23. Cayenne
Chapter 23
Cayenne
Funny thing about infiltrating high-security buildings—they all smell the same. Like ozone and recycled air and too many secrets. Sterling Labs’ maintenance tunnels are no different, though something about them feels... familiar. Like code I wrote in a past life, coming back to haunt me.
The service access panel yields to my mechanical picks with suspicious ease. Ryker’s voice echoes in my head—if it feels too easy, it probably is. But then, Sterling probably never expected anyone to come at him from below. Too focused on his towers, on building ever higher, to watch the shadows at his feet.
Just like he never watched for the beta baby growing up in his shadow.
Emergency lights cast sickly green shadows across concrete walls, turning every corner into a potential ambush point. The tunnels stretch ahead like arteries beneath the city, carrying the building’s lifeblood of water, power, and data. I’ve memorized these layouts until I could trace them in my sleep, but something feels off about the reality versus my memory. Like looking at your own reflection in warped glass—familiar but wrong.
“Getting paranoid in your old age,” I mutter, adjusting the emerald beanie. The wool catches on my fingers, Jinx’s protection settling more firmly against my scalp. For luck. For courage. For the sister he lost and the family I’m trying to save.
A guard’s flashlight beam sweeps the intersection ahead. I press against cold concrete, letting shadows swallow me whole. Finn’s lessons in patience echo in my head—count the beats between sweeps, learn the pattern, find the gaps.
One-one thousand. Two-one thousand. The light passes.
Three-one thousand. Four-one thousand. Boot steps fade.
Five-one thousand. Clear.
I slide forward, every movement measured like notes in one of Theo’s compositions. The first security checkpoint waits ahead—cards, codes, biometrics. Sterling believes in layers. But I’ve spent two months learning from the best, haven’t I?
The guard’s pattern takes him east. I go west, hugging the wall where the emergency lights cast the deepest shadows. The mechanical lock picks feel cold in my hands, steady despite the adrenaline singing through my veins.
Three cameras. Two motion sensors. One keypad with wear patterns on specific numbers—amateur hour for a facility this secure.
“Too easy,” I breathe, but something in my chest tightens. Way too easy for a man who built quantum tracking programs into his security systems.
A distant echo makes me freeze. Metal on concrete, like someone trying very hard to move silently and almost succeeding. Could be the building settling. Could be maintenance. Could be?—
The beanie shifts as my hair stands on end.
Could be I’m not as alone down here as I thought.
My heartbeat kicks up a notch as I press deeper into the shadows. Another guard’s footsteps approach—heavier than the last, more purposeful. This one’s actually paying attention, scanning corners instead of just going through the motions.
Good thing Jinx taught me how to become part of the darkness.
I hold my breath as the beam cuts through the space where I was standing seconds ago. One sweep. Two. The guard pauses, and for a moment I swear he’s looking right at me. But Ryker’s voice steadies my nerves—they always look twice at the obvious spots. It’s the spaces between they forget to check.
The light moves on. I count thirty seconds before allowing myself to breathe.
That echo returns—closer now. Not guard boots. Something else. Something that moves like it knows these tunnels, like it’s hunting rather than patrolling.
Keep moving or retreat? Ryker would say retreat—live to fight another day. But mom’s letter burns in my memory like corrupted code. If I don’t end this now, how many more betas die?
The next junction should lead to the primary server access. Just have to cross fifty feet of exposed corridor, pick two locks, and bypass whatever security Sterling’s paranoia dreamed up. Simple.
Right up until that hunting echo resolves into distinctive footsteps behind me.
Soft. Calculated. Familiar in a way that makes my skin crawl.
Someone else moves like I do.
Someone else thinks like I do.
Someone else...
The realization hits like a system crash—I’m not the only Sterling who knows these tunnels.
I force myself to keep moving, even as every instinct screams to run. The server room’s close—I can feel it in the way the air changes, that distinct hum of cooling systems that speaks of serious hardware nearby.
A door clicks shut somewhere behind me.
Too close.
Way too close.
My pulse hammers as I press into an alcove, letting pipes and shadows hide me. Not running. Not yet. Count the footsteps like Finn taught me. Map the pattern like Ryker drilled into me.
Click. Pause. Click.
They’re not even trying to hide anymore. Just steady, measured steps drawing ever closer. The kind of confidence that comes from knowing you’ve got your prey cornered.
Twenty feet to the server room.
Another click of a door.
Fifteen feet.
That echo again, closer still.
Ten feet.
My fingers brush the keypad just as something metal scrapes against concrete—that distinctive sound of a weapon being drawn.
Well, fuck.
Options spiral through my mind like compiling code. I could run—but that’s what they expect. Could fight—but those footsteps carry trained killer in every step. Could...
The emerald beanie shifts against my scalp, and suddenly I know exactly what Jinx would do.
Sometimes the best defense is controlled chaos.
