Ms. CEO’s Baby Daddy Is the Merchant of Death – Episode 70
Cypher identified the convoy as Zero Hour, Vale’s first and most secret weapons project. Eleven dormant cores waited in warehouses while the lead truck carried their physical command unit. None used Aegis or modern networks.
If Dawn completed its purge of old authentication standards, Zero Hour would interpret the loss of contact as enemy capture. Every core would overload. Twelve cities had four hours before simultaneous explosions.
Evelyn searched her recovered memories for a shutdown method. Vale had designed the cores before she joined the project. Only Connor had transported and tested their original hardware.
Connor remembered manual locks concealed behind ordinary engine components. Vale taught him that the best weapon was one nobody recognized as a weapon. The truck itself formed the control circuit.
International teams moved toward the eleven warehouses. Each core required a code from the lead vehicle before it could be disarmed. Destroying Vale’s truck would trigger all of them.
Vale chose Highway 47 because civilian traffic prevented an air strike. He broadcast the pursuit, presenting Connor as the man whose reforms had activated the danger. Fear returned to public screens.
Connor’s legal restrictions prohibited unilateral field command. The task-force commander authorized him as a technical specialist and assigned officers to the interception. Connor accepted the role instead of claiming necessity.
Scarlett insisted on joining the mobile command vehicle. Highway 47 belonged to her history too. Connor did not ask her to stay behind; they reviewed the risk and chose together.
Evelyn remained with Cypher to decode the warehouse cores. Richard coordinated evacuation funding under government direction. Lily stayed with Summer and maintained the family’s scheduled contact.
Summer asked whether the road was where her parents met. Scarlett said it was where Connor saved her and then disappeared. Connor added that this time they would travel it together and return together.
The pursuit began under gathering rain. Vale’s armored truck followed the same northern route Connor had driven four years earlier. Each mile awakened another memory.
Vale contacted Connor over an analog radio. He said family had turned his greatest student into a supervised technician. Connor answered that limits had made him more useful than absolute power ever did.
The truck released mechanical drones unaffected by Dawn. Task-force vehicles disabled them with human-controlled countermeasures. Vale could no longer hide violence behind an algorithm.
At the first warehouse, officers found a core wired to a hospital power grid. Removing it without the truck code would cut critical care. Evelyn began reconstructing Vale’s original sequence from Connor’s memories.
Scarlett recognized repeating numbers from the night she entered Connor’s truck. The freight manifest, road marker, and time of their meeting formed part of the code. Vale had built his challenge around Connor’s private history.
Connor realized the final lock might require the identification card Scarlett found after he disappeared. She had kept it for four years while searching for him. The card now rested in Asterion’s personal archive.
Cypher dispatched a secure team to retrieve it. Vale accelerated toward the city as the timer dropped below three hours. Police cleared exits without trapping civilians on the highway.
Scarlett studied the route and found an abandoned weigh station where the road narrowed. It was the only place their vehicles could reach the truck without forcing a crash. The task force approved her plan.
Vale sent his last message before disabling the radio. He told Connor to come alone if he wanted the manual codes. Connor looked at Scarlett and refused the premise before answering.
The armored truck vanished into the rain ahead. Eleven cores continued counting down, and Highway 47 led directly toward the place Connor and Scarlett first stopped together. Vale’s voice returned once: “Come back to where your family began—and decide how it ends.”