Chapter 453:
“Good,” Aurora said.
Her phone buzzed. It was Quincy.
“Aurora?”
“We’re safe, Quincy,” Aurora said. “We did it.”
“That’s… that’s good,” Quincy said. “I’m at the cemetery. The service is starting.”
Aurora closed her eyes. She transported herself back to New York, to the rain-slicked grass.
“Put the phone in your pocket,” Aurora said. “Let me listen.”
She heard the muffled sounds of the priest’s voice. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
She imagined the mahogany casket. Sterling inside.
He hadn’t been a villain, not really. He had been a victim of the same system that created the Gardener—a system that valued power over humanity. The Matriarch had broken him to fit a mold, just as the Gardener tried to break the world.
“Goodbye, Sterling,” she whispered to the wind.
The service ended.
“Aurora,” Quincy said, taking the phone back out. “It’s done. He’s buried next to his father.”
“Go home, Quincy,” Aurora said gently. “Get some rest. You’re free now.”
“Free,” Quincy repeated, the word sounding foreign on his tongue. “Yeah. I guess I am.”
He hung up.
Aurora stood up. She looked at the ship, full of people who had been given a second chance.
“What now?” Elias asked.
Aurora looked at the horizon. She thought about the Vance Institute. She thought about Smith rotting in a cell. She thought about the empty throne at Sterling Industries.
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“Now,” Aurora said, “we rebuild. We take the resources the Gardener hoarded and we use them to heal. No more human soldiers. No more hive minds. Just… medicine. Real medicine.”
She took Elias’s hand.
“And maybe,” she smiled, “we take a vacation. I hear the Amalfi Coast is nice this time of year.”
Elias laughed, a deep, rumbling sound that chased away the shadows. “I’ll drive,” he said.
They walked up the ramp of the Jade Dragon. The engines rumbled to life, carrying them away from the island of nightmares, back toward the world of the living.
Three months later.
The boardroom of Sterling Industries—now rebranded as Vance-Thorne Solutions—was bathed in sunlight. The oppressive grey decor Sterling had favored was gone, replaced by warm wood and living plants.
Aurora sat at the head of the table. She wore a simple white blouse, her hair loose.
“The quarterly report is unprecedented,” Julian said, pointing to the graph. He was standing now, leaning lightly on a sleek, carbon-fiber cane. His recovery had been miraculous, aided by the very medical tech Aurora had salvaged. “Since we released the open-source cure for the neural damage caused by the Eden experiments, our stock has stabilized. We aren’t making the billions Sterling made, but we are solvent. And public trust is at an all-time high.”
“Profit isn’t the metric anymore,” Aurora said. “Impact is.”
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