Chapter 22: Not Your Subject

Genevieve’s whisper hangs fragile between the roar of the attack helicopter blades and the whiz of bullets from the Obsidian Legion forces leveling the outer defenses of Palais de La Croix. The warmth of her breath brushes Alexander’s neck, but the information she carries acts like a scalpel cutting clean through the remnants of his faith.

Alexander tightens his grip on Genevieve’s neck. The tip of the tactical rifle muzzle under her chin does not budge a hair’s breadth.

"You are lying," Alexander hisses coldly. "Arthur Rington brought me out of that laboratory thirty years ago. I am not your test subject."

Genevieve stares straight into Alexander’s silver irises without a single blink of panic. "Arthur did not bring you out to save you, Alex. He stole you from our mother. Your DNA structure is the original blueprint that absorbs and neutralizes synthetic toxins without damaging organ cells, a perfect genetic anomaly that Julian, Victoria, and Eleanora have tried to replicate over the past decade."

Victoria, lying down while clutching her broken wrist, screeches hysterically from the balcony floor. "Do not listen to her, Alexander! She is using you! She is the one who designed the immune system suppression for your children so you would surrender!"

Without looking, Alexander fires one precise shot that pierces the marble two centimeters beside Victoria’s head, silencing the Ashford woman instantly.

"Daniel," Alexander calls out without averting his gaze from Genevieve. "Take that serum briefcase down to the iron chamber."

"Alex, if her words are true—" Daniel hesitates behind them, holding tight to the airtight titanium briefcase. "Injecting that pure concentrated gold serum into your body without gradual incubation can trigger total blood clotting!"

"Do as I order!" Alexander speaks firmly, his voice echoing with an authority that freezes all argument in the room.

Genevieve curls a subtle smile, an expression mixing false longing and bitter truth. Her delicate fingers touch Alexander’s hand choking her neck, feeling the faint tremor of his pulse.

"The code to the underground door is the frequency of your own heartbeat when you held me for the first time in London," Genevieve whispers. "The iron chamber’s biometric system locks onto that warmth. If your heart stops or turns cold, that door seals Ethan and Stella forever."

Alexander releases Genevieve’s neck with a rough shove, then turns around to push through the glass door toward the spiral staircase cutting down into the palace foundation.

The lowest floor of Palais de La Croix lies fifty meters below the surface of the Paris streets. Unlike the grand hall above, this underground corridor is constructed from thick granite walls left behind from the medieval era, aligned with modern vacuum insulation technology.

The sound of Alexander and Daniel’s tactical footsteps clatters loudly, shattering the silence of the stone cave. At the end of the main corridor stands a curved titanium steel door with no physical handle or numerical keypad. In the center of the door rests an optical sensor lens and a hand-shaped biometric conductor plate.

Inside the transparent room behind the thick steel door, Ethan and Stella lie stiff on medical gurneys. The faces of the two twins are pale white with supplemental oxygen hoses attached to their noses, while the vital monitors on the wall project heart rate graphs that grow weaker by the second.

Alexander steps closer to the conductor plate. His chest rumbles heavily, torn between deep hatred for the traitor named Genevieve and a father’s protective instinct that refuses to let his own flesh and blood perish.

"Alex, let me scan the sensor encryption first," Daniel tries to stop him while pulling out a frequency scanner from his belt.

"There is no time," Alexander cuts him off.

He presses his left palm onto the biometric conductor plate, focusing his mind on the memory of the past—the first night he held the woman he knew as Olivia under the London rain, when his heart beat only to protect her from the black market hunt.

The conductor plate emits a blue glow that scans the electromagnetic waves of Alexander’s heart. The indicator above the door turns from red to pure green.

The titanium steel door slides open slowly, releasing high-pressure cold vapor.

Alexander rushes inside, kneeling between Ethan and Stella’s gurneys. His bloody fingers softly stroke Stella’s tiny cheek, brushing the brown locks of the little girl’s hair with deep warmth.

"Papa is here, sweetie," Alexander whispers, his voice hoarse, swallowed by surging emotion.

Ethan shifts restlessly in his sleep, his little lips whispering wordlessly, "Papa, cold."

"Daniel! Open the case!" Alexander orders while taking off the upper portion of his tactical suit, revealing his broad chest covered in combat scars.

Daniel places the titanium case on the medical table, opens the protective casing, and lifts the automatic injector tube containing pure gold liquid—the combined extraction serum of Rington and De La Croix DNA.

"Alex," Daniel’s hand trembles as he points the injector toward the carotid artery in Alexander’s neck. "This dose is designed to neutralize toxins across an entire city network. Injecting it directly into a single bloodstream will burn your nervous system!"

"Inject it now!" Alexander snarls, his silver eyes flashing sharply. "If I successfully absorb the serum structure, my own blood becomes a permanent antidote for Ethan and Stella without needing further extraction!"

