The Tunnel Under the Factory
Chapter 16 - The Tunnel Under the Factory
The oldest factory plans showed a freight tunnel connecting Cross Tower to the first assembly plant.
During the company’s early years, the partners used it to move experimental vehicles away from reporters. Victor later sealed the entrance and removed it from modern plans.
Elias remembered another exit near the river.
Police entered from the tower while Sofia, Maya, and Elias waited at the command post.
Dominic insisted on accompanying investigators because his biometric access could open internal gates.
They found Victor in the underground prototype vault.
He was loading patent files, cash, and Daniel’s missing notebook into an armored utility vehicle. Beside him stood Roland Pike, who had escaped transport after a staged medical incident.
Roland held a pistol, but Victor held something more dangerous: a remote linked to fuel cells stored along the tunnel.
“If I cannot own the company,” Victor said, “there will be nothing left to inherit.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“You said the company was your life.”
“It is.”
“No. It was the place you hid from your life.”
Victor ordered him to move aside.
Dominic did not.
Roland raised the weapon, but Elias’s voice echoed from a service speaker connected to the tunnel.
“Victor, the first Sovereign battery has a manual isolation line on the north wall. You forgot because you never built anything.”
Dominic looked toward the marked pipe and understood.
He pulled the emergency lever.
Power to the fuel cells shut down. The remote in Victor’s hand became useless.
Police rushed the vault.
Roland tried to flee in the utility vehicle, but the gate closed before he reached it. He crashed at low speed into a concrete barrier and was arrested without serious injury.
Victor remained beside the boxes.
For the first time, no employee, lawyer, son, or partner stood between him and consequence.
He looked at Elias through the camera.
“We could have owned the world.”
Elias answered through the speaker.
“We built enough to serve it. You were the one who needed to own it.”
Victor was led out in handcuffs through the factory floor.
May you like
Workers watched in silence.
No one lowered their eyes.
