Chapter 10 - Blackout and Siege
The mansion plunged into absolute, suffocating darkness as the primary electrical grid died, leaving only the amber glow of the emergency battery-backup lights casting long, sinister shadows across the corridors.
Inside the mobile bio-lab, the automated life-support systems hummed smoothly on their independent diesel generators, keeping Jonah and Blythe safe in their pressurized environment.
“Prescott, status!” I barked, grabbing my MK18 rifle from the rack and slapping a fresh thirty-round magazine into the receiver.
“Grid is completely dead, boss! Cell towers are jammed across a five-mile radius—they’re using a military-grade EMP communications jammer parked in a van outside the perimeter!” Prescott shouted, reloading his weapon as the heavy oak doors of the study echoed with the distant, heavy thud of explosive breaching charges being planted at the main entrance.
“Vane and Vanguard didn't just send mercenaries this time,” I said, my voice dropping into a cold, lethal register. “They sent a clean-up battalion. They realized the bio-lab was delivered, and they know Clara successfully administered the cure. If they take this estate, they’ll execute everyone inside to protect their stock price.”
Clara stepped out of the cleanroom, her face pale but entirely composed. She had stripped off her bloody surgical gown, revealing the dark, practical clothes she had worn when she first walked through my gates.
“Lawson, you have to get the children into the panic bunker beneath the wine cellar,” Clara said urgently. “If they breach the central corridor, the lab doors won't hold against sustained anti-materiel charges.”
“I’m not running, Clara,” I said, locking the bolt of my rifle with a sharp metallic snap. “And I’m not leaving you here to be their target.”
Before Clara could argue, the front grand foyer exploded in a deafening roar of fire, shrapnel, and splintered mahogany as the massive oak front doors were blown completely off their hinges.
Automatic gunfire raked the hallway outside my study. Bullets punched through the plaster walls, showering us in white dust.
“They’re in the house!” Prescott roared, raising his rifle and firing a controlled three-round burst through the open doorway into the corridor, dropping the lead mercenary who had charged around the corner.
“Fall back to the secondary barricade!” I commanded.
Working with ruthless, synchronized efficiency forged in a dozen underworld turf wars, Prescott and I dragged heavy oak bookshelves across the study doorway, creating an improvised fortified firing position.
Outside in the hallway, the flashing muzzle flashes of suppressive fire illuminated the darkness like a violent strobe light. Heavy boots stomped across the marble floors, accompanied by cold, professional military radio chatter.
“Clear the west wing! Secure the medical container! Eliminate all adult personnel, leave no survivors!”
“Vanguard death squads,” Clara whispered, clutching a heavy steel medical scalpel in her hand, her knuckles white. “They aren't taking prisoners.”
“They’ll have to get through me first,” I growled, resting the barrel of my rifle on the edge of the bookshelf barricade.
The assault began with terrifying, coordinated precision.
Three flashbang grenades crashed through the shattered windows of the study at the same time, detonating in a blinding flash of white light and thunderous concussion that rattled my teeth and left my ears ringing with high-pitched static.
“Incoming!” Prescott yelled, blind-firing through the smoke.
Through the haze of white phosphorus and dust, armored figures in black tactical gear poured through the windows and the breached doorway, rifles raised.
Hell was unleashed inside my study.
The air filled with the deafening roar of automatic weapons fire, the biting stench of cordite, and the shattering of priceless art and antique glass. I fired with cold, methodical precision, dropping two mercenaries before they could acquire their targets. Prescott accounted for a third, his sidearm barking rhythmically in the gloom.
But there were too many.
A heavy mercenary lunged over the bookshelf barricade, his rifle leveled directly at my chest.
Before I could swing my barrel around, a heavy metal oxygen tank flew through the air like a missile, crashing squarely into the mercenary’s helmet and sending him crashing backward over the desk.
I spun around. Clara stood by the medical cart, breathing heavily, having just hurled the forty-pound tank with every ounce of strength in her body.
“Duck!” she screamed.
I dropped to the floor as a burst of high-caliber rounds chewed through the wall directly above my head.
With the last of the immediate frontline attackers neutralized in our study, the heavy gunfire in the hallway suddenly stopped. A heavy, ominous silence descended on the room, broken only by the crackling of flames from the foyer and the steady, reassuring beep of the children’s monitors humming safely inside the mobile bio-lab.
Prescott slumped against the wall, checking his ammunition magazine with a grimace. “Boss... we’re down to our last two mags. And the heavy breach team is massing outside the main corridor.”
I stood up, wiping sweat and blood from my forehead, my eyes locking onto the reinforced steel door of the mobile lab where Jonah and Blythe were sleeping.
“They’re not getting past this room,” I said softly.
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Just as I raised my rifle to cover the doorway, the heavy intercom speaker on the wall hissed to life. A smooth, chillingly corporate voice echoed through the ruined study.
“Mr. Mercer. Can we finally have a civil conversation?”
