Serena pulled her gaze away, her stride never faltering. The arrogant smirk on her lips didn't twitch.
Let them search.
Let them tear the place to the studs.
She wouldn't have stepped out of that lab if she hadn't ensured her tracks were impeccably covered.
Before she had ever slipped out to wreak havoc, she had laid down a flawless alibi.
Every centrifuge, burner, and extractor was wired to an automated script.
The entire synthesis process had executed itself precisely according to her digital timeline.
The power logs, the thermal fluctuations, the chemical waste in the trays...
The data was undeniably authentic. There were no ghosts in her machine.
As for The Argent Catalyst, she had synthesized the vial long before she ever set foot on Project Zero-Transit.
A genuine serum paired with genuine manufacturing logs.
All tied together by an airtight automation loop that had churned out a pristine narrative for two solid hours.
It was the ultimate, irrefutable alibi.
The Med-Tech Quarantine hounds could sniff around all night and they wouldn't find a single loose thread.
And her confidence was well placed.
Inside the lab, Toby jacked his terminal directly into the mainframe, pulling the raw operational logs.
One check.
Two checks.
Three checks.
The hardware diagnostics came back flawless.
Even the precise timestamps for botanical integration and chemical drops lined up perfectly with the thermal spikes on the hardware.
Kaelen personally supervised the swab tests on the beakers and the residue analysis.
Everything matched the expected chemical breakdown.
They swept every inch of the sterile environment.
The deeper Toby dug, the more the tension bled out of his shoulders "It's clean. The synthesis sequence ranexactly as logged. No tampering."
The surrounding executives finally let out a collective breath. "It seems our paranoia got the best of us."
"She really was just playing the eccentric genius in here the whole time."
"You can't fake thermal hardware logs."
Kaelen stared at the cooling machinery for a long time before he finally allowed himself to exhale.
The crushing weight on his chest evaporated entirely.
Thank God. She really had been here.
As long as The Panacea was securely locked in his sector, whatever hell was breaking loose outside was someone else's problem.
Not daring to delay, he snatched his comms device and patched a secure line through to The Commodore.
The moment the static cleared, he spoke. "Sir. I have visual and digital confirmation. The Panacea has been in her suite the entire time."
As he spoke, he forwarded the body-cam footage of their confrontation at the door over the encrypted network.
"I've transmitted the raw footage for your review."
"My lead tech just scrubbed the
hardware dogs, the thermal
signatures, and the chemical
footprints, Everything aligns
vel
perfectly with a high-yield synthesis
cycle."
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"Furthermore, she successfully synthesized a new vial. We're running the
authentication protocols on it now for the Midnight Auction."
The line went dead quiet.
It was impossible to decipher what The Commodore was thinking.
Those few seconds of silence were enough to spike Kaelen's heart rate back up.
A moment later, the digitally distorted, androgynous voice broke the silence. "Understood."
The line clicked dead.
Kaelen stared at the disconnected screen, the overwhelming pressure of The Commodore's presence finally fading. He reached up wiping a fresh layer of cold sweat from his brow.
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