Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 57
The court lifted Connor’s travel restriction after reviewing Vale’s forged drone evidence. It required him to remain under task-force authority. He accepted the condition and joined Scarlett’s flight north.
Summer stayed with Lily and Richard in a publicly registered secure residence. Connor gave her the schedule, contact names, and return plan. No secret evacuation separated her from understanding.
Lighthouse continued probing the watch for biological data. Cypher replaced each answer with a declaration that a minor could not grant system consent. The refusal spread to other Constellation nodes.
Schools, hospitals, and public networks adopted the rule. Vale’s attempt to use Summer inspired a safeguard protecting every child connected to predictive technology. Scarlett called it Evelyn’s real legacy.
The Arctic station appeared as a cluster of buildings beneath snow. Thermal scans showed dozens of people underground. Scarlett feared Evelyn was among them.
The entrance opened with the phrase hidden in the lullaby. Inside, laboratories contained medical beds and identity files for scientists declared dead across multiple countries. Vale had collected expertise through manufactured tragedies.
Several prisoners were alive. They described years of forced work on Lighthouse and biometric replicas. Evelyn had resisted longer than anyone and left messages inside every system she touched.
The prisoners had seen her three days earlier. Vale moved her after detecting the bracelet code. She was taken toward a submarine facility beneath the western ice shelf.
Connor wanted to pursue before the submarine escaped. An alarm interrupted him. Vale had begun removing oxygen from the lower laboratory where the remaining prisoners were locked.
A screen offered Scarlett a choice. The submarine beacon would remain visible for six minutes, exactly as long as the trapped scientists could survive. Saving one group meant losing the other trail.
Scarlett recognized the cruelty as Vale’s philosophy. He wanted every rescue measured like a weapons calculation. She ordered the team to free the prisoners.
Connor agreed without hesitation. He destroyed the ventilation lock while Scarlett restored power to the medical wing. The submarine signal moved beyond tracking range.
The last chamber opened with thirty seconds of oxygen remaining. Among the survivors was Evelyn’s chief medical technician. She had memorized the submarine’s emergency navigation code.
Scarlett’s choice had created the information Vale expected her to sacrifice. The technician transmitted the code to Cypher. Satellites reacquired the submarine beneath the ice.
Vale responded by activating Mirror Aegis. False images of Connor and Scarlett appeared on government channels, ordering attacks and threatening officials. Lighthouse predicted public panic would isolate them.
Cypher authenticated the fabrications, but correction moved slower than fear. Security forces at the station received a forged order to arrest Connor. He surrendered his weapon voluntarily.
Scarlett used Constellation to broadcast the raw authentication data. Independent civilian nodes verified that neither she nor Connor had issued the threats. Trust distributed across thousands of systems defeated Vale’s single convincing lie.
The task-force commander returned Connor’s weapon but kept operational command. Connor accepted both decisions. Every choice against his old instincts weakened Lighthouse’s model.
The rescued technician revealed that Evelyn had corrupted the submarine’s life-support controls. Vale could not remain underwater long. He would have to surface near a fixed medical supply point.
Only one such point existed along the route, and its access certificates belonged to Lynn Hayes. Scarlett realized her stepmother still held the final path to Evelyn.