Phoenix

23. The Race

The garage of the Brighton facility was a cavernous, dimly lit expanse of concrete and steel, smelling of old grease and the sharp tang of electric heaters.

At the far end, the massive reinforced exit door stood like an immovable sentinel. Arya was standing by the control panel, her fingers flying over the keypad, tapping the master switch with a rhythmic, frantic desperation. The mechanism remained dead, the heavy steel door refusing to budge even an inch.

​"What happened?" Arya's voice was sharp with annoyance, echoing off the high ceiling. "Why it is not opening?"

​Jin stood a few feet back, his eyes scanning the wiring conduits that ran along the ceiling. His tactical mind was already working three steps ahead.

"Guess they cut the power supply of the door," he said, his brow furrowing as he analyzed the situation.

​"Seems like nothing escaped their eyes. All these just to trap us!" Arya retorted, her frustration boiling over. She kicked the base of the control panel, a futile gesture against the cold efficiency of their pursuers.

​"That is the charming trait of professional killers," Jin said with a slight, cynical shrug. He didn't have time for anger; he needed a solution.

​"But how do we get out now?" Arya asked, turning to face him. The desperation in her eyes was masked by the hard light of the flashlights they still carried.

​Jin's gaze drifted across the rows of specialized Arctic vehicles-Land Rovers with massive tires, sleek snowmobiles, and heavy transport trucks. His eyes landed on a hulking piece of machinery parked in the corner.
A slow, dangerous smile spread across his face. "What's the point of sweating over a closed door when we have monster at hand?"

​"What are you talking about?" Arya asked, her confusion evident as she followed his gaze.

​Jin pointed toward a massive snow plow. It wasn't just a truck with a blade; it was a behemoth, an industrial-grade bulldozer designed for the harshest Arctic conditions. It was a fortress of steel and hydraulics, built to shatter frozen blockages and flatten mountains of ice. It looked like an armored beast waiting for a command.

​Arya looked at the thick, reinforced steel of the exit door and then back at the machine monster. "Can it break this thick door?"
There was a clear note of hesitation in her voice. The door was built to withstand polar storms; the plow was built to survive them. It was a clash of titans.

​"There's only one way to know, right?" Jin said, already moving toward the machine.

​Before he could reach the cabin, Dr. Donnen, who had been stationed as a lookout at the small access door connecting the garage to the main facility corridor, hissed a warning. "Mr. Kim...! I can hear footsteps. Someone is coming this way!"

​Jin froze. He glanced at his watch. The calculations were off. The people in the dome were supposed to be deep in the throes of the knockout gas. They weren't supposed to wake up for another twenty minutes. Even those who had been caught in the garage should still be prone. He looked at the bodies they had dragged into the shadows earlier. None were stirring.

​"What should I do..." Donnen started to say, peeking his head around the door frame to look at Jin.

​The world suddenly dissolved into chaos. A pair of submachine guns roared from the darkness of the passage, the rhythmic thud-thud-thud of suppressed fire tearing through the silence.
A swarm of bullets hissed into the garage, sparked off the concrete floor, and slammed into the metal door frame.

Donnen recoiled with a scream of terror; if he hadn't jerked his head back in that split second, the top of his skull would have been disintegrated.

​"Shit!" Arya cursed, diving behind the wheel of a parked Land Rover. "Professor, get out of here... Get out of there!"