Page 5 of Kingly Bitten

Still, I stared.

Contemplated.

Considering every angle.

Waited for her to appear. To slaughter me. To berate me for my insolence.

More time passed, bringing the countdown to thirty-one hours.

Yet no one bothered me in my office. No one called. No orders flared to life on my screen. Just the ticking of the clock against my wrist and the request to proceed flashing on my monitor.

My world didn’t stop moving.

But the clock kept ticking.

The vibration this time indicated I was down to thirty hours. I’d spent almost every second in this office, sitting here, staring at screens. It was almost impossible to consider, like I’d fallen into some sort of complex catatonic state while I considered all the alternatives.

My mind never stopped working, calculating every move and risk. Every countermeasure I could take. Every potential outcome of disobeying a directive.

The technicians were still in their labs. The Vigils were all preoccupied with their supervisory tasks upstairs. And I was tired of watching the countdown flare on my wrist.

“Fuck procedure,” I said, looking right at the screen. “Fuck it all.”

I reversed all the orders, then added ones of my own. Having spent all my years in this lab, I knew the technology inside and out. I’d also set subtle traps throughout the years, allowing myself to be alerted should a doomsday sequence be engagedwithoutmy knowledge.

I checked all those now, bolstering them and taking control of all the monitors inside. No one would take control of this situation without my permission.

However, the explosives were not within my control, suggesting they could potentially be updated from the outside.

Which meant I needed to make it look like I was doing exactly what I’d been told to do, just in case anyone from above checked in on the situation.

My mind worked quickly, formulating a plan that had long existed at the back of my head—a plan I had never expected to need and yet, somehow, always desired to use.

Escape had always appealed to me. I just never knew when to make my move. As it turned out, I had less than thirty hours to do it now.

Okay.

I pulled up the server destination for the documents and opened a less secure communication channel than necessary to distribute the data. It would cause a security flare on the other side because these encrypted files would arrive via an unexpected tunnel.

Whoever existed on the other side would have to play with the parameters a little to determine the source. Once they realized they were real, they’d begin to download.

But that would only buy us a few hours.

And then they’d have to piece all these files together like a massive puzzle, giving us even more time.

By the time they realized what I’d sent, it’d be too late for them to reach out for the real documents. All this data was old gibberish. Useless. The kind of details that would set them back fifty years.

This put Bunker 47 at risk as well, this new channel placing us on the technological map. If anyone was searching through satellites or using data scanners, they’d be able to pick up our location.

But it was a risk I was willing to take.

Because it would give us more time to find a solution to this situation.To escape.

I eyed the lab screen again, nibbling my lip.

Toxin malfunction, I typed.Will address immediately. —Dr. C.

I hit the Send button, aware that the message would arrive at the home base before any of the files. But maybe they would think I was too busy handling the toxin issue to notice the unsecure outbound documents.