Chapter 13 - Breached Perimeters
The heavy rain beating against the high glass windows of Sloan’s condominium felt like a fortress under siege. Ever since the black SUV had appeared outside Kieran’s office, Sloan had refused to let Veta leave the residential floor without two bonded private security guards.
At 2:15 AM, the storm worsened, wind rattling the heavy steel terrace frames.
Sloan was jolted awake not by thunder, but by an unnatural, sharp metallic chime from the security console near her bed.
*Perimeter Alert: Balcony Sensor 3 Tripped.*
Sloan threw off the covers, her pulse thumping wildly in her temples. She grabbed the high-intensity flashlight and the tactical baton kept beside her nightstand, moving down the hallway like a shadow.
First check: Veta's room.
She opened the door silently. Veta was fast asleep under the heavy duvet, her breathing steady, the blue diagnostic LEDs on her life-support unit bathing the room in a gentle, reassuring light. Sloan locked Veta's door from the outside with her biometric thumbprint key, ensuring the reinforced panic-bolts slammed home.
Sloan crept into the living room. The terrace doors overlooked the city skyline, but beyond the glass, hovering through the pouring rain, was not a human intruder.
It was an industrial-grade surveillance drone, its carbon-fiber rotors whirring almost silently against the wind. Mounted beneath its belly was an ultra-high-definition zoom lens pointed straight through the floor-to-ceiling glass—aimed directly into the alcove where Veta’s backup ventilator, oxygen regulators, and telemetry equipment were charging on their secure dock.
A red infrared laser dot danced over the digital calibration screen of the medical equipment.
"Get away from there!" Sloan shouted, surging forward and hitting the emergency blackout blinds switch.
Heavy motor-driven aluminum security shutters began rolling down across the expanse of glass. Before they completely sealed the terrace, the drone dipped suddenly, its landing skids slamming hard against the double-paned storm glass with an intentional, violent *crack*.
A spiderweb fracture appeared on the outer pane before the steel shutters locked into the bottom sill with a deafening metallic clank.
The apartment lights suddenly went out.
"Mom?!" Veta’s terrified voice came through the encrypted intercom system in the master hallway. "Mom, the power grid just dropped! My primary battery switched over, but the diagnostic telemetry lost its server uplink!"
"I'm here, baby! Stay inside the panic room!" Sloan yelled, sprinting down the corridor with her flashlight blazing.
The condominium's secondary emergency generator failed to kick in. The building’s power had not merely flickered; the local breaker for their private penthouse floor had been manually bypassed from the service stairwell.
Sloan reached the master panel by the front door. The heavy deadbolts were intact, but when she checked the external hallway camera feed on her battery-operated tablet, she saw a hooded figure dressed in high-visibility technician overalls kneeling at the utility junction box in the corridor.
He was holding a signal jammer in one hand and an industrial diagnostics scanner in the other, tapping into the fiber-optic line that transmitted Veta's real-time pulmonary data to the pediatric ICU at Children’s Mercy.
They weren't trying to break in with crowbars this time. They were harvesting the proprietary digital architecture of Veta's medical telemetry—or trying to scramble it remotely.
Sloan didn't hesitate. She slammed the red panic alarm on the wall, triggering an ear-splitting, 120-decibel klaxon that echoed down the entire concrete corridor and alerted the building’s armed night patrol downstairs.
Through the camera feed, the technician cursed, ripped his cables from the wall, and vanished down the fire stairs just as the elevator pinged and two private security guards burst out with their sidearms drawn.
Sloan slumped against the steel door, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
From inside the locked bedroom, the steady *hiss-click-hiss* of Veta’s unit continued, unyielding in the dark.
May you like
"Mom?" Veta called through the panel, her voice shaky.
"They're gone, sweetie," Sloan whispered, fighting back tears of cold rage as she pressed her forehead against the cool wood. "They're gone. But this isn't over. They're coming after the code inside your lungs now."
