Chapter 9: The Worm in the Barcode

Emily lay on her back on the titanium floor of the Wall Street vault, the sound of a Christian Louboutin heel snapping like a bullet shattering crystal. Victor's Tesla coils burned charred Fibonacci spirals into her skin, but the real killer was the scalding barcode at her collarbone-the string of death codes tattooed by the Blackstone Group's Chief Scientist himself, which was now writhing like a living snake in the subcutaneous tissue.

"Have you ever heard of the Queen Bee effect?" She coughed up blood froth with chip fragments as the onyx necklace's bone conduction device sent sound waves directly into Victor's temporal bone, "When the hive is on the verge of destruction, the queen releases pheromones that cause the worker bees to kill each other..." Her fingertips dig into the burned flesh, forcing the barcode to the laser scanner hidden in the ceiling.

Three hundred meters below the Pentagon, twenty-seven titanium canisters simultaneously glowed blue. These nerve gas devices, buried in 1987 under the name "Water Main Repair Project," still bore the EPA's green certification mark on their surface. With Emily's DNA verified, the frozen VX agent begins to bind to the genetically-targeted virus, and the pipeline leads to the central air conditioning vents on Capitol Hill.

First wave of harvest (09:47AM)

Senate Majority Leader Richard Hall is enjoying a low-cause coffee when the lipstick left on the rim of his cup suddenly turns dark green. His fingers stiffen the instant he's about to press the nuclear button briefing, and his pupils dilate into two black holes - poisonous gas has invaded his anti-aging mask via the spa's aroma diffusion system, and a genetic virus has attacked the chromosomal telomerase coding region with pinpoint accuracy.

Nine minutes later, seventeen dignitaries registered with the DNA bank collapsed simultaneously. Their death gestures were captured by the Blackstone Group's satellites, automatically generating NFT digital tombstones to be auctioned on the dark web. Bidding prices pulsate on Emily's tattered retina, with a certain Middle Eastern prince bidding 900 bitcoins for a video of the Energy Commission chairman's deathbed convulsions.

Second Wave of Awakening (10:13AM)

Victor rips away the simulated skin beneath the burn scars, and a biochip countdown is projected on the bulletproof glass of 23 Wall Street. He recognized the countdown font-exactly the font of Ravenlock Prison's visitation check-in system. Each number carried the distinctive gin scent of the warden's mouth, which reminded him of the rainy night he'd stabbed his pacemaker with the handle of a toothbrush.

"The game's upgraded." He hissed into the encrypted channel, and the sound pattern activated the laser array in the underground vault on Capitol Hill. Bundles of hundred-dollar bills curled into ash in the heat, only to reveal the inner layer of toxic filter film bearing the Blackstone Group logo. It turns out that the currency that has been in circulation for the past twenty years has long since been transformed into a transmission medium for biological weapons.

Third Wave of Backlash (10:29AM)

Emily's left lung has stopped working, but the adrenaline pump implanted by the Blackstone Group is still forcing oxygen. She sees the barcode at her collarbone disintegrating and reorganizing into a string of scriptural coordinates from the Christian book of Revelation. The gas tanks beneath the Pentagon floor began to overload, a final protocol she hadn't anticipated - when the cleaner died two hours later, all Blackstone affiliates would be executed by synchronized lethal injection.

A fluorescent green liquid suddenly gushes from the Georgetown sewers and flows down the tidal lagoon into the Lincoln Memorial's reflecting pool. Visitors are horrified to discover that the pool is boiling, and thirty-nine skeletons studded with gold teeth emerge from the bottom of the pool - the very same congressional aides who have disappeared over the years. Mutant algae grows from their eye sockets and twines into the shape of the Blackstone Group logo.