The elevator brakes suddenly, bouncing to a stop and jostling us around the car.
The overhead lights flicker and dim.
The doors swoosh open. A crimson glow spills into the cramped car, drenching us in emergency lighting.
A voice bursts from speakers in the walls: Attention! A security breach has triggered the research facility’s failsafe device. The entire complex will self-destruct in T-Minus fifteen minutes. All personnel proceed to evac stations immediately. This is not a drill. Repeat. This is not a drill.
I can’t help but notice the disdain in Leander’s face flicker into… something else. Is it fear? His hand coils around his sidearm.
A guttural scream that sounds like it came from just outside the elevator doors shatters the silence, piercing my flesh like a skewer.
“Back up!” Leander shouts, drawing his weapon in a flash and aiming it at the opening.
We huddle behind him, drawing our own guns, our backs pressed against the rear and sides of the car. Arrah and I exchange a glance.
I prod her shoulder with mine. “It’s going to be okay. Just remember our training.”
Leander snorts and gives me a wink. “That’s cute, Spark. I’m deeply touched.”
Arrah pushes away from me. “I’ve had more training than you, Spark. You just worry about taking care of yourself.” She looks away, her eyes focusing outside the car, her expression unreadable.
Another scream reaches a crescendo, then echoes down the corridor. The crackle of several energy bursts follow it. Someone’s firing. But at who? And why?
Dahlia takes a few steps forward until she’s standing at the opened elevator doors. “Stay put!” she says to us.
Another yowl stretches through the corridor, followed by several short energy bursts.
Then nothing but the sounds of our breathing and the steady thrum of my own heart in my ears.
Crackle! A burst of static from Leander’s wrist com shatters the quiet.
“Flame Squad, what’s your position? Over.” Even over the static, I can feel the tension in Valerian’s voice.
Dahlia peers out the doors. “At the sub-level three south elevators, Sir. Over.”
“Now that the failsafe has been activated, your directive has changed. It is imperative that you elude attack, make your way to Med Lab 10, and take Project GX07 into your custody. Then proceed to the emergency escape lift to the rooftop for evac before the station is neutralized. You now have fourteen minutes—” The radio hisses and sputters. “You must—”
Valerian’s voice cuts off, replaced by the earsplitting whine of feedback before going dead altogether.
We all stare at each other in silence as the seconds tick by.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” Dahlia’s eyes sweep over us. She reaches into her cache of ammo. “I want Leander and Rodrigo to assume flanking positions.” Before she’s even finished, she’s tossing them new cartridges.
Leander’s grin splits his face like a crescent moon as he catches his. “Yes, Sir!”
He nudges Rodrigo, who locks and loads his with a sharp click. Then they both assume their positions at Dahlia’s side.
“I want…” Dahlia’s eyes bounce back and forth between Arrah and me. “I want Arrah providing rear cover.” She reaches into her satchel again, tossing wristbands to the other four but not to me. “We won’t be completely blind. Activate holotrackers.”
She touches a button on hers and a palm-sized, three-dimensional image appears. There’s a steady unsettling sound, like a heartbeat, as sonar waves bounce back, revealing a series of heat signatures that represent Flame Squad. Soon the cramped elevator car is filled with five distinct glowing cubes and abuzz with five heartbeats in deep sync with one another as we move toward the corridor.
I wait for my instructions, but after ten seconds or so, it becomes obvious none are forthcoming.
“Aren’t you forgetting someone, Sir?” I interrupt at last.
Dahlia’s eyes slash across me. “I don’t have time for this, Spark.”
“But what are my instructions?”
Leander sneers at me. “You’re too green, Spark. We don’t trust you. You’re to stay put here. Out of the way, and keep the elevator primed and ready to go topside.” He tosses me a holotracker. “You can monitor our activity with this.”
I stare at the tracker, watching as their heat signatures move farther away from my position—five meters, then ten—until they disappear from range.
That’s when I spring into action. I activate the emergency brake on the elevator car to keep it from going anywhere. Leaning out the doors, I peer first left, then right, down the crimson-hued corridor. There’s no way in hell I’m staying put, not when something’s going on in sub-level three that could point to a potential weakness for the Establishment.
Pressing against the cold, steel walls of the hallway, I slink along quietly, passing empty laboratories on either side. Maybe it’s because of all the medical equipment and refrigeration, but the temperature feels noticeably cooler. I pause at a fork. A cloying medicinal smell snakes up my nostrils. I check the holotracker.
But the hologram is empty, like a three-dimensional tomb. No movement—just the steady beats of the sonar pulse racing to catch up to the rhythm of my own heartbeat. I decide to go right this time.
Still nothing on the tracker. How long have the others been gone? Five minutes? I’m about to turn around and head in the opposite direction when the pulse of my tracker quickens and a low bleep penetrates the quiet. My blood turns to antifreeze and I drop it. I fumble for the tracker and grab it before it can skitter away into the dark.
But it’s not displaying the four distinct heat sigs of the others. Instead, only one signal flutters on the display. Whoever it belongs to is fading fast. Dying.
According to the distance readouts, it’s only five meters away, just around the next junction. Wiping away the cold sweat pooling in my brows, I turn the corner. Directly ahead of me, the corridor dead-ends into a door. The sign above it reads Medical Records.
As I skulk toward the door, I struggle to apply the brakes to my speeding heart and lungs. I can’t let my emotions get the best of me. I can’t afford to be that person anymore.
The tracker’s heartbeat pulses faster and faster.
I reach out and grip the icy handle. Maybe it’s locked. Maybe the decision to confront whatever’s inside will be taken out of my hands after all—
CLICK!
The door opens with a drawn-out creak that chisels up my spine with ice picks.
I pause at the threshold, taking in the neat rows of storage cabinets and banks of computer monitors, all dark except for one, flickering in a far corner and creating shadows that crawl across the room.
I can sense it. There’s someone else in here. I can hear the shallow rasps of breathing intermingled with the low hum of the equipment. And they’re right on the other side of that working monitor.
I peer around the edge of the workstation. The only sound I can hear now is my own heart thudding in my ears.
And that’s when something grabs my foot.
It’s a man wearing surgical scrubs, maybe in his late thirties, early forties—hard to tell in this light. His short hair is plastered against an ashen face. A hypodermic needle juts from one of his arms. His eyes are glazed with a milky film.
I hunch down and cradle his head in my palm. His skin broils under my touch. “Don’t worry. I’m going to get help—”
Both sets of his fingers dig into my arm. “There’s no time. The virus… it’s too… you… have… to… stop…” He gasps for air.