Read Chapter 20: Last Negotiation

Elias stood on the maintenance catwalk, the vault anteroom door humming below him in the dim emergency light. His pistol sat cold against his ribs. Visser's deadline was seventeen hours away now, and the corridors were filling with whispers.

The delegation came at him through a service hatch—three consortium members in pressed suits that looked absurd this far down, their faces flushed with anger rather than fear. Dürr led them. The man who had sold his seat. Elias forced himself to look at Dürr's chin, not his eyes.

"Your demands are unreasonable," Dürr said, stopping at the bottom of the grated steps. "You want us to open the vault to rabble."

Elias descended until he stood at eye level with the man. The others drifted into the anteroom behind them, taking positions with practiced, territorial ease. Two large security escorts remained at the hatch, visibly armed.

"I want the purge codes suspended," Elias said. "Eight hundred people below Level Four are hours from being gassed to death because you'd rather keep your wine cellars stocked."

"Those people cannot live up here," Dürr said. "You know that. The life support systems are calibrated for our population. Your own engineering logs show it."

"My logs show the reverse. The consortium had the capacity deliberately underreported by two hundred thirty-six berths at launch. I've seen the original specifications."

A murmur passed through the elite. Dürr's jaw tightened, confirming what Elias already knew. One of the others, a woman with silver hair and a fur collar, stepped forward.

"We haven't been introduced. Ingrid Baumgartner. I understand you were a rescuer, once." She offered a thin smile. "You know how triage works. The weak fall to save the strong."

"I know how murder works," Elias said. "They're not weak. They're just not you."

Petra appeared at the corridor entrance behind him, a rifle slung across her back. Mara stood a few paces behind her with the resistance's chemical engineer, both of them watching the security escorts with sharp, hunting eyes.

"Moreau's deflection pod can still function," Petra said to Baumgartner. "I've reviewed the schematics. The navigation thrusters on Levels One through Four have enough propellant to alter the asteroid's course by a measurable fraction. A kilometer at that distance becomes thousands by interception point."

"Dr. Moreau's proposal was a fantasy funded by failed academics," Dürr said. "The consortium chose the orbital extraction as our primary plan and this bunker as our hedge. There is no viable third option."

"And if the extraction fails?" Mara asked. "You're choosing to kill eight hundred people today based on a gamble that your rockets will work tomorrow."

The room went silent. Elias watched Kruger enter from the far door, his security chief's posture rigid, blue eyes scanning the tension before settling on him. The man's face gave away nothing. Their handshake alliance was eighteen hours old and already fragile.

Baumgartner broke the silence. "The vault holds half a billion in assets. Art. Gold. Isotopes that could power research for decades." She looked Elias over. "You want access. We need a sign of good faith before we authorize anything."

"What good faith?" Elias asked.

"A sacrifice." Dürr finally looked at him. "One of the condemned. Someone from your group. To show you understand the cost of survival just as we do."

Elias felt Mara tense behind him. He kept his voice level.

"Which of mine would you like? I'll check their necks for a good angle."

"Elias," Mara breathed.

"Your insecurity is showing," Elias continued, stepping closer to Dürr. "You saw what happened to people in my profession. You know what triage actually does. It sacrifices who it can save, not who it can avoid looking at."

Kruger moved between them. "Enough." He turned to Dürr. "The engineer's terms are not unreasonable. You're not giving them a seat at your table. You're giving them a floor below it."

Dürr's eyes flickered with something Elias couldn't read. "And the inventory?"

"The vault's contents get sealed under joint watch," Elias said. "You get documented access. The group gets oversight. When the asteroid passes and the orbit recalibrates, the consortium gets its assets back for future operations."

"In writing?"

"I've got a better guarantee." Elias pulled the deactivation code Roth had given him from his jacket—a single sheet, laminated, printed with cipher strings. He showed it to Dürr, then to Kruger, then held it to the side of the maintenance torch closest to him. The flame curled upward, close enough to make the paper smoke.

"If the purge goes live at any point between now and the extraction deadline, I broadcast this code and the AI's targeting algorithm disarms. That includes your automatic defenses from Level One down."

"You'd have the bunker defenseless against an asteroid impact with no functioning strategic control, Dürr," Kruger said. The delivery was steady. Elias couldn't tell if it was support or threat.

"I'd have us all defenseless," Elias said. "But not dead by your hand. That's the difference between you and me. My bluff dies alone."

Baumgartner glanced at Dürr. Something passed between them. She turned and walked out without another word. Dürr lingered, then followed, his escorts trailing like a school of fish released from tension.

Kruger waited for the door to close. Then he looked at Elias. The scrutiny was cool, appraising.

"You'd better hope that code works," Kruger said. "They'll test it. They'll have someone verifying within the hour. If it doesn't do what you claim, there will be no second negotiation."

"It works," Elias said.

Kruger nodded once and left through the same door.

Mara crossed the space to him. "What just happened?"

"I bought us time to reach Level Nine." He folded the laminated sheet and slid it back into his jacket. "But I need to check something. Roth said it protects against the AI's targeting. What he didn't say was whether it works against the manual purge sequences."

Mara's face hardened. "You gave them a code you haven't tested."

"I gave them a code I *will* test." He started walking toward the maintenance corridor that led to the old substation. "I have the red key. The AI is listening; we can't discuss further here." He looked back at Petra. "Get the group ready to move. If they call the bluff, we won't have time to reach Level Nine through the front doors."

As Petra turned and headed toward Level Eight's ventilation junction, Elias's radio crackled. Roth's voice, tight and near-silent:

"The woman with silver hair, Baumgartner? She just made three calls from Dürr's private terminal. First to consortium legal. Second to a number registered to Zermatt. Third to a satellite uplink that hasn't been used since the bunker opened."

"Which satellite?"

"Industrial. Orbital extraction consortium."

Elias stopped walking. The orbit plan. The extraction. If Baumgartner was calling the extraction network from inside the bunker—

"They have a window before impact," Roth finished. "They might be leaving early. Tonight."