Page 15
To say things have gone spectacularly wrong would be a horrific understatement. And it’s my fault.
If I hadn’t insisted on doing my little recon mission yesterday posing as OSHA, Adley wouldn’t have gotten tipped off and thought to come back. He clearly thought someone might come for Bennet and had a plan to take them down. He’s willing to kill anyone and everyone just to get this girl back.
Tony’s voice comes through, talking to the two remaining guys not locked in a room with a homicidal maniac. “Lukas, I’m cutting the audio to the guys so our chatter doesn’t distract them while they’re dealing with Adley and the two guards. Watch the one in the doorway in case he decides to explore. Micah, stay down and stay quiet.”
I listen as they catch each other up on their positions. Lukas lets us know they barricaded the entrance, and there’s a heavy gate closed over the main entrance. The fences have been reinforced, not that they could reasonably climb them in the first place. Lukas sends Tony a few cell phone pictures, which he forwards to us. It doesn’t look good.
“Shit, Okay. Even if I could override the manual safeties and open the gates, there’s no realistic way through those barricades. We’re going to have to improvise. Big time.” Tony switches channels so he’s just talking to us. “What the fuck are we going to do?”
“What about a helicopter?” Quinn says. “Give me two minutes to make a call.”
After a moment of silence, Lukas comes back on. “Tony. We have grenades. Could they do enough damage to the barricades for us to get through?”
“Unfortunately not,” he tells him, the fear in his voice leaking through for the first time tonight.
“Guys! I got it!” Quinn shouts, probably loud enough for Lukas and Micah to hear in the background of Tony’s earpiece. “Medevac coming in, ETA 13 minutes!”
“Quinn, you’re amazing!” I feel a little spark of hope, but also worry that we’re just about to add more to the body count that this disaster has become. What if they shoot down the helicopter?
“There’s only one way you’re escaping that compound,” Tony tells the guys. “If you can’t go through it, and you can’t go around it…” He’s clearly excited and holding a little hope now, otherwise, he wouldn’t bother with the dramatics.
“Dude, there’s no way we could get over those fences. Especially with Bennet. He’s in rough shape. He needs a hospital and a surgeon like yesterday.”
“And that’s why we’re calling in a Medevac,” Tony tells him. “They’re already on their way and should be at your coordinates in less than fifteen minutes. But we need to get your guys out of that building.”
There’s a pause as we all work on a solution, and I finally get access to the building controls. “Tony, I’ve got a handle on the manual safeties.”
Lukas sounds weird, like he’s going to be sick. “The grenades might not blast through a concrete barricade…”
“But they could clear a path for us to get out the front door,” Micah finishes for him.
Damn. That’s… a lot. But I consider what I would do to save the people I love, and I can’t find it in myself to judge him. After all, I was going to blow this building to pieces until I realized there might be innocents inside. Assuming I could have gone through with it at all. Can Lukas? He doesn’t seem the type. Luis probably wouldn’t think twice. But Lukas seems quiet, shy, and sweet. He’s a worrier, and kind of reminds me of Tony.
Could Tony blow people up to save the people he loves? I think maybe he could…
Shaking myself from my internal thoughts, I listen as Micah hashes out a plan. “We need a diversion. We can give the guys a heads up, a chance to take them by surprise. I’ll sneak up on the guard blocking the doorway.”
“What about the lights?” I say to just Tony. “They could be disorienting.”
“I can turn all the lights on at once. If they know it's happening, they can hopefully keep their bearings and take control of the situation,” Tony says to the guys.
Tony claps and lays out the plan. “Alright, let's do this. I'll give them a warning, turn all the lights on at once, and then hope for the best. Listen for my cues. Lukas, there are two grenades. Grab them both and move up as close as you can without being detected. You need to be within throwing range. When it's time—pull the pin, count to two, then throw. Aim directly behind where the guards are crouched down. They won't expect an attack from the rear. The other guards will probably run forward, so be ready to shoot or toss the second grenade.”
“How do you know how grenades work?” Asks Quinn.
“Google,” Tony answers, switching back to the channel where the other guys can hear him. “Get ready,” is the only warning they get before I shut off the lights and alarms, then flip all the lights on at once.
I listen raptly as chaos breaks out, wishing that we had eyes on them so we could see what’s happening in there. I can see Micah’s back as he disarms the guard blocking the door, but other than that, it’s all speculation what each sound is. My heart beats out of my chest as I hear grunts, thuds, and gunshots.
Someone must have Adley close by. I can hear him yelling through their microphone. “You won't get away with this. No matter what happens in this room, you'll never leave this building alive. Every guard on campus is surrounding the exits, ready to shoot to kill. And if you kill me, they won’t even spare her.”
No one seems to pay him any attention, and I strain my ears, wondering what’s happening in that room.
They’re talking to each other, but it’s so low it just sounds like unintelligible murmuring. Then Micah speaks as if he’s reading something aloud. “ProGen8 is the only other surviving member of the ProGen series. Her limbs and many of her organs never developed fully, and she doesn't seem to have the ability to speak due to brain injury or malformation—there's a brief reference to a trial that was done that might have caused the damage.”
Is he talking about the comatose pregnant woman?
His voice sounds choked as he continues. “It seems they mostly have used her to test wildly experimental regenerative treatments and for… breeding trials.”
I barely catch the last words, but my stomach lurches. Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse.
