Chapter 77: Chapter 77: Stan Edger (Bonus Chapter)
[Vought Tower]
Edgar sat perfectly still behind his desk. He was staring at the blank screen of his secure terminal, his mind running through a thousand contingency plans.
The shrill trill of the secure red phone resting on the corner of his desk shattered the quiet like a gunshot.
Edgar’s eyes shifted toward the device. The red phone bypassed all executive assistants and screening protocols. Only three people had the clearance to ring that specific line.
He reached out, his movements unhurried. He lifted the heavy receiver and brought it to his ear.
"Speak," Edgar said, his baritone voice a flat surface.
"Mr. Edgar." The voice belonged to the head of Vought’s elite clean up division.
The man was breathing heavily, his words clipped. "Sir, I am calling from the private residence of Congresswoman Victoria Neuman."
Edgar’s hand tightened around the plastic receiver.
"And?" Edgar prompted.
"She is deceased, sir."
The silence stretched.
Edgar stared at the dark reflection of himself in the unlit computer monitor.
Victoria. His adopted daughter. The weapon he had groomed for decades to secure Vought’s absolute control over the highest echelons of the United States government.
"Cause of death," Edgar demanded, his voice dropping slightly in pitch.
"Severe cranial trauma," Cleaner reported, a tremor of genuine horror leaking into his professional tone. "Sir, her skull was completely crushed. Driven into the concrete floor. Furthermore, her right leg was shattered at the knee joint. The door to her private subterranean laboratory was ripped from its hinges. Dr. Sameer Shah is also deceased."
"The research?" Edgar asked.
"Gone, sir. The cold storage units physically vanished. The servers were wiped and the entire laboratory was subsequently incinerated with a military grade thermite charge. We barely put the fire out before it reached the main house. It... it looks exactly like Sage Grove, sir."
A heavy stone settled into the pit of Edgar’s stomach.
"Lock the property down," Edgar ordered, his voice devoid of the grief that a normal man might feel, replaced entirely by cold fury. "Extract the bodies. Burn the rest of the house to the foundation. Tell the press it was a tragic gas leak. I want nothing left."
"Understood, Mr. Edgar."
Edgar lowered the receiver, placing it gently back on its cradle. He closed his eyes and took a slow breath through his nose.
General Raddock.
This was no longer corporate espionage.
Before he could open his eyes, the red phone rang again.
Edgar stared at it. He picked it up. "Yes."
"Mr. Edgar, this is Site Command at the Maryland Agricultural Research Facility," a different voice barked, background alarms blaring loudly through the connection. "Sir, we have a total containment breach! The facility is on fire!"
"Calm yourself," Edgar commanded, his voice slicing through the man’s panic. "Give me a status report. The test subjects?"
"Dead, sir!" the man coughed, the sound of smoke evident in his lungs. "All the mammalian and avian subjects have been slaughtered in their pens! The scientists in the control room... they just butchered each other!"
Edgar’s eyes narrowed. Telepathy.
"The servers?" Edgar asked.
"Literally missing from the racks! And the thermite... sir, the structural integrity of the bunker is failing, we have to... "
"Evacuate," Edgar said and hung up the phone.
He didn’t have time to process the loss of the animal testing lab. The phone rang for a third time, a continuous ring that echoed off the mahogany walls.
Edgar picked it up, pressing it hard against his ear.
"Stan! It’s Indira."
Indira Shetty’s voice was frantic, bordering on hysterical. The Dean of Godolkin University was a woman composed of steel and ambition, but right now, she sounded like a terrified child.
"Stan, it’s The Woods," Shetty gasped. "The security feeds just cut out. I tried to call down, but no one is answering. And smoke... Stan, there’s smoke coming up through the primary ventilation shafts on the campus lawn."
Edgar stood up from his desk. The facade of the untouchable corporate monarch was fracturing under the weight of three simultaneous massacres.
"Dean Shetty," Edgar said, his voice tightening. "Listen to me very carefully. You will trigger the campus wide emergency lockdown. You will tell the students and the media that there is a localized chemical spill in the maintenance tunnels. You will deploy the campus security to keep everyone away from the ventilation shafts."
"But Cardosa’s virus research!" Shetty cried. "We were so close, Stan! The contagion variations... "
"Are gone, Indira," Edgar said coldly. "Consider the subjects dead and the research stolen. Secure the surface. Do not let the public know what was burning beneath their children’s feet."
He slammed the phone down.
For five seconds, Stan Edgar stood behind his desk, his hands resting flat on the glass surface. He breathed in, out. In, out.
Edgar straightened his suit jacket, adjusted his cuffs and walked toward the door.
He took the private elevator down to the sub basement levels. The doors parted to reveal the Intelligence Room.
The cavernous space was bathed in flashing red emergency lights. Analysts were sprinting between consoles, shouting into headsets.
Graves stood at the center command table, his face illuminated by the massive digital map of the Eastern Seaboard.
Three pulsing red icons blazed on the map: one in D.C., one in Maryland, one under Godolkin University.
"Mr. Edgar," Graves said, turning as the CEO approached. Graves looked completely unraveled, his professional demeanor shattered by the sheer impossibility of the coordinated attacks. "Sir, it’s a synchronized triple strike. We are tracking massive data loss, total personnel casualties and thermal blooms consistent with... "
"I know what they are consistent with, Graves," Edgar snapped, his voice slicing through the chaotic noise of the room. The analysts closest to him flinched at the harsh tone. "Show me the satellite feeds. You have the ARGUS grid access from Spencer Industries. Tell me you caught them."
Graves swallowed hard and nodded to a technician. "Bring up the orbital thermal feeds. Timestamp 0200 to present. Sync with the Maryland and Godolkin coordinates."
The main screen shifted. The map replaced by two side by side video feeds. They were high resolution thermal images, peering through the roofs of the respective facilities.
"This is Maryland, twenty minutes ago," Graves pointed to the left screen.
Edgar watched as five bright thermal silhouettes materialized out of thin air inside the bunker.
They moved with terrifying speed. He watched the heat signatures of the scientists in the control room turn on each other, hacking themselves to pieces while the five intruders moved through the animal pens.
He watched the heavy equipment simply vanish from the thermal spectrum.
"And here," Graves pointed to the right screen, "Godolkin University. Timestamp matches the extraction from Maryland perfectly. They teleported from one facility directly into the next."
Edgar watched the five figures materialize in the Godolkin security hub. He saw the guards draw their weapons and shoot themselves.
He watched the figures fan out down the cell block, systematically extinguishing the heat signatures of every young Supe trapped inside.
"Isolate the thermal profiles," Edgar commanded, his hands gripping the edge of the console. "Peel back the armor. Show me the faces."