Daniel holds his breath, tightens his grip on the titanium injector, and presses the needle muzzle right against Alexander’s neck vein.

The pure gold liquid shoots into Alexander’s blood vessels under high pressure.

The effect takes place within seconds.

Alexander screams out loud—a pure howl of pain never before heard from the mouth of a man known to feel no fear! All the blood vessels in Alexander’s neck, chest, and face tense up violently, glowing a fiery golden under his skin. His heart beats abnormally, pounding against his chest wall at a speed that breaks his ribs!

Alexander collapses to the granite floor, both hands clawing at the stone ground until his nails break and bleed. His body spasms violently as the genetic engineering inside the serum forcefully destroys and reconstructs his biological immune system.

"ALEX!" Daniel screams, trying to hold Alexander’s body so he does not smash against the surrounding medical equipment.

At the threshold of the iron chamber, footsteps of refined architecture tread softly.

Genevieve De La Croix steps in alongside Eleanora. The two sisters stand side by side, watching Alexander’s life-and-death struggle with cold, untouched gazes.

"The genetic merging process has reached eighty percent," Eleanora says while scanning the golden glow on Alexander’s chest using her medical tablet. "His body structure successfully accepts the pure serum without experiencing immediate organ failure. He truly is a perfect specimen."

Genevieve utters no sound. Her eyes fixate on Alexander’s figure fighting on the wet floor before she walks over to Ethan and Stella’s gurneys. She touches the foreheads of her two children with a slightly trembling finger—a brief moment of maternal connection that she instantly suppresses back behind her mask of empire leadership.

The golden glow on Alexander’s body gradually fades, replaced by his skin returning to a pale state. The spasms in his body subside, leaving his breath flowing slow and extremely shallow.

Alexander slowly opens his eyes. His silver irises now radiate a dim golden shimmer inside his pupils, a sign that the pure serum has fully merged with his biological makeup.

He rises to his feet slowly, ignoring the destructive pain wrecking his body’s nerves. He stares at Genevieve, who stands one meter in front of him.

"The children... are safe," Alexander whispers, his voice sounding heavy and deep.

"Yes, Alex," Genevieve responds softly. "They are safe from me, and safe from Julian’s poison."

Genevieve reaches for a second injection instrument from behind the folds of her dress—a handheld biological signal transmitter connected wirelessly to all De La Croix laboratory networks in Europe.

"But this game has never been about saving our children, Alex," Genevieve says with a smile that rips away the remaining humanity in the room. "This is about activating the second phase of the consortium."

Genevieve presses the button on the signal transmitter in her hand.

The main monitor screen on the iron chamber wall suddenly turns on, displaying a global geographical map filled with thousands of red dots blinking simultaneously across major cities worldwide, from London, New York, Tokyo, to Jakarta.

Every red dot represents drinking water distribution facilities and major medical networks compromised by derivative biological agents created by Nusantara Bio-Tech and the De La Croix clan!

"The pure serum inside your blood right now is the sole antidote for the global biological plague we are releasing within twenty-four hours," Eleanora explains while smiling with satisfaction beside her sister. "The world will no longer bow to laws or governments. They will kneel before the De La Croix clan to beg for drops of your blood."

Alexander’s heart feels as if it stops beating. This betrayal is no longer mere asset seizure or a family vendetta; it is a biological coup over human civilization.

"You are insane, Genevieve," Alexander says, pure disgust creeping through his soul.

"We are rulers, Alexander," Genevieve cuts in coldly. "And you will be the eternal source of antidote that we keep inside this palace."

Genevieve snaps her fingers.

From behind the secret corridor behind the iron chamber wall, four tactical soldiers clad in Bio-Mechanical Armor step out. The soldiers raise high-voltage shocknet launchers, instantly incapacitating Daniel until he falls unconscious to the ground.

Alexander attempts to charge forward to attack, but the side effects of the newly merged pure serum drastically slow down his muscle coordination. A giant shocknet traps Alexander’s body, wrapping around him and discharging tens of thousands of volts that collapse his physical endurance.

Alexander slumps stiffly to the floor, trapped beneath the grip of the electrified steel net.

Genevieve steps closer, kneeling beside the helpless Alexander. She pulls out a small porcelain mirror, holding it up in front of Alexander’s face.

"Look at yourself, Alexander Rington," Genevieve whispers into the man’s ear.

Inside the reflection of the porcelain mirror, Alexander sees something that freezes his blood instantly.

Behind the pupils of his silver eyes that now glow gold, blackish blood vessel patterns appear, spreading from his neck toward the base of his brain—a partial neural mutation pattern identical to the one Julian Rington had when that madman went on a rampage in Jakarta!

Genevieve curls a faint smile while whispering her final words before the electric darkness consumes Alexander’s consciousness:

"That serum does not make you a savior, Alex. That serum activates Julian’s consciousness that has been em

bedded inside your brain tissue since the day you were born."