All Chapters of The Final Medical Bill : Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The silence Miller left behind was heavier than the noise of the Daedalus system. When the plastic curtain finally shut behind his gray suit, the ambient noise of the emergency room rushed back into the cubicle, the squeak of shoes on the floor, the beeping of machines and the quiet talking of a tired doctor writing notes.Sarah Vance sat in her wheelchair, her hands shaking as she stared at the blue folder on the table. "Elara... What did you just do? That was Sterling Technologies. They can ruin us before we even get out of these hospital gowns.""They're already trying to ruin us Mom " Elara said. She touched the spot on her arm where the IV needle went in. Her skin was bruised, a deep purplish-blue that throbbed with every beat of her heart. "Miller didn't come to help us. He came to hide evidence. If I sign that paper they own everything that happened on that road. They own what's inside my head.""What are you talking about? What's inside your head?" Sarah's voice was scared, he

The dark emptiness did not end with a splash of rain or the crushing impact of the road. It ended with a stop as if the force pulling them down had instantly changed direction.One moment Elara was falling through a sky of burning code, her fingers locked in Julian's grip, the next she was standing up with her feet pressing into a layer of wet mud.The air was cold, thick with the smell of a storm and the sharp smell of burning wires. The loud noise of the void had vanished, replaced by the sound of sirens cutting through the dark.They were back on Highway 90.Twenty yards away, the reality of the crash was laid bare under the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles. Her car was crumpled into a mass of metal, its hood folded back like crushed paper. The black limousine lay shattered against the road steam rushing from its engine.She could see the paramedics. She could see them hovering over two bodies still trapped inside the wreckage. Her body and Julian's."We are outside " Juli

The sedan's engine was so loud it felt like it was shaking Elara's teeth loose. The rain was coming down from the sky like ice. It was freezing and then breaking into pieces in the air. These pieces were like knives that were swirling around the wrecked cars on Highway 90."Elara, sign the purge " Julian's voice was barely a whisper against the deafening pitch of the car's white noise, his face distorted by the straining muscles of his neck as he pinned Professor Vaughan into the churning mud.Vaughan did not look like a professor anymore. His fingers were all black from the words Elara had let out. He was digging his fingers into Julian's arms hard. His eyes were glowing with a light. It was like nothing Elara had ever seen before."You cannot rewrite the Source, " Vaughan said. His teeth were all coated in the black stuff that was coming out of Elara's nose. "The ledger is a way to get to the end. The template is already set. If you break this you will trap us all in a place with no

The television speaker in the hospital room let out a high-pitched shriek. Then it just stopped working with a pop. The room was silent. The screen flickered one time and then went black.The cardiac monitor beside the bed started beeping but it was a steady beat. The air in the room still felt thick and heavy like the smell of lightning after a storm."Elara," Sarah whispered, still holding the metal guardrail of the bed. "What was that on the television? It did not look like a news broadcast. It looked like some kind of factory."Elara did not answer. She was staring at the bottom of a black journal page. The ink on the page was dry now. It had the address of a place in Manhattan written on it. The pen in her hand felt heavy.It is not a factory, Elara thought. It is the warehouse. That is where they keep the templates.She knew what she had to do and for the first time since the car accident on Highway 90, she was not waiting for something to happen to her. She was in control now.

The tip of the mother-of-pearl pen hit the glass face of the monitor at exactly twenty-three hours fifty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds.The impact did not make a shatter. It sounded like a heavy iron door slamming shut underwater, a thud that sent a shockwave running up Elara's arm. The pen did not break. The glowing red command line under the glass did not split either. It just stopped working.The digital clock froze, the number warping into a jagged character that flashed between red and black."Get away from the console!" Representative Miller yelled.He was no longer calm and collected. His face twisted in a snarl of panic as he lunged at Elara trying to grab the pen stuck in the glass.Behind him, the two security contractors were scrambling to fix their sidearms.Elara did not pull the pen back. She leaned into it, her feet slipping on the smooth metal. "Julian! Now!"Julian was at the edge of the catwalk. He was not okay. The golden static pouring from his throat and che