The crimson strobe lights threw wild, bleeding shadows across the narrow high walkway as the digital countdown on the master console ticked downward: 01:42... 01:41... 01:40...
Chief Biomancer Krell stood five paces from the console, his trembling thumb resting on the red toggle of his chemical detonator. His face was soaked in sweat, his breath coming in ragged wheezes through his brass filter mask. “Don’t test me, Vance! I built this work-yard! I’ll burn every embryo to ash before I let your butchers drag me to a trial!”
Arthur kept his ARC-7 Mag-Carbine lowered at a steady forty-five-degree angle. He didn’t yell, and he didn’t rush forward. He took one measured step, his boots clicking firmly on the steel grating.
“You won’t press it, Krell,” Arthur said, his voice flat, analytical, and devoid of fear.
“You think I’m bluffing?!” Krell screamed, his knuckle whitening on the trigger.
“I know your psychological profile,” Arthur replied, his Monocle Loupe humming as it tracked the micro-tremors in Krell’s main neck blood vessel and the rapid dilation of his pupils. “You spent twenty years in the Federal Bio-Genetics Board embezzling research grants before you defected to the Order. Men who steal from research budgets are cowards who value their own comfort above everything else. You don’t want to die for Father Genesis. You want a plea bargain.”
