Chapter 8 - The Fingerprint Heist.
The morning sun rose, signaling the final, most terrifying day of Clara's highly publicized criminal trial.
If she failed to appear in court, her bail would be instantly revoked, and she would be labeled a fugitive.
She walked through the heavy wooden doors of the courtroom, her expression an unreadable mask of cold determination.
Marcus followed quietly behind her, perfectly disguised in a tailored suit and thick glasses as a newly assigned court stenographer.
Arthur sat at the prosecution table, smiling smugly as he prepared to watch Clara's entire life burn to the ground.
The judge struck his gavel and asked if the defense had any final motions before closing arguments began.
Clara stood up and confidently approached the prosecution table to hand Arthur a standard piece of legal paperwork.
She had coated the thick paper in a highly specialized, invisible chemical film designed to perfectly capture biometric data.
Arthur scoffed, snatching the paper aggressively from her hand and pressing his thumb firmly onto the surface.
He glanced at the document, realized it was completely blank, and threw it back onto Clara's desk in disgust.
Clara seamlessly slid the tainted paper off the edge of the desk into Marcus's waiting hands.
Marcus quickly ran the paper through a tiny, concealed portable scanner hidden inside his stenographer machine.
The small screen blinked green, indicating that Arthur's fingerprint had been successfully extracted and digitized.
Marcus quietly initiated the wireless unlock sequence for the encrypted hard drive hidden in his briefcase.
Just as the progress bar hit ninety-nine percent, the heavy courtroom doors swung open with a violent crash.
Two massive, heavily armed federal marshals marched straight down the center aisle.
They completely ignored Clara and Arthur, walking directly up to the stenographer's desk.
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They grabbed Marcus violently by the shoulders and wrenched his hands away from the scanning machine.
They loudly announced that Marcus was under arrest for federal espionage, severely disrupting the final file transfer.