I draw the tire iron from my belt, gauge the distance to the nearest pipe, and grin into the darkness. Time to make some noise.
“Come on, big brother,” I whisper, hefting the tire iron. It’s a guess really, but the more I think about it the more it makes perfect sense. Sterling would train his own son to hunt his daughter. “Let’s see if genetics really count for anything.” I take a moment to admire the beautiful symmetry of it all—using a tire iron to cause mayhem in the basement of my father’s perfect tower. If hacking has taught me anything, it’s that sometimes the most elegant solution is just breaking shit with extreme prejudice. “Family reunion, Sterling style. Bet they don’t make Hallmark cards for this.”
The pipe rings like a church bell when I slam the iron into it. Steam hisses through the fresh crack, filling the corridor with artificial fog. More importantly, it triggers exactly what I hoped—emergency sensors screaming to life, mixing with the sound of rushing boots.
Controlled chaos, meet perfect timing.
Guards converge from both directions, their shouts mixing with alarm klaxons. But they’re not my target. Through the steam, I catch a glimpse of my real hunter—tall, precise movements, Sterling grace in every step.
He wasn’t expecting me to choose chaos. To deliberately draw attention when I’m so close to the server room. That’s the thing about being raised by Sterling—you learn to overthink everything.
Good thing I’ve had two months of Jinx teaching me to embrace the explosive option.
I swing the tire iron again, taking out an entire section of pipe. More steam. More alarms. More confusion as guards try to figure out if they’re dealing with a maintenance emergency or a security breach.
“Find her!” A voice cuts through the chaos—sharp, controlled, commanding. So much like Ryker’s alpha tone it makes my chest ache. But this voice carries something colder. Something that tastes like Sterling ambition.
Time to move.
I duck low, using the steam cover to double back the way I came. Let them think I’m retreating. Let them think the chaos spooked me into running.
Let them think anything except that I’m leading them exactly where I want them.
Another pipe bursts—this one not my doing. A warning shot, precise enough to spray scalding steam right where I would have been if I hadn’t already moved.
“Sloppy,” that voice calls out, closer now. “You have his hands. His precision. But this?” A laugh that could have been mine. “This is disappointing.”
The taunt hits harder than it should. But I don’t have time to analyze family drama—not when I’m counting steps, measuring distance, calculating angles.
Just three more feet...
The beanie catches on something sharp as I duck under a lower pipe. Fabric tears. Blood wells.
I’m sure that pleases my psychotic brother.
“The perfect heir and the beta mistake,” that voice cuts through steam and sirens. “How very Sterling of him to pretend you don’t exist.”
My fingers freeze mid-keystroke, a glitch in my usually flawless execution. Behind my eyes, code fragments and scatters, his voice corrupting my thought processes like a virus breaching firewalls. I blink hard, restart the mental program, reroute around the damage. Three deep breaths, and my fingers find their rhythm again, muscle memory overriding emotional infiltration. Blood trickles down my temple where the beanie caught. Not deep, but enough to leave a trail if I’m not careful.
Guards cluster at the junction ahead, their flashlight beams cutting through steam. Behind me, those measured footsteps draw closer. Time to commit.
I throw the tire iron—not at the guards, but at the electrical panel behind them. The clang makes them spin, weapons drawn. In that split second of confusion, I launch myself at the ceiling pipes.
Thank you, Jinx, for all those midnight parkour lessons.
I swing up just as Alexander—because that calculated voice can only belong to Sterling’s first son—reaches my previous position. Through the steam, I catch my first glimpse of him. Tall, precise, every movement a mirror of the man we saw on TV this morning.
But his eyes when they find mine—pure Sterling arrogance stares back. Cold. Calculating. Everything I fight not to be.
“There you are, little sister.” His smile could cut glass. “Coming down, or should I start shooting pipes?”
To emphasize his point, he fires—not at me, but at a junction that would spray superheated steam right where I’m hanging.
The beanie slips further as I swing to another pipe. Blood drips onto his pristine suit.
His laugh carries no warmth. “You know what’s funny? He wanted me to bring you in clean. Said all that beta potential shouldn’t go to waste.” Another shot, another near miss. “But accidents happen in maintenance tunnels all the time.”
I time my next swing to the rhythm of his words. Almost there. Almost...
“Isn’t that right, little beta?” He tracks my movement with that gun. “Just like accidents happened to all those other test subjects. All those failed experiments before you were even born.”
The beanie catches again—this time on exposed wire. I feel it tear, feel Jinx’s protection starting to unravel.
Just like Alexander wants.
Just like he planned.
Which means...
“You’re herding me,” I realize, even as I keep moving through the pipes. “This whole time, you’ve been...”
His smile widens. “Finally catching up? And here I thought you had his strategic mind.”
One more swing. One more calculated risk.
“Oh, I do.” I meet his eyes—mom’s eyes on Sterling’s face. “But I also had better teachers.”
