins completely.”
“But Elena lives…”
“Does she? You really trust them to keep their word? They’ve killed seventy-three people, Why would they spare her?”
Ariella wanted to argue, But he was right. The network had no incentive to let any of them survive.
Another text: Eight minutes.
“I’m going out there,” Holt said suddenly.
“What?”
“I’m going to surrender, Buy you time. While they’re processing me, you take the service tunnels. Get out of the building. There’s a…”
“We’re not sacrificing you…”
“Someone has to survive to tell this story, And between us?” Holt smiled grimly. “I’m the old man with terminal cancer they don’t know about, I have just Six months to live. Might as well make them count.”
Before anyone could stop him, he opened the panic room door.
Stepped into the hallway.
“GENERAL RAYMOND HOLT!” he shouted, “I’m unarmed! I’m surrendering!”
They started shooting at him immediately, Holt dropped. Blood spreading. He’d known they wouldn’t accept surrender, He’d sacrificed himself to prove they were murderers.
And Jessica was streaming all of it.
“They killed him,” she breathed. “They killed a surrendering, unarmed general on camera…”
“Close the door!” Aiden yanked it shut and Sealed it.
But damage was done, Holt was gone. And the team was moving in quickly.
Two minutes the text said.
Ariella looked at Aiden, at Elena who’s sleeping peacefully in her carrier, unaware her parents were deciding whether to die fighting or surrender hoping for mercy that wouldn’t come.
“There’s a third option,” Jessica said quietly.
“What?”
She held up a detonator. “The CEO…before he turned on us…he told me this penthouse has a self-destruct. In case terrorists took it over. We could…we could take them with us. Make sure they don’t win.”
“That’s insane….”
“So is letting them kill us and discredit everything we’ve done! At least this way, we take out their assault team, Maybe their leadership if they’re stupid enough to be here.” Jessica’s voice cracked. “My partner was killed this morning. My source, Three journalists I mentored. If I’m dying anyway, I want it to mean something.”
“We are not blowing up a building in Midtown Manhattan,” Ariella said firmly. “There are innocent people…”
“They evacuated the building. The fire alarm went off thirty minutes ago. It’s just us and them.” Jessica looked at the detonator. “I’m doing it. With or without your permission.”
“Jessica…”
The panic room door started glowing. They were cutting through Using thermal lances.
One minute the text said.
Aiden was typing on his phone frantically.
“What are you doing?” Ariella asked.
“Sending everything to everyone. Every file, Every video, Every piece of evidence, No encryption, No dead man’s switch. Just…releasing it all. If we die, at least the truth is out there, Completely and Undeniably.”
He hit send.
The door was melting. They could see through the hole now. Armed figures on the other side.
Jessica raised the detonator.
“Wait,” Ariella said.
“For what?”
“I don’t know, Something ... .Anything…”
Her phone rang.
The same distorted voice from before.
“Don’t answer it,” Aiden said.
She answered anyway, on speaker.
“Mrs. Frost. Your husband just made a very foolish decision.”
“Good.”
“We were offering you a chance now?” The voice turned cold. “Now we make an example of you, your daughter and everyone who ever helped you. We’re going to make this hurt.”
And then…
The sound of Sirens starting blowing, Lots of them.
The voice hesitated. “What…”
Through the hole in the door, Ariella saw the armed figures turning away Confused and Shouting into their radios.
The voice came back. “What did you do?”
Aiden smiled Fiercely. “I sent your files to everyone, Including your real names, Your addresses, Your families. Every person in the network. And then I sent them to Anonymous, Reddit, and 4chan. To every hacker collective and vigilante group on the internet.”
“You’ve killed us all…”
“No, You did that when you started Omega. We just made sure everyone knows who you are, What you’ve done, and Where to find you.” Aiden’s voice was steel. “The SWAT teams aren’t coming for us anymore, They’re coming for you.”
The line went dead.
Through the melting door, they watched the armed figures retreat, actually Running away. They heard the sound of helicopters overhead, they was a lot Shouting and Chaos.
Jessica lowered the detonator. “Did we…did we just win?”
“I don’t know,” Ariella said.
But the sirens were getting closer and for the first time in days, they sounded like rescue.
Not execution.