Chapter 59 - The Iron Descent
Claire spun around, her combat senses instantly screaming a warning.
Hayes was not looking at Claire; he was looking down at a small digital transmitter strapped to his left forearm.
A tiny green LED light on the device was pulsing steadily, synchronized with the beeping monitor on Richard Vance's life-support console.
"What did you do to him?" Claire demanded, stepping between Hayes and her father's pod.
"When I placed Richard in that tank," Hayes whispered, blood bubbling at the corner of his lips, "I implanted a micro-neurotoxin capsule into his carotid sheath."
Julian rushed to the life-support display, his eyes scanning the biometric readout.
"He's telling the truth," Julian said, his voice dropping into utter despair. "There's an active localized telemetry link between Hayes's wristband and the pod."
"The capsule is linked to my heartbeat," Hayes smiled, a hideous, triumphant smirk spreading across his battered face. "If you kill me, the transmitter flatlines, the capsule dissolves, and your father dies in sixty seconds."
Thomas aimed his pistol directly between Hayes’s eyes, his finger trembling with absolute rage.
"You cowardly son of a bitch," Thomas growled.
"Don't shoot, Thomas!" Claire ordered sharply, her voice cutting through the panic.
Hayes slowly pushed himself up to a seated position, leaning his back against the railing.
"The medical override is in the command center of my extraction shuttle," Hayes said, gesturing toward the private rail platform fifty yards down the tunnel.
"Then you're going to walk us there, and you're going to disable it," Claire said, stepping forward to haul Hayes to his feet.
"I don't think so, Commander," Hayes whispered.
Suddenly, a massive section of the ceiling collapsed onto the lower catwalk, severing the primary power cables.
The platform plunged into total darkness for two agonizing seconds before the emergency battery lights flickered on.
In those two seconds of confusion, Hayes lunged backward over the railing, dropping ten feet onto the roof of an auxiliary transformer.
"Hayes!" Claire yelled, diving toward the edge.
Hayes rolled off the transformer onto the lower rail bed, sprinting toward the idling private shuttle with shocking speed.
"He's getting to the train!" Julian yelled.
"Thomas, stay with my father!" Claire ordered, unholstering her sidearm as she vaulted the railing.
"Claire, wait!" Thomas called out, but she was already airborne.
She hit the ground into a combat roll, popping up instantly into a dead sprint along the gravel-strewn railroad ties.
Ahead of her, Hayes scrambled through the hydraulic doors of the armored rail car.
The heavy steel doors began to hiss shut as the electric engines of the shuttle whined to life, sparking violently against the third rail.
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Claire pushed her legs to their absolute physical limit, closing the distance as the train began to roll forward along the dark tunnel.
She leaped forward, her fingertips barely catching the exterior ladder of the departing train as it accelerated into the black abyss of the mountain.
