Lethal Cargo✔️

CHAPTER 02: Anomalous Event

A sharp crackling sound ripped Eve from her sleep.

Her eyes snapped open and she sat up, looking around and not knowing what in the hell was going on as she saw a strange green energy flickering along the walls of her temporary quarters. She felt Martin sitting bolt upright beside her, as frozen as she was. The odd, neon green energies continued dancing across the metal. Overhead, a lightbulb burst. Almost at the same time, there was a sharp fizzing sound, followed by a loud pop and a bright flash as the control panel next to the door exploded. And then, all at once, the energies were gone.

The room continued to glow with a mute green iridescence.

"What the fuck was that!?" Eve heard herself whisper harshly.

Martin crawled out of bed. "I don't know, but obviously something bad."

Eve roused herself. She had no idea how long she'd been asleep, though it didn't feel like long enough. She got up and used the fading glow to find her clothing, dressing as quickly as she could. Martin was doing the same.

She'd been successful in her attempt to sleep with him. He'd been good and she was tired enough to go to sleep almost immediately after the sex. By the time she managed to get her boots back on, the glow had faded almost completely.

"I can't see shit," she muttered.

"The emergency power should have kicked in by now," Martin replied.

Eve remembered the rough position of the desk and hoped that there would be a flashlight or a lighter or something in it. Once her boots were laced tight, she moved slowly across the room, hands out, totally blind now that the glow had faded. They were moving in pitch blackness. She could hear Martin moving silently away from her, or at least it sounded like he was moving away. It was so hard to tell with literally zero visibility.

She found the desk by bumping into it. Her heart was still hammering in her chest and she was jittery from the adrenaline dumped into her system after being woken in such a fashion. What the hell was that stuff?

It took her a minute or so of fumbling around through the desk drawers, but she finally turned up a flashlight. Silently thanking whoever had lived here, (and apologizing for fucking in their bed), she hoped against hope and hit the power button. A sharp white light burst into being and she screwed up her eyes against it.

"Thank God," she heard Martin mutter from somewhere nearby.

When her eyes had adjusted to the light, she scanned the room and found him standing by the door, feeling along the frame.

"Electronics are fried, we've got to open it manually," he said.

Eve joined him. She knew all doors had manual releases built somewhere within them. Otherwise, if there was any kind of power failure, it would be impossible to get any doors open. Somewhere outside, she could hear voices. Well, that was good. Probably. What if the green energy had been some kind of attack? She remembered someone mentioning that one of the GA's secret research sites had been hit recently, that's what Drake and Eric had gone off to investigate. What if something like that was happening here?

"Got it," Martin said, jarring her from her thoughts.

She immediately regretted not having a pistol on her. That's what happened when you stopped fucking paying attention.

Frustrated, going through her hand-to-hand combat exercises in her head, she followed Martin out into the corridor.

The voices became much clearer. She pointed the flashlight first left, then right, and a dark figure became illuminated.