Chapter 199

# Core Experimental Zone

The room was bigger than what the blueprints showed—at least 3,229 square feet. Half of it had already been cleared out. Scratch marks from dragged equipment scarred the floor. Cables had been ripped from the walls, copper cores exposed.

Several stainless steel workbenches had been pushed into corners, their surfaces littered with gloves, syringe wrappers, and empty medicine bottles.

The other half still had stuff in it. Four large pieces of equipment that Charlotte didn't recognize, their casings labeled "Genetica Synergy." Two were running, their cooling fans humming in the empty room. The other two had been powered down, all indicator lights on their panels dark.

On the floor between the equipment lay a row of iron rings, welded into the concrete, each just wide enough for a chain to pass through. Beside them, dark stains marked the surface—dried to a dull red.

Charlotte's gaze swept past the equipment toward the back of the room.

There was a chair in the corner. Someone was sitting in it.

Charlotte raised her gun. "Don't move."

The person in the chair didn't react. Charlotte moved three steps closer. She could see clearly now—it was Rebecca.

Rebecca's hands were zip-tied behind her back to the chair, her feet chained to the crossbar of the chair legs with iron chains. Her head hung down, hair covering most of her face. There was blood on her clothes, dried, spreading from her left shoulder to her chest. No telling whose it was.

"Rebecca."

Charlotte's voice echoed in the white room.

Rebecca's head moved slightly.

Charlotte rushed over and crouched in front of the chair. She reached out and brushed the hair from Rebecca's face. Rebecca's left eye was swollen, the socket ringed with purple-blue bruising. There was a split at the corner of her mouth, and the blood dried into a dark brown crust. Rebecca's right eye was half-open, pupils unfocused. But when Rebecca's gaze met Charlotte's face, her focus sharpened in an instant.

Rebecca's lips moved.

"Idiot."

Her voice was hoarse, barely a whisper, but carried a hint of amusement.

Charlotte pulled a folding knife from her boot and cut through the zip ties on her wrists.

"Can you walk?"

Rebecca flexed her wrists, fingers stiffly extending.

"Left leg's no good. Knee took a bullet. Thirty-six hours ago."

Charlotte looked down. Rebecca's left pant leg was soaked in blood, and her knee was bound with a strip of cloth. The blood on it had dried to a dark black.

"I'll carry you."

"No need." Rebecca used her right hand to push against the chair's armrest, trying to stand. Her body swayed—she couldn't hold it. Charlotte caught her.

"Don't push it."

The corner of Rebecca's mouth twitched. The blood crust on the split cracked open, fresh blood beading up.

"Going through the drainage pipes?"

"Yeah."

"I can't make it through the narrowest section. My knee won't bend."

Charlotte's fingers tightened on Rebecca's arm. The narrow passage, the hidden door, back to the second basement level, out through the freight corridor. Wayne's diversion should have already drawn security forces to the loading area on the first basement level. The staff corridor from the second basement level to the freight corridor—

A burst of static suddenly crackled in her earpiece. Then Charles's voice.

"Change of plans. The freight corridor's been sealed. Wayne's people got cut off."

Charlotte's hand froze on Rebecca's arm.

"Eddy came back to the Bowers Villa early." Charles said, his voice calm and cold. "He brought thirty men, fully armed, sweeping through every floor from the ground up."

Charlotte's fingers released Rebecca's arm. She turned to look toward the other end of the core experimental zone. There was a door there. Not marked on the blueprints, and Michael hadn't mentioned it either. The door was open. Beyond it, steps led downward to a fourth basement level.

"Charles."

"Go ahead."

"This place has a fourth level."

The earpiece went quiet for two seconds.

A voice came from the darkness at the bottom of the steps. Footsteps ascending, getting closer. Charlotte raised her gun.

A figure emerged from the darkness. White hair, straight-backed posture. William stood at the top of the steps. He carried a black briefcase in his hand. He looked at Charlotte, the corner of his mouth pulling into a smile.

"Charlotte, you got here pretty fast."

The words still hung in the air as William stepped from the stairs onto the floor of the core experimental zone. His cuffs were dusty, but his posture remained straight. The briefcase hung from his left hand, his right hand in his pocket.

