Chapter 11

The Burden of Legacy

The gut-wrenching discovery that Arthur Sterling's whole empire had been erased, destroyed by their nefarious foes, brought a new wave of terror over Elara. This was not a war in the conference room; it was an erasure, a clean sweep. And now she was on their list.

They are not covering their tracks, Elara panted, the words barely above a whisper. They're wiping out the whole trail. Sterling, my dad they were both just pawns in a far larger game.

Julian Thorne, ever the master strategist, went over to a giant interactive map against a wall in the bunker. His finger followed a dense web of lines and lighted nodes across the virtual cityscape. Exactly. Sterling was an asset puppet. Your father was a threat. And now you have the very information they dread. He turned back to her, his face serious. They want the 'Aethel' project buried and dead, and everyone who can dig it up.

Elara glared at the map, then at the bulging portfolio still gripped in her fingers. Now it was no longer a blueprint but rather a bomb. But why? What's so bad about this 'Aethel' project?

Julian stood before her in his entirety, his eyes blazing. Your father found a way to harvest an almost boundless source of energy. A clean, renewable energy that would make the fossil fuels, and the industries built around them, obsolete overnight. He saw it lighting cities whole, changing the world. He stopped, a look in his eye nearly awed. But there are some who have an interest in such power. Some who benefit very well from the old ways. And some who would use such a force to control, not to advance.

So, these others Elara started, the clues clicking into place. "They're the ones pulling the strings? The ones who arranged for my father to be accused of murder, and then me? Who sent that cleaner?

There is an invisible cartel called The Syndicate, Julian confirmed, grinding his jaw. They reside in the gray areas of global finance, technology, and government. They rig markets, shut down critics, and remove threats. My people have been at war with them for centuries, covertly.

Elara's head reeled. Her perfectly organized universe, already outlined on blueprints and calendars, had been brutally turned on its side, and she saw a concealed conflict she never knew was there. And she, the overthrown architect, was at the center of it all. The burden of her father's reputation, uncovered to be a monolith and threatening secret, hung around her neck.

Her father he knew nothing, she thought back to his idealism, his blind faith in progress.

He knew enough to try to hide the key, to keep it in my family's possession, Julian explained. He knew enough to try to kill Aethel in secret, to show the strength of its magic before they could keep it from them entirely. His gaze shifted to the blocked cave on the map. That's why he died. And why they'll be coming after you, too.

He made a dash for a safe terminal. We don't have much time. They possess immense power. But they aren't omniscient. Your father was prudent. He envisioned a time when 'Aethel' would need to be finished by another, by someone with his particular brain. He eyed the portfolio in her grasp. That isn't a sketch, Elara. It's a puzzle. And only you, with your father's brain, can decipher it.

Fix it for what? Elara asked her, her desperation clear. So that you can use this power and do my father's war?

Julian faced her, his own eyes burning into hers, not with the chill she was used to, but with a burning, desperate resolve. No, Elara. So we can complete what your father began. So we can keep 'The Syndicate' from ever ruling Aethel. So we can use its power to reshape the world for good, as it was meant to. This isn't my cause. It's yours. It's your inheritance.

He held out his hand, not for the portfolio, but to her. Are you in, Elara Vance? Will you take your father's challenge and battle for the future he died trying to create? Or will you let them win, and give your legacy, and his, to lose itself to eternity?

The question hung there, a cliffhanger. Outside in the city, the sleeping streets stretched under the moon, unaware of the war of shadows being waged above them. Elara gazed at Julian Thorne, the ruthless CEO, the unlikely hero, the guardian of her father's secrets. She gazed at the portfolio, her father's last, deadly work of art. And she knew, with an explosion of sudden, brutal comprehension, that she couldn't go. This was her battle. Her fate.