Free Web NovelChapter 267: Chapter 266 - Surprise Comrades
"Don’t shoot."
Malcolm kept the pistol raised.
The man in the vent swallowed, and Malcolm saw him clearly through the red flash of the alarm. Hollow cheeks. Cracked lips. Dirt under his eyes. His hand shook around the stolen gun, but his stare stayed sharp.
Cedric.
Behind him, another shape filled the vent, broader and heavier, one arm braced against the frame as he fought to keep himself upright.
Phillip.
Malcolm remembered Phillip pulling them clear during the escape from the hospital.
"Malcolm, right?" Cedric whispered.
Malcolm lowered the pistol by an inch. "You’re alive."
Cedric gave a weak breath that almost sounded like a laugh. "Barely."
Phillip dropped first. He hit the floor hard, one knee buckling before he caught the wall and forced himself upright. Cedric slid after him and landed badly, one hand slapping the floor to keep from falling. They were filthy, pale, and too thin, their clothes loose and stained from crawling through vents and sleeping where no one looked.
"We evaded capture," Cedric said, breathing through dry lips. "Stayed inside the vents."
Phillip picked up the rifle from the dead soldier and checked it with shaking hands. "Ate what we had in our pockets. After that, whatever we could steal."
The control room door stayed locked behind Malcolm. The red light blinked over the panel.
The radio on the floor crackled. "Teams near control. Confirm visual."
Another voice answered. "Control door sealed. Intruder trapped outside."
Malcolm turned to Cedric. "Open it."
"Tsk." Cedric dragged himself to the panel. His body looked ready to give out, but his eyes changed the second he saw the cracked casing. He pulled it wider and looked at the wires inside.
"They changed the face," he muttered. "They didn’t change the bones."
Boots struck the corridor from the left. More came from the right. Phillip moved to one side with the rifle raised, while Malcolm stepped to the other corridor, blood running down his right forearm and dripping from his fingers to the floor.
Cedric worked between them.
The first soldier rounded Phillip’s side. Phillip fired and missed the head, but the shot drove the man back into cover. Two soldiers rushed Malcolm’s side with rifles up. Malcolm shot the first in the chest, stepped into the second before he could fire clean, and drove the knife under his arm. The man dropped against him. Malcolm shoved the body forward and fired past it into the next shape moving behind.
"Control contact!" someone shouted. "He’s at the door!"
"Hold both corridors!"
Cedric cursed under his breath and pulled two wires free. The panel blinked red, then red again.
"Cedric," Phillip snapped.
"I know."
A shot cracked from Phillip’s side. The rifle kicked in his hands. He stumbled back, caught himself on the wall, and fired again. The next soldier ducked away from the corner.
Malcolm turned as another man rushed from his side. The soldier swung his rifle at Malcolm’s head. Malcolm caught the stock with his left hand, let the impact shove him half a step back, then stepped in and cut across the man’s throat before the rifle came loose. The body hit the wall. Malcolm took the rifle, fired once down the corridor, then dropped it when it clicked empty.
Cedric pressed the wires together.
The light turned yellow.
"Almost," he said.
"Open it," Malcolm said.
Cedric’s mouth twitched once. He reached deeper into the panel.
Phillip fired again. "Empty."
Malcolm pulled a pistol from one dead soldier’s belt and threw it across the doorway. Phillip caught it against his chest, almost dropped it, then raised it and fired into the left corridor.
Cedric twisted the last wire.
The lock clicked.
Green.
Malcolm grabbed the handle and pulled the door open.
Three people inside the control room turned at once. Two wore lab coats. One had a sidearm halfway out of a desk drawer. Monitors covered the wall behind them, throwing pale light over their faces.
"Down," Malcolm said.
The man with the gun lifted it.
Malcolm fired once. The man hit the chair and went over with it. Phillip came in last and locked the door behind them as one of the lab workers reached for a button near the console.
Malcolm crossed the room before the man touched it. He caught him by the collar, drove him into the desk, and cut him. The second worker grabbed a chair and swung. Malcolm ducked under it, stepped close, and drove the knife in under his ribs.
The last man fell backward against the monitors, hands lifted high.
"Please," he said. "Please. I only watch the feeds."
Malcolm looked at the screens behind him. Glass cells. Corridors. Soldiers. Doors sealing. Staff running with trays and restraints.
"Iyisha," Malcolm said.
"I don’t know who that is."
Malcolm’s jaw moved once.
The man started crying. "I swear. I don’t know names. They don’t give us names."
Malcolm caught him by the front of his coat, turned him from the monitors, and cut him.
Cedric stopped working for half a second.
Phillip looked away.
Malcolm let the body drop and turned back to the room. "System."
Cedric swallowed, then moved to the main console. "Give me space."
Malcolm stripped off his wet jacket and pulled his shirt over his head. Blood ran from the graze on his right arm, down over his wrist, and onto the floor in steady drops. He tore the shirt into a strip and wrapped it tight around the wound with his teeth and left hand. frёewebnoѵēl.com
Phillip slid down the wall and sprawled on the floor with the pistol across his lap. His breathing came rough.
"We knew you’d come back," Phillip said.
Malcolm tightened the knot with a hard pull.
Phillip gave a tired laugh. "Took your time."
Cedric bent over the console, fingers moving despite the tremor in them.
"We nearly starved to death," Phillip said. "Where are the others?"
Malcolm looked at him. "Coming."
Cedric looked up fast. "You came alone?"
Malcolm did not answer.
The radio on the desk crackled. "Control breached."
Another voice cut in. "Communications compromised. Kill internal channel."
The radio died.
For one second, only the alarm and Cedric’s breathing filled the room. Then the monitors became the only answer. Feeds shifted across the wall. Intake. Freight elevator. First ward. Support corridor. Glass cells. Soldiers running in groups.
Malcolm stepped closer.
One frame showed a section deeper in the lab. Soldiers stood thick around a sealed corridor. Two doctors moved behind them. One carried a tray. Another pushed a cart covered in white cloth.
Malcolm swallowed once.
There.
Iyisha was there.
"Can you open it?" Malcolm asked.
Cedric’s fingers moved faster. "I can try."
Minutes dragged. The alarm kept screaming through the walls. Soldiers pounded at the control room door twice, then moved away when Phillip fired through the lower panel. Cedric cursed under his breath, tried one route, failed, tried another, and slammed his palm against the console when the screen rejected him again.
"Damn it."
Malcolm stood behind him, pistol in his left hand, wounded arm tied tight against his side. Blood had soaked through part of the cloth already.
Cedric kept working.
Ten minutes.
Then twenty.
By thirty, his hands were shaking so badly Phillip pushed himself off the floor and stood beside him.
"Cedric."
"I know," Cedric snapped. "I know."
The screen flashed red again.
Cedric stared at it.
Then his face changed.
He looked at Malcolm. "I can’t open only that section."
Malcolm stepped closer.
Cedric’s throat moved. "I can open the wards."
"All of them?" Phillip asked.
Cedric nodded once. "All the glass cells tied to this system. First ward. Second ward. Holding rows. Maybe the large ones too."
Phillip’s face tightened. "The big ones?"
Cedric looked sick. "If they wired them through the same release, yes."
The pounding outside started again.
Malcolm looked at the monitor with the soldiers around the deeper section.
"Open them."
Cedric stared at him. "That means everything inside walks out."
Malcolm raised his pistol toward the door as the lock shook under another hit.
"Open them."
