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 117 / 130

Chapter 117 - The Architect’s Table

At the end of the long corridor of suspended bodies lay a vast, circular chamber that looked less like a laboratory and more like a private Victorian gentlemen’s club incongruously dropped into a nuclear bunker. Mahogany bookshelves lined the titanium walls, Persian rugs muffled their footsteps, and at the far end of the room, a roaring fire burned within a stone hearth.

Seated at a large walnut desk beneath the portrait of an Edwardian patriarch was a man in his late sixties. He wore an immaculate bespoke three-piece Savile Row suit. A silver pocket watch chain looped across his vest. He was sipping black tea from a bone-china cup.

"Unit 09," Archibald Vance said, setting the teacup down without a rattle. "Or do you prefer Naomi now? A charming name. Very domestic. Very pedestrian."

Naomi raised her carbine, the red dot of the optical sight painting the center of Vance’s forehead. "Hands where I can see them, Archibald."

Vance did not raise his hands. He merely smiled—a thin, reedy expression that held no fear whatsoever.

"You always were the most feral of the clutch," Vance murmured, leaning back into his leather armchair. "The others in Svalbard and Geneva developed subservience loops quite naturally. But you... you had that irritating spark of Sterling obstinacy. I suppose Arthur’s genetic contributions were always difficult to tame."

Vanessa froze. "What did you say?"

Vance turned his gaze toward Vanessa, his eyes scanning her like an appraiser looking at cheap porcelain. "Oh, did Arthur not tell you, little heiress? Naomi isn't just an asset purchased on the black market. Her biological base was derived from your grandfather’s sister, Eleanor Sterling. She is your grand-aunt’s clone, Vanessa. You share twenty-two percent of your non-modified DNA with the maid who poured your morning coffee."

The room spun around Vanessa. She looked at Naomi—the sharp contours of her profile, the posture that carried an unmistakable aristocratic grace beneath the lethality. The maid wasn't just a guard. She was family, twisted by science into a weapon.

"It doesn't change anything," Naomi said, her finger tightening on the trigger. "You’re fifty years behind your expiration date, Vance. Call off the New York activation wave. Disconnect the neural carriers."

"I’m afraid that is quite impossible," Vance sighed, reaching into his vest.

Naomi fired.