Three hundred wealthy guests watched a maid stop Vanessa’s attack with one hand, never realizing the woman in the gray uniform had once been trained to dismantle dangerous threats. / Chapter 116 / 130

Chapter 116 - The Vaults of Wall Street

Leaving the armored carrier hidden inside an underground parking ramp on Fulton Street, Naomi and Vanessa moved on foot through the drowned canyons of the Financial District. The rain fell in sheets, washing debris into the clogged storm drains. The silent, standing civilians paid them no heed; they remained stationary, like grotesque garden statues awaiting a master signal.

At the intersection of Wall Street and Broad Street, Naomi approached an unmarked bronze maintenance door set into the foundation of a neoclassical granite bank.

She bypassed the electronic pad by tearing off the outer casing and manually crossing the fiber-optic jumpers. The heavy door clicked open with a hydraulic sigh, releasing a blast of refrigerated, chemical-scented air.

They descended into darkness.

Three levels below the street, the damp, crumbling masonry of the city gave way to sleek, pristine walls of brushed titanium and frosted reinforced glass. Emergency backup generators hummed here with absolute regularity. The floors were spotless white tile, unmarred by the decay above.

"Generation Nine facility," Naomi whispered, her weapon held at low-ready. "Sector Alpha-Zero."

Vanessa followed close behind, holding a tactical flashlight Naomi had handed her. As the beam swept across the frosted glass partitions lining the corridor, Vanessa gasped and stepped back, nearly losing her footing.

Behind the glass, suspended in massive cylindrical tanks of amber fluid, were human figures.

Dozens of them.

Each one was female. Each one had the exact same facial structure, the same sharp jawline, the same raven hair, and the same lean, hyper-conditioned musculature.

They were copies of Naomi.

"God in heaven..." Vanessa choked back bile, covering her mouth with a trembling hand. "Naomi... they're you."

Naomi didn't look at the tanks. Her eyes remained fixed down the long, sterile corridor. "They aren't me," she said, her voice dropping to a harsh, gravelly whisper. "They were prototypes. Generations Five through Eight. Most of them died of catastrophic cellular degradation before their fourteenth year. I was the only subject from the Philadelphia clutch whose immune system synthesized the synthetic compound without organ failure."

"They grew you in a tube?"

"They built us to be the ultimate personal retainers," Naomi said coldly. "Guards who could live among the high aristocracy unnoticed. Maids who could serve tea with absolute grace, catch an assassin's bullet mid-air, and eliminate an entire strike team before the teacup hit the floor. We were domestic appliances with a lethal trigger."

"And Arthur knew this all along," Vanessa whispered. "He brought you to Whitmore House not to protect our family... but to monitor you."