I release the pipe, dropping into what looks like empty space. His shot cracks out, precise and perfect.
And catches nothing but emerald wool as my beanie finally tears free.
Let him think the blood on it is from a kill shot.
Let him think I fell into the maintenance shaft below.
Let him think anything except that I just used his own herding tactics to get exactly where I needed to be.
The server room door clicks shut behind me, locked from the inside, as Alexander’s rage echoes through the tunnels.
Time to make mom proud.
By burning his whole fucking empire down.
The server room hums with the sound of expensive secrets. Racks of computers stretch into shadows, each one a piece of Sterling’s digital empire. The same empire that took my mother from me. That’s killing betas with calculated precision.
Blood drips from my temple where the beanie tore free. I press my sleeve against it, scanning the room. No cameras—can’t risk recording whatever happens in here. Just biometric locks and...
I freeze.
There, in the center of it all, sits a quantum processor. Sleek, beautiful, obviously experimental. The kind of tech that shouldn’t exist outside of theoretical papers.
“Oh, you fucking beautiful nightmare.” My fingers itch to touch it, to understand it. Sterling’s greatest achievement—the heart of his tracking program.
My legacy, if I’d been the daughter he wanted.
Footsteps and shouts echo from the tunnel—they’ll figure out my trick soon. Time to work.
The drive feels heavy as I pull it from my pocket. Two months without tech has left me hungry for the familiar dance of hack and counter-hack. But this isn’t about showing off. This is about survival.
“Alright, daddy dearest.” I slide the drive home. “Let’s see what other family secrets you’re hiding.”
The screen blooms to life, code scrolling faster than normal eyes can track. But I see it. See the patterns, the elegant brutality of his work.
See my own coding style staring back at me.
The first files decrypt and my breath catches. Medical records. Test subjects. Pages and pages of failed experiments.
Mom’s face stares from the first entry. Patient Zero.
My fingers fly across keys, copying, sending, making sure this truth can’t be buried again. Ginger’s secure email pings confirmation just as the next set of files unlock.
The beta virus. Its true purpose. The body count that makes the public numbers look like rounding errors.
Channel 6 gets that data. Can’t risk sending everything to one source.
More files decrypt. More horror unfolds. The tracking program that breeds with every system it touches. The way it’s been hunting betas through their own defensive hacks.
Another news outlet. Another piece of the puzzle scattered where Sterling can’t contain it.
And then...
“The vaccine.” The word tastes like ash as the final files decrypt. “It’s not...”
“A cure?” Alexander’s voice carries perfect timing. “No. It’s an upgrade. An improvement. Everything our father’s been working toward.”
The gun pressed to the back of my head feels almost redundant.
“Hello, sister.” His laugh holds no warmth. “Want to see how it ends?”
“You know,” I keep my fingers moving across the keyboard, letting the sound cover the fact that I’m shaking, “most siblings start with coffee. Maybe lunch. A little hey, nice to meet you before the death threats.”
“Most siblings aren’t breaking into secure facilities.” The gun nudges my skull. “Then again, most siblings aren’t quite as... disappointing as you’ve turned out to be.”
Data scrolls across the screen—the vaccine’s true purpose unfolding in elegant lines of code. Not a cure. Not even close. A delivery system for something much worse.
“Let me guess.” My voice stays steady even as horror builds with each decrypted line. “Daddy’s perfect heir. The alpha son who gets to play with all his favorite toys.”
“And you could have been his perfect beta experiment.” He shifts, and I catch his reflection in the dark screen. Sterling’s face, but something harder. Colder. “Instead, you chose to be... this. Some hacktivist playing at heroics.”
The final file decrypts. My fingers pause over keys that could end everything—both Sterling’s plan and probably my life.
“You won’t pull that trigger.” The words come out calmer than I feel.
“No?” Amusement colors his tone. “And why’s that?”
“Because he wants me alive.” The pieces click together like corrupted code finally compiled. “All this—the tracking program, the virus, the fake vaccine. It was never just about killing betas randomly, was it? It was about systematic extinction.”
His laugh holds genuine pleasure. “See? You do have his mind. His way of seeing patterns.” The gun stays steady. “Which is why this is such a waste. You could be part of it. Part of creating a purer world.”
“By eliminating an entire designation?”
“By cleansing what never should have existed.” He moves into my peripheral vision, every motion precise. Calculated. “Think about it, sister. You’re living proof that betas are a genetic mistake. Sterling blood produced you—his only beta child. His greatest disappointment.”
My fingers hover over the enter key. One press and every news outlet in the city gets proof of what the vaccine really does. How it’s designed not to save betas, but to finish what the virus started.
“You know what’s funny?” I meet his eyes in the screen’s reflection. “For all his genius, all his planning, dear old dad made one huge mistake.”
“And what’s that?”
My smile feels like broken glass. “He let mom raise me to recognize monsters like him.”
I slam the enter key.
The gun fires.
And the world goes dark.