out of control | the rewrite

⁶. ⁱⁿˢᵗʳᵘᶜᵗⁱᵒⁿ ᵐᵃⁿᵘᵃˡ?

CHAPTER SIX: PART ZERO ; ASHES TO ASHES, THEY ALL FALL DOWN
Emerson didn't really know what happened next. If you'd asked her straight afterward the chaos she'd have said something about the terrifyingly familiar green glow. The sight of a long concrete hallway with dozens of doors. If you asked her while they ran after the woman in the lab coat, she'd tell you that it was just adrenaline and fright.

But none of that really mattered. All they did know was that the gateway was open.

And it happened earlier than the people around them had calculated.

"What the hell is going on?!" Mikayla had snapped as soon as the red lights on the ceiling began to flash. They'd both just begun to pack up their bags and start moving out of wherever they were to get answers from someone who could tell them something that would actually help.

The doors in front of them snapped open, and their heads did the same towards the door. A panting older lady in a white lab coat, hair tied back in a bun as she clutched a clipboard in her hand, appeared in their view. She was panting, the red lights above them making her glasses shine neon in her eyes.

All she did was spit out a small apology before telling them to follow her, and with nothing left to lose, they did.

She led them through long winding hallways with people running amok, and it took everything in Emerson's power not to ask one of them why they were panicking so fiercely. All around them, pushing past and stumbling into locked doors with shaky keycards, scientists scrambled.

Why were they here? Weren't they all supposed to be dead? Why was the alarm going off? Are they under attack? And where the hell was that Primus guy?

The lady paused suddenly, and E had to plant her feet into the floor tile to keep from running her over in the hallway. Mikayla didn't have much better luck, crashing into her friend's back before setting herself straight again. She stepped back a ways as the door opened, coughing to break the awkward silence.

Neither mentioned it again as they passed through, just looking at each other curiously as they went through the concrete. The door was closed shut behind them by a figure they didn't notice before that point, wearing all black and avoiding eye contact with anything but a tablet that was in front of him as he continued down an opposing hall.

The two girls walked behind the woman, until the hall finally revealed what was being hidden behind so much concrete.

"This looks like the damn Bat Cave.." Mikayla whispered to the blonde with a blank expression as she peered about the huge open space.

And indeed it did. With every section pieced out as a taller loft in the huge room, technology and hardware all around them, it looked a lot like how they would depict these kinds of things to be in the movies. Em gave out a low whistle as she pulled the duffle bag back up onto her shoulder.

"Welcome to the world's first artificial bridging system!" A voice echoed around them. "Or as we like to call it, the WABS."

There were steps echoing against hard metal above them, and the two girls turned to see a man dressed in a dark blue suit, a familiar face indeed.

"We're still working on that name." He added as the platform began to lower. Both figures stumbled back a ways as the floor opened, revealing a system much like a crane's as the metal grate began to level with their feet. "Watch your step."

Once the metal grate came to a standstill, the man gave both girls a smile- ignoring the tense aura of the earlier dispute. "As you can tell, we're in a bit of a rush, so if you could just follow me."

Em glanced at Mikayla, who was staring at the man's back as if she wanted to put a bullet through it. One look at her twitching hands answered enough, however, so the blonde reached out a tentative hand.