Charlotte's gun didn't move. Rebecca leaned against her shoulder, one hand braced on the workbench as she fought to stay upright. Blood dripped from her left leg, falling from her pant cuff to the white floor and spreading into a slow, dark red circle.

William's gaze moved from Charlotte's face to Rebecca's, paused for a second, then returned.

"The people you brought got blocked at the freight corridor." His tone was flat. "Eddy's men are sweeping floor by floor. There's still one way out from here."

He raised his right hand, pointing to a half-open iron door on the east side of the core experimental zone.

"The drainage channel on the fourth basement level leads to an irrigation station two kilometers outside the Bowers Villa."

Charlotte didn't move. "Why are you telling me this?"

William set down the briefcase. He crouched and unzipped it. Inside was a stack of documents and a hard-shell external hard drive.

"This is the complete operational record of 'Chessboard' for the past twenty years. Financial flows, experimental data, personnel rosters, arms transaction records."

He pushed the hard drive across the floor toward Charlotte.

"Take it."

Charlotte stared at the hard drive on the floor. She didn't bend down to pick it up.

"You know who 'Chessboard' is."

William straightened up, pulling his hand from his pocket—palm empty.

"I know."

"Tell me."

William looked at her. That gaze was completely different from the kindly old man at the dinner table—deep, weary, carrying the particular murkiness of someone who'd been in the dark too long.

"That's not mine to tell." His voice dropped slightly. "Check the deepest encrypted partition in the ZN-0042 server. The password is my son's birthday."

Charlotte's finger tightened on the trigger guard. "Your son? Charles's father."

William didn't answer. He turned and walked toward the half-open iron door.

"Charlotte." He stopped, didn't turn around. "When Charles had his episodes as a child, the first person to run to his bedside was the butler, Orval. Orval gave Charles medicine, wiped his sweat, and watched over him all night long."

His voice echoed in the white room.

"But those pills Charles took—Orval got them from Everett."

Charlotte's pupils contracted.

William pushed open the iron door and walked into the darkness. His footsteps grew fainter, disappearing into the depths of the drainage channel.

Charlotte stood in place, the gun in her hand slowly lowering. Rebecca's fingers dug into her shoulder.

"Go." Rebecca's voice was hoarse. "The route he mentioned works. I checked out that drainage channel before."

Charlotte bent down to pick up the hard drive and stuffed it into a waterproof bag. She supported Rebecca and headed for the iron door.

Forty-seven minutes later, the SUV sped down the highway. Rebecca lay in the back seat while the female medic treated her gunshot wound to the knee. The air was thick with the smell of iodine.

Charlotte sat in the passenger seat, phone screen lit. She'd handed the hard drive to Marcus.

Marcus's voice came through the phone, keyboard clicks dense as rain hammering a tin roof.

"A huge amount of data. Initial scan shows over forty thousand files, spanning from 2004 to 2024."

"Check something first." Charlotte's voice showed no emotion. "Orval's identity file. Photo, hire date, background check records."

The typing sounds paused.

"Orval Bowers, hired by the Edward family in 1984. Worked on a farm before that." Marcus flipped through. "There's a hire photo in the file, black and white."

"Send it over."

The phone screen refreshed, loading a grainy black-and-white photo. A young face, square-jawed, heavy brows, corners of mouth slightly downturned. Charlotte stared at the face for a couple of seconds.

"Marcus, do you have a photo of Demetrius?"

"Yeah. There's one in an early Edward Group shareholder group photo, taken in 1968."

"Send it."

The second photo loaded. William and a young man are standing side by side in front of a factory building. The young man was half a head shorter than William, with a narrow face and a pointed chin—completely different from Orval's square face.

But Charlotte's gaze didn't stop at the face. She looked at the hands. In the photo, Demetrius's left hand rested on his suit button, the second knuckle of his middle finger showing a protrusion—a bone deformity, congenital.

Charlotte closed her eyes. When Orval poured coffee for Charles in the dining room today, she saw Orval's hands. The second knuckle of Orval's left middle finger had an unnatural protrusion. She'd thought it was muscle tension. It wasn't. It was bone structure.

"Marcus."

"Here."

"Pull Demetrius's skeletal medical records. X-rays, physical exam files, anything involving skeletal features. Then do a full skeletal comparison with Orval."

The other end of the line went quiet for two seconds.

"Ms. Seymour, are you saying—"

"Do it now."