“They have artificially inseminated Eight fourteen times according to this chart, with nine successful implantations, none of which lasted past the first trimester. Her current pregnancy looks to be the longest successful experiment at 15 weeks, largely in part to regular injections of plasma… from ProGen6.”
That poor woman. Kept barely alive just to fulfill some kind of sick experiment.
Tony comes on the line again. “Alright, we have a plan to get you out of there, but you need to be ready to move in five minutes. When I say go, grab Bennet's gurney and whoever or whatever you're bringing with you and make for the exit. Lukas will meet you at the front. Whatever you see or hear, keep moving.”
There’s silence for a while, then some movement and a thud before we finally get visuals on all of them. Six is in the middle of Luis and Jackson, holding their hands. She looks to be covered in blood. Is she injured?
Jackson speaks for the first time in a while. “Lukas, Tony? is there anyone else in the building?”
“No, it's all clear. All the medical staff have evacuated and the guards are all stationed outside the door. We're almost ready to make some room for you to escape,” Tony answers. I don’t miss that he said “evacuated” instead of “massacred.”
“How long do we have?”
“Maybe two minutes. We're waiting for our cue.”
“Alright… I'm making a run for the server. Micah, where's the device?”
“Be quick and be safe,” I hear Micah say as he hands Jackson the device I made.
“Don't wait for me. I'll catch up, I promise!” I close my eyes for half a second and say a prayer that he can make it. A big part of me wants to tell him to abandon ship, but if we’re going to prove all that happened here, we’ll need that data.
“Quinn, how many people and gurneys can that helicopter hold?” I ask.
“I’m not really sure, but I told them two gurneys and five passengers.” I breathe a sigh of relief, thankful he considered including the bedridden woman.
“Luis, where is Adley?” I hear Tony ask him.
“Dead,” he answers simply.
“What’s the likelihood of us getting the other patient out?”
“She’s gone too,” he says sadly, and quietly, like he doesn’t want anyone around him to hear.
Hot tears spill over my eyelids, anger coursing through my body. I’m almost upset that Adley is dead because I can’t kill him, or watch him rot in prison while I dismantle everything he’s spent his life building.
I jerk out of my thoughts at Tony yelling through the earpieces. “Lukas, where are you?!”
“I’m here, I’m here. I’m in position.”
“Well, throw the damn thing already. We’re ready for you now.”
I can hear the blades of the helicopter in the distance, and Quinn’s voice talking to the pilot to let them know they’re basically entering a war zone. They won’t touch down until the firing stops.
The loud boom of an explosion has me standing up on top of the RV. I watch as another explosion hits the parking lot near the security gate. My lips quirk a little, getting a small amount of sick enjoyment over seeing part of the building completely decimated.
Quinn joins me on top of the RV, handing me the binoculars that I’d forgotten. Through the lenses, I watch as the helicopter lowers while three men and a blonde woman push a gurney through the grassy field. I keep my eyes trained on her, this woman who lived through hell and was still brave enough to come back to save her family. I watch as she turns back, her eyes wide with horror as an anguished scream passes over her face.
I move the binoculars, tracing back until I see where one of the men, Jackson I think, falls as he tackles a man holding a sniper rifle. Blood seeps into his shirt.
No! They were so close!
Micah runs back as the others pull Six back, forcing her into the helicopter while the medics load the gurney. The pilot hovers, waiting as Micah runs across the field, carrying Jackson’s limp body across his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
Finally, they are all loaded up on the Medevac and flying off into the distance. I breathe a small sigh of relief, hoping against hope that they’ll all make it.
“We need to clear out,” Tony calls to us. “This turned into a bigger mess than we could have ever guessed, and the entire area is going to be covered in cops and feds in no time.”
“Let me delete some footage first. Hopefully, we can give Six and the guys some time before the feds are at their doorstep. There’s no way we can cover all their tracks after this. There’s bound to be DNA everywhere.”
My chin snaps up just as my computer dings, letting me know the transfer is complete.
“Delete the footage,” I tell them. “I’ll delete the rest.”
“What are you talking about?” Tony yells as I climb down from the roof of the RV and start jogging out of the clearing.
“Remember I told you I was going to blow the place before I realized there might be innocent people in there?”
“There’s not any innocent people left,” Quinn says, finishing my thought.
A moment of silence passes as we all look at one another, processing my intentions. I worry for a moment that they might try to stop me.
“Quinn, delete the footage while and I pack up. Then we’ll go together.”
Three minutes later, we’re hiking down the hill to get closer to the back edge of the property. We stop a little ways back from the electric fence, a buzz letting us know that the current is live.
“Are you ready?” Tony asks, standing on one side of me.
Quinn takes up my other side, a smirk on his face as usual. “She’s been ready.”
“Alright then, blow it up, baby.”
My thumb flicks back the cover on the detonator, caressing the small black button. For a moment, I close my eyes and think back to the few memories I have of my parents. I focus on their faces, for the first time seeing their smiles instead of the destruction caused by Jackson Adley and BioCere, Inc.
“This is for you, mom,” I whisper, choking with emotion.
I push the button, and a second later, an explosion wracks through the building. The sound is deafening as one charge sets off another, moving through the building one after another. The ground rumbles as something, some kind of gas maybe, catches fire and causes the building to erupt in flames.
Standing there, I revel in the heat from the flames that I can feel even from this far back. I let the heat wash over me, staring into the flames that grow larger, reaching for the dark night sky.
And I smile.