The Citadel Gardens processing facility was a massive, humming complex of sterile white walls and chrome piping, dedicated to manufacturing life-sustaining nutrient sludge for the city's elite.
At precisely 23:55, Elara Vane, disguised as a contracted nutrient auditor, entered the facility. She carried the pH buffer kit containing the Mnemotic Lapse agent, moving with the practiced efficiency of her archivist persona. The hired technician, already corrupted by Sio Rey's network, was waiting by the main nutrient injection console.
"I am here for the final cycle check," Elara stated, her voice steady.
"Go ahead, Auditor," the technician mumbled, looking nervously at the clock.
Elara opened the console, revealing the central mixing chamber—a swirling vortex of green and gold liquid, destined for the Kaelen manor. This was the moment. She reached for the disguised flask.
"Hold it right there, Archivist."
The voice- commanding, low, and terrifyingly familiar- cut through the hum of the machinery.
Joric Tahl stood framed in the doorway, wearing his full Kaelen uniform, flanked by Dr. Lydia Thorne. Joric had abandoned caution; he had to stop the attack before the agent was deployed.
Elara froze, her hand hovering over the console. She did not look at Joric, focusing instead on the scientific genius standing beside him.
"Professor Thorne's daughter," Elara observed, her voice flat. "The ethical failsafe. Clever, Commander."
"It's over, Elara," Joric said, moving slowly into the room. He used her true name, stripping away the mask of "Veridia." "I know everything. Your father, the A-V-LOCK, the ADO. The vengeance ends here."
Elara finally looked at him, her eyes burning with a desperate clarity. "The vengeance ends when the lie is silenced. You are protecting the lie, Commander. You are protecting the men who murdered an honest architect and built their fortune on his execution."
"I am protecting an innocent child," Joric countered, his voice raw with conflict. "Elias Kaelen. He is ten years old. This is not silent justice; it is cruelty that destroys the self. You have crossed the line."
He saw the flicker of guilt in her eyes, the devastation she had carried since realizing the cost of her mission. He leveraged it.
"You speak of moral duty," Joric pressed, stepping closer. "Tell me your father, Arthur Vane, would endorse the erasure of a child's mind. Tell me the man who taught you precision would endorse this brutal, biological chaos."
Elara's resolve broke. She looked down at the swirling nutrient chamber, then at the flask in her hand. The image of her father, speaking of the epiglottis, the separation of word and sustenance, flashed in her mind.
"I—" she started, her voice catching.
Just then, the technician, driven by panic and his contract with Sio Rey, lunged forward, grabbing Elara's arm, trying to force the flask into the mixing chamber. "The clock! It has to go in now!"
A scuffle erupted. The flask shattered against the edge of the console, the clear, volatile Mnemotic Lapse agent splashing outwards, some of it spilling onto the floor, the rest dissolving instantly into the air around the console.
Lydia Thorne screamed. "The compound is aerosolized! It's volatile! We have to neutralize it now!"
Joric threw the technician against the wall, then seized Elara, pulling her away from the noxious cloud instantly forming over the console.
"The antidote, Doctor!" Joric yelled, shielding Elara's face with his arm.
Lydia, pale but focused, retrieved an emergency canister from her kit—the neutralizing agent she had prepared. She threw the canister onto the console. A plume of inert gas erupted, mixing with the volatile agent, rapidly destroying the active biological molecules before they could be fully drawn into the main nutrient supply.
The immediate crisis was over. The Mnemotic Lapse agent was neutralized, but the entire console- and the Kaelen nutrient supply- was contaminated, poisoned with the residue of the chemical warfare. The Citadel Gardens was compromised. The Kaelen dynasty had lost control of its most vital supply line.
Joric turned, breathing hard, looking at Elara, whose eyes were wide with a mix of despair and cold, absolute failure.
"You failed," Joric stated, gripping her arm tightly. "I won. I saved the child."
"Did you?" Elara replied, her voice empty. "The system is broken, Commander. You are the shield, but the architecture of the Kaelen house is poisoned. And now, you have to choose: your sister, or the truth."