Cascade

7 - Alternative

7 - Alternative

“Well hello, there.” Melissa said. She pushed some hair behind her ears. She stepped confidently towards the young man.

“You aren’t supposed to be in here.” He said.

“Well neither were you.” Claire replied. “This storage space was supposed to be accessible only by those with the highest clearance. What’s an intern doing in here?”

The young man held up a keycard.

“Dr. Ryans sends me to do her grunt work all the time. What’s your story?” He asked.

“We’re two defecting members of an genocidal and seditious faction of hyper-enhanced individuals bent on the destruction of the entire systems infrastructure, now here to halt the annihilation of society as we know it.” Claire said.

“That about sums it up.” Melissa responded. “How about over there?” She asked, looking to Claire, but pointing to a position in the corner by some tall storage racks.

“Ya, just don’t hurt him.” Claire said.

“Wait, what?” the young man stuttered.

Before he knew what was happening, his lab coat was thrown over him. He was pushed backwards and fell at the base of the storage racks. His hands were bound behind him, holding him to one of the rack’s support legs with his very own belt serving as the restraint.

“Hey, wait. What are you doing?” He asked.

“Hopefully preventing the deaths of millions more.” Claire said. She sifted through the storage vials and picked out a small assortment.

“Here, Melissa. Drink up.” Claire called, and she tossed over several vials. Melissa caught them up and read the labels.

“No! You can’t do that!” The young man called. “If you drink those, the concentrations will be high enough to kill you. You can’t just-“ He stopped short when he saw the needle protrude from Melissa’s hand.

Melissa stabbed the needle through the top of the vials and took a sample from each, placing the vials back on the shelves.

“We should get a few radiation treatment drugs.” Melissa said.

“Great idea.” Claire scanned the racks some more, but jumped as the vault door behind her unlocked. Slowly, the massive door slid open.

“But, we haven’t got enough yet.” Melissa called.

“Forget it. We have got to get out of here. We’ll split up and rendezvous on the hospital’s helipad in half an hour. I’ll get us some wings, you just shut off that bomb.” Claire said. “Follow my lead.”

As the door swung open, the Nexus security officer carefully stepped in with his gun drawn. He caught sight of the young man tied to the storage rack and cautiously looked around the rest of the vault. Two plops sounded directly behind him, and he swiveled.

Claire and Melissa dropped from clinging on to the top edge of the vault door as it swung open, and after they had quietly traversed to the other side, they landed on the ground, just outside the vault. Claire gave the security officer a salute, and the two girls pulled the door closed.

“Close one again.” Melissa said.

“We aren’t out of boiling water yet. You still have to deactivate your explosive and we have only got about 27 minutes to do it. Get going.”

“With no foil?”

“Improvise.” Claire said.

Melissa nodded and bolted off to the right. Claire heard shouts coming from the other side of the room and more security officers poured in. She ducked behind a chemical processing table to stay out of sight. She knew she had to get to the helipad, but if she ran off to the left, she would lead the security personnel right to Melissa. However, the only other way out of the room was straight through the wall of security guards still streaming like a river.