Chapter 1 - The Countdown Begins
The homeless man stared urgently at the scanner in his calloused hands.
The digital numbers on the small screen were rapidly counting down from ten minutes.
My daughter Sophie writhed in my arms, her agonizing screams piercing the silence of the upscale restaurant.
I looked up toward the private balcony where my supposedly dead mother had just stood.
The glass partition was completely empty, and the velvet curtains fluttered in the cold night breeze.
She had vanished like a ghost, leaving only her terrifying demand echoing in my mind.
She wanted the final will of my late wife, Rebecca.
Camille was still sobbing on the floor, surrounded by shocked waiters and wealthy patrons.
I grabbed my sister-in-law by the collar of her expensive designer dress and hauled her to her feet.
I demanded to know exactly how my own mother was still alive and controlling a device inside my child.
Camille choked back a sob and refused to meet my furious gaze.
She whispered that the funeral was a complete sham designed to fool the federal authorities.
My mother had used the fake death to escape massive embezzlement charges and secretly run her syndicate from the shadows.
The homeless stranger suddenly grabbed my shoulder with surprising strength.
He warned me that we had exactly nine minutes left before the micro-explosive charge in the implant severed Sophie's spinal cord permanently.
I asked him who he was and how he knew so much about this highly classified neuro-technology.
He wiped a layer of dirt from his face, revealing a distinct military tattoo on his neck.
His name was Elias, and he was not actually a homeless man begging for loose change.
He was a former black-market bio-engineer who had been hunting my mother for three years.
Elias pulled a specialized hacking tablet from his torn coat and plugged it into a nearby wall outlet.
He frantically typed lines of complex code, desperately trying to jam the localized signal.
Sophie cried out again, clutching her lower back as a burning red light pulsed beneath her skin.
I held her tightly, promising her that I would never let anyone hurt her again.
Elias cursed loudly and slammed his fist against the restaurant wall.
He announced that my mother's encrypted signal was too strong to be hacked from this distance.
We had to retrieve Rebecca's will and trade it for the master remote before the timer hit zero.
I yelled at Camille, demanding to know where my mother was hiding.
Camille looked at me with a terrifying mixture of pity and sheer terror.
She opened her mouth to speak, but a deafening crack shattered the restaurant window.
A high-caliber sniper bullet tore through the glass and struck Camille directly in the chest.
I watched in absolute horror as my sister-in-law collapsed onto the broken glass.
Blood pooled rapidly on the polished hardwood floor, staining her white dress a brilliant crimson.
The restaurant erupted into total chaos as patrons screamed and scrambled for the exits.
Elias tackled me to the ground, shielding Sophie beneath our combined weight.
He warned me that the sniper was still actively painting the room with a laser sight.
We were completely pinned down, and the timer on his scanner just dropped to eight minutes.
I realized with cold clarity that my mother was willing to execute her own family members to get what she wanted.
Elias pulled a smoke grenade from his ragged coat and pulled the safety pin.
He tossed it into the center of the dining room, filling the space with thick gray smoke.
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We had to move right now, or we were all going to die on this restaurant floor.
But as I lifted Sophie into my arms, I noticed a glowing red dot resting directly on Elias's forehead.
