Chapter 7 - The Brother-in-Law
The apartment smelled of stale coffee, burnt toast, and ozone.
Ethan stood in the center of his messy living room, wearing a gray hoodie, staring at the blueprints laid out across his dining table. Monitors lined his desk, flickering with lines of green code and digital schematics.
Dr. Vance sat in a corner chair, nursing a bruised shoulder, shivering quietly.
“You’re insane, Mark,” Ethan said, running his hands through his unkempt hair. He looked from me to the silver Vanguard keycard resting on the table. “You want me to help you infiltrate a Level-4 bio-tech facility in downtown Chicago? Do you know what happens if I violate my federal probation? I go back to Leavenworth for ten years!”
“Your sister is dying, Ethan,” I said flatly.
I didn't raise my voice. I didn't plead. I just looked him dead in the eye.
“Sarah has three days left to live. The drug keeping her alive is locked inside that building. I am going in there tonight. I can do it with your help, or I can do it alone and get caught in the lobby. But either way, I am going.”
Ethan looked at the blueprint folder, then at a photo of Sarah and Maya sitting on his bookshelf. He let out a long, ragged breath, slamming his fist down onto the wooden table.
“Damn it, Mark!” he cursed. “Damn it!”
He pulled a high-powered laptop toward himself, plugging in the encrypted drive from the Curator’s briefcase. His fingers began flying across the mechanical keyboard at incredible speed.
“Okay,” Ethan muttered, his eyes reflected in the blue light of the screen. “Let’s see what this Curator gave us.”
A minute later, a 3D architectural render of Vanguard Biopharmaceuticals popped up on the monitor.
“Vanguard’s main facility is thirty stories tall,” Ethan explained, pointing at the screen. “The administrative offices are on floors one through twenty. The research labs are on twenty-one through twenty-nine. But the vault—Sub-Level 4—isn't even on the official city building plans.”
“How do we get down there?” I asked.
“The keycard Vance’s contact gave you belongs to a senior facility engineer named Dr. Gregory Vance—wait.” Ethan paused, turning his head sharply toward Dr. Vance sitting in the corner. “Vance? This keycard has your name on it.”
Dr. Vance looked up, pale. “That’s impossible. My clearance was revoked three years ago!”
“Well, someone inside Vanguard never deleted your digital fingerprint from the legacy server,” Ethan said, clicking rapidly through lines of code. “Your card is still active. But it only gets you through the maintenance elevators.”
Ethan zoomed in on Sub-Level 4.
“Listen to me very carefully, Mark,” Ethan said, turning the screen toward me. “Sub-Level 4 is sealed by an air-gapped security system. That means I can't hack it remotely from here. Once you get past the basement maintenance door, you are completely on your own.”
“What’s inside the vault security hub?”
“A dual-key verification console,” Ethan said grimly. “To open the cold-storage vault where the AP-9 stabilizer is kept, two separate keycards must be swiped simultaneously within three seconds of each other.”
I frowned. “I only have one keycard.”
“Which means,” Ethan said, looking me dead in the eye, “the Curator isn't just waiting for you to deliver the drug. The Curator is already inside the building. He has the second keycard. He needs you to swipe Vance’s legacy card because his own access level isn't high enough to unlock the vault alone!”
The final piece of the puzzle snapped violently into place.
The Curator hadn't framed me just to have a fall guy.
He needed Vance’s legacy clearance—which was tied to Vance’s original research protocols—combined with his own internal executive access to bypass the vault’s fail-safe locks. But Vance was a disgraced ex-employee who would be stopped by security at the front door.
He needed a ghost. An invisible civilian who could carry Vance’s card inside while the Curator controlled the security feeds from the inside.
Me.
“He set this up from the very beginning,” I whispered, cold rage flooding my veins. “He picked Sarah because of her illness, drugged me to keep me quiet, and manipulated us into a position where I would have no choice but to commit a federal crime for him.”
“If you go in there, Mark,” Ethan warned softly, “the moment that vault opens, he doesn't need you anymore. He will take the cure, leave you in the vault, and trigger the silent alarm. You’ll be caught red-handed with stolen bioweapons while he walks out the front door a billionaire.”
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I looked at my watch. 2:14 AM.
“Then we change the plan,” I said.
