Ch.28: The Leak

The list on the screen was a death warrant. I felt the bile rising, a hot, bitter flood that tasted of copper and betrayal.

"We need this out," I said, my voice shaking. "Now. Before he realizes the card is gone."

Leo didn't waste time with words. He pulled a portable drive from his pocket—one he’d clearly been keeping for a moment just like this—and jammed it into the terminal. He clicked the 'Select All' function on the golden *DISTRIBUTION* folder and dragged it toward the upload icon.

"I’m initiating a cloud dump," Leo whispered, his eyes fixed on the progress bar. "I’ve got a secure drop-box rigged. Once it hits the server, a dozen journalists get the link simultaneously. He won't be able to kill the story fast enough."

The bar began to crawl. 10%... 15%... 22%...

The hum of the servers seemed to grow louder, a hungry, electrical drone that vibrated through the soles of my shoes. I kept glancing at the heavy steel door, expecting it to burst open at any second.

"Come on," I urged. "Faster."

"It's a lot of data, Elena. Encrypted video logs, financial statements, retinal scans—"

Suddenly, the progress bar turned a violent, flashing red.

*ERROR: UPLOAD INTERRUPTED. FIREWALL BREACH DETECTED.*

Leo’s fingers flew across the keyboard, sweat dripping from his chin onto the glowing keys. "No, no, no. He's blocking the outbound traffic. He’s rerouting the signal back to an internal loop."

"Can you bypass it?"

"I’m trying, but the network is—"

The screen didn't just freeze. It died. The rows of data vanished, replaced by a single, high-definition image of Dr. Julian Thorne. He was back in his study, the celebratory gala noise now a muffled, ghostly echo behind him. He looked disappointed, like a father catching a child with their hand in the jar.

"I expected more from you, Leo," Thorne’s voice crackled through the server room's emergency speakers. "And Elena... I truly thought the threat to your daughter would keep you on a shorter leash."

"The world is going to see this, Julian!" I screamed at the monitor. "We have the names! We have the dead subjects!"

"You have nothing," Thorne said, his voice as cold as the air in the room. "The internal network is a closed system. Nothing leaves this basement unless I allow it. And as for the silver card... Isabella has always been a sentimental fool. I knew she’d give it to you eventually."

He leaned forward, his face filling the screen.

"Nice try. But you’ve forgotten the most basic rule of a clean room, Nurse Vance."

A heavy, metallic *clunk* echoed through the chamber. The steel door didn't just lock; a secondary set of bolts slammed home.

"Airflow is a privilege," Thorne whispered.

A sharp, hissing sound erupted from the ceiling vents. A thick, sweet-smelling white vapor began to pour into the room, swirling around the black server towers like a hungry fog. My head immediately began to swim, the world tilting as my lungs burned with the first breath of the sedative.

We are locked in the server room. And the gas is starting to hiss from the vents.