Chapter 18 - A Father's Rage-18
We crashed heavily onto the cold, metal-grated floor of the server bay, tumbling between two roaring racks of processors. The industrial electromagnet flew from Marcus’s hand, skittering across the floor and slamming against the base of a structural pillar, its high-intensity field hummed weakly before its internal battery shorted out against the metal.
Marcus fought with the desperate, feral strength of a man facing a lifetime in a maximum-security prison. He slammed his fist into my face, catching me squarely on the jaw. The world went dizzy for a second, the metallic taste of blood filling my mouth, but I didn't let go.
I wrapped my uninjured right arm around his neck, choking off his air supply, while using my plaster-cast left arm as a heavy, blunt weapon, slamming it down into his chest with all my remaining weight.
"You took her peace!" I roared, my voice raw, tears of pure, unadulterated fury blinding my eyes. "You let that monster into our home! You let her lock my daughter in the dark! You let her burn her hands!"
"Arthur... please..." Marcus wheezed, his face turning a deep, suffocating purple as my forearm crushed his windpipe. His hands clawed weakly at my arms, his strength rapidly fading under the weight of my absolute, primal rage.
I raised my cast again, preparing to slam it down into his face, to break him the way he had allowed my family to be broken. I wanted to kill him. In that dark, frozen server room, surrounded by the flashing blue lights of my ruined corporate empire, I wanted to tear his life away with my bare hands.
"Arthur! Stop! Look at the monitor!" Agent Vance’s voice cut through the madness like a bucket of ice water.
I froze, my cast suspended in the air, my breath coming in ragged, animalistic gasps. I looked up over Marcus’s shoulder toward the administrative console.
The progress bar had stopped at 19.8%.
Sitting at the keyboard, her fingers moving with lightning-fast, clinical precision, was a young woman in a grey hoodie whom I hadn't seen enter the room. Behind her stood two tactical officers, their weapons covering the secondary exits.
"The cyber unit managed to deploy a hardware interrupt signal through the local maintenance bus," Agent Vance explained, her voice trembling slightly as she stepped forward and placed a gentle, grounding hand on my shoulder. "The wipe script has been frozen, Arthur. The server core is safe. The evidence is preserved. Marcus can’t hide anymore."
Slowly, deliberately, I released my grip on Marcus’s throat. He slumped onto the floor, coughing violently, drawing in huge, desperate lungfuls of air as he curled into a pathetic, shivering ball on the cold metal grating.
I stood up, my body shaking so violently I had to lean against a server rack for support. I looked down at the man who had been my best friend, feeling nothing but a profound, hollow pity.
"Take him away," Agent Vance ordered the tactical officers.
They stepped forward, hauling Marcus to his feet and snapping heavy steel handcuffs around his wrists. He didn't look at me as they dragged him down the aisle. He kept his head bowed, his tears dripping onto his ruined charcoal suit, his shoulders slumping under the weight of an inescapable doom.
Agent Vance turned to me, her expression softening into a look of deep, professional relief. "We got them both, Arthur. Rachel Lawson and Marcus Vance. The network is smashed. The assets are secured. It’s over."
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I looked at the blinking blue lights of the servers, then down at my broken plaster cast.
"It’s not over," I whispered, a tear cutting a clean line through the soot on my cheek. "Now I have to go back to the hospital. Now I have to look my daughter in the eye... and try to become a father again."
