Chapter 9 - SIXTY SECONDS
Red emergency lights flashed.
A digital voice began counting.
“Fifty-eight seconds.”
“What does sterilization mean?” Ethan asked.
Mercer had reached the lab with the medical team.
His face went white.
“Gas.”
“What kind?”
“The kind that leaves no witnesses.”
“Forty-nine seconds.”
Ethan grabbed Noah.
I grabbed Daniel.
“Cold storage!” I shouted.
“We don’t have time.”
“We need the antidote!”
Mercer ran toward the storage room.
“I’ll get it.”
“Mason!” Ethan yelled into his radio.
Static.
Then Mason’s voice.
“Victor’s heading east. Tunnel access.”
“Forget him. Evacuate.”
“Thirty-eight seconds.”
We ran.
Children were being pulled from rooms.
Some could walk.
Some couldn’t.
One little girl screamed for her mother.
There was no mother.
Only guards and strangers and terror.
“Thirty seconds.”
The elevator doors wouldn’t open.
System locked.
Ethan fired into the control panel.
I shouted, “That does not fix everything!”
“It makes me feel better!”
Despite everything, I almost laughed.
Almost.
Daniel pointed down the hallway.
“Maintenance stairs!”
We followed him.
A steel door.
Locked.
Daniel pressed his hand to another scanner.
Nothing.
“Access denied.”
“Twenty-one seconds.”
Ethan kicked the door.
Nothing.
Again.
Nothing.
Noah buried his face in his father’s chest.
“Dad, I’m scared.”
Ethan stopped kicking.
Looked at him.
“I know.”
“Are we gonna die?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
Ethan looked at me.
Then back at Noah.
“Because Claire gets really annoying when people try.”
“Fourteen seconds.”
Mercer came running.
“I got it!”
He held a silver case.
“Door!” I screamed.
He typed a code into the maintenance pad.
Wrong.
“Eight seconds.”
Again.
Wrong.
“Five.”
Ethan shoved him aside.
“Rebecca.”
He entered the name.
The light turned green.
Door opened.
We poured through.
“Two.”
Ethan slammed it closed.
The gas released behind us with a violent hiss.
For several seconds, nobody moved.
Then we heard pounding on the other side.
A child.
“Help!”
My blood froze.
Someone had been left behind.
I reached for the door.
Ethan grabbed me.
“No.”
“There’s a kid!”
“If you open that, everyone here dies.”
Pounding.
Crying.
“Please!”
I looked through the small reinforced window.
A boy stood there.
Maybe nine.
The gas was filling the hall.
He stared at me.
I stared back.
Then Mercer stepped forward.
“There’s another door from the treatment room.”
“How do we reach it?”
“Vent shaft.”
Ethan looked at me.
“No.”
“Not asking.”
I climbed onto a service ladder.
The shaft was narrow.
Metal cut my elbows.
Behind me, Ethan cursed.
“You fall, I’m firing you again.”
“You already tried that.”
I crawled.
The boy’s coughing grew louder.
I reached the treatment room vent.
Kicked it loose.
Dropped hard.
The gas burned my eyes.
I grabbed the boy.
“Can you walk?”
He nodded weakly.
“Then run.”
We made it to the side door.
Locked.
I hit the release.
Nothing.
My lungs started burning.
The boy collapsed.
Then the door burst inward.
Ethan stood there holding an ax.
“Told you,” he said. “Firing you.”
I dragged the boy through.
Ethan slammed the door.
We all collapsed.
Mercer opened the silver case.
Inside were six glass vials.
I stared.
“Only six?”
Mercer nodded.
“And there are more than six children.”
The hallway became silent.
Ethan looked at the rescued kids behind us.
Then at Noah.
His own son.
Six antidotes.
May you like
At least fourteen poisoned children.
And Mercer said quietly, “We have to choose.”
