Chapter 35 - The Decision to Leave
Westbridge Airport was placed under international military protection before sunrise.
Scientists, investigators, and aviation authorities filled every conference room, each asking the same question.
How could one underground engine coordinate aircraft across continents?
Samuel refused to answer immediately.
Instead, he gathered Ethan, Martin, Victor, and the artificial Ethan inside the old Project 417 laboratory.
He spread the recovered blueprints across the table.
"We have one advantage."
Martin folded his arms.
"What?"
"They believe we're defending airports."
Victor understood first.
"But we're not."
Samuel nodded.
"We're going to the island."
Silence followed.
Military commanders would never approve sending a small civilian team into unknown territory.
That was exactly why Samuel intended to leave before permission could be denied.
Ethan looked at the artificial version of himself.
"Can you still hear them?"
The synthetic boy closed his eyes.
"Yes."
"What are they saying?"
He hesitated.
"They're building something larger than the core."
Samuel's expression darkened.
"A second generation?"
"No."
The artificial Ethan opened his eyes.
"They call it..."
He paused, almost as if the word itself carried weight.
"...The Architect."
No one in the room recognized the name.
But every remaining prototype engine responded to it immediately.
Outside, dawn broke over Westbridge Airport.
Commercial aircraft began landing again, unaware that the greatest threat to aviation no longer lay beneath the runway.
It was waiting across the ocean.
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And for the first time since Project 417 began, Samuel Hale looked at his son not as someone he needed to protect...
But as the only engineer capable of finishing the mission that had started seven years earlier.
