2. 2
Elias stared at me like I was the rabid one. “Why would I shoot you?”
“You shot Dr. Fassi!” I yelled in response, waving my arms in the doctor’s direction.
He knelt down, between my legs, and removed my soiled face shield, tossing it to the side. “He was about to kill you. Did you want me to let him?”
His face was so close, brown eyes boring a hole into mine. I shook my head.
“Good,” he said, bouncing back to his feet. “Take off your gloves. They’re bloody.” He pointed to the sink. “And wash your hands.”
I stood slowly, monitoring Elias’s movements around the lab. He pulled some spare lab coats from the closet and covered Dr. Fassi’s body, before closing the in-glass blinds to the main windows of the lab, hiding us from view from anyone or anything that may have been lurking in the hall.
Without another option, I heeded his instructions to the best of my ability, but I found a major disconnect between my limbs and my brain. My hands had been washed three times before I realized I could stop. Clean hands ripped off my surgical mask so I could breathe, but it didn’t help.
I turned from my position at the sink to look at Elias, who was preoccupied surveying the room. His flashlight shined at the ceiling, floors, the seals of the doors, and the vent in the center of the room that we used to remove hazardous air during our more experimental studies.
“We might have to go through here,” he said, his flashlight illuminating the vent.
My vision blurred, and I staggered forward, arms reaching ahead for something to stop my fall. Rather than the counter, I found Elias, and he guided me toward a stool a few feet away.
“Easy does it, now,” he said, easing me onto the seat. “I’ve made my fair share of women faint, but never this long after the kiss. It’s normally much sooner.”
“If I had control of my body, or even the slightest fucking idea of what is happening, I would punch you square in the face,” I said, my teeth gritted together.
“Got you talking, though, didn’t I?”
I looked him over, my eyes not making it far past the gun in his hands. “That’s a big gun.”
“Yes, it is. Are you insinuating something?” He was joking around, obviously, but his face didn’t show his amusement.
“How did you get that in here?” Every employee was required to go through a metal detector and that gun would definitely set it off.
“I have a work around. . . or two,” he admitted.
“You’re a janitor, why are you bringing a Desert Eagle to work?” I asked. It was irritating, how many times he was making me ask him.
“Good eye, you know your guns.” He looked impressed.
“It says the name on the barrel.” I took a deep breath. “Elias, please tell me why you need to bring that to work.” What I meant was, please tell me if you’re insane, and if I should start running. Not that I’d get far with the way he handled that thing.
He leaned forward to look me in the eye. “How about this: I’m not really a janitor, and I needed the gun for protection. Protection for events like today.”
My eyes narrowed. “Then what are you?”
His own eyes flitted upward as if searching for the answer. “Let’s say I work for the CIA. Let’s say I know a few things. Hell, let’s assume I know exactly what got to Dr. Fassi.”
A secret agent on a mission to work in sanitation. This guy had completely lost it. I’d lost it too, and was complicit in the murder of Dr. Fassi. Prison really didn’t suit me, and neither did an orange jumpsuit.
“I’m grateful that you saved my life, I really am, but you sound insane right now and you’re freaking me out.
” I tried to keep my voice even and my eyes on his gun.
I wouldn’t survive a shot from that, not at this range.
He could blow my leg off at this distance, and I’d bleed out just like my coworker.
He leaned in closer, switched the gun from his right hand to his left, and laid his hand on my shoulder. “I’m not joking. Do you want to see my badge?” He asked softly, not needing to project his voice this close to me.
I could smell his cologne, even over the stench of pooled blood at our feet.
He smelled like leather and cherry flavored tobacco, like a well kept man.
Someone this clean couldn’t be crazy, could he?
He’d shaved this morning, and his skin looked soft and smooth, like he just washed his face.
His dark hair hung down near his eyes, the waves creating a fascinating silhouette against the red emergency lighting.
I nodded. “Yeah, sure.”
“I don’t have one. You were supposed to just trust me and say no. I have an ID in my glovebox, but I’m undercover right now. They don’t give people like me a badge.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m choosing to trust you because I don’t have a choice, and I’m scared shitless that if I don’t listen you’ll take me out.
” Something had been wrong, seriously wrong with Dr. Fassi.
I didn’t want to be the girl in the movie that died because she made the wrong choice while onlookers screamed at the screen, telling her to run.
“Please, Special Agent Elias, tell me what to do next.”
“It’s actually Special Agent Correa.” Before I could interrupt him, he spoke again. “We need to get out of this room. If we can escape the campus, we can gear up at my home.”
“If?” I asked.
He nodded. “I’m pretty sure I can get us out. I’ve stayed alive this long. I’d prefer to go out the door here, the stairs are a straight shot down, and there is a fire door at the bottom of the staircase. Do you know how to open the door?”
“No, it needs power to open,” I answered.
“There’s definitely a manual override code. I know that much, and it changes every so often. Is there no correspondence of this in case of emergencies?”
“I don’t think so, Elias. They’ve never given me any information about this door. I can open it with my badge, and I can open the lab door with my pin code.”
“I’ve studied this building from floor to ceiling. There is an override, and we are going to find it,” he argued. He leaned away so I had enough room to stand, though I hadn’t a clue where to start.
“That your laptop in there?” he asked, pointing to my area of the lab.
“Yeah,” I said, hesitant to walk past Dr. Fassi on the floor.
Without me asking, Elias retrieved it and set it on the workspace in front of me. “Looks like you’ve got an hour of battery, so we better not waste any time.”
“Where should I start?” I asked.
“Even if you’re not connected to the actual internet, you’ll be connected to the devices on the network. It’s essential for lockdown scenarios like this.”
“I’ve only been here for a few months, I don't know how this all works,” I said, unsure.
“You’ve got a PhD don’t you? You’re smart. Fiddle with it,” he ordered.
I fiddled, like he asked, and found a program on my desktop that seemed relevant. I was met with a login screen and entered my credentials.
Access Denied.
Grasping at straws, I pulled up the history of downloaded files on my browser, and began searching for the company announcements and notes that were sent out almost daily.
I didn't really read them, so if there were instructions on how to open doors without power, I definitely would have missed it.
After glancing at a few, I determined that any passwords must have been disguised.
I scanned each one, looking for odd letter capitalizations or patterns, and found nothing.
The dates at the top were accurate, and always in the same format.
What was different, was that every letter was signed by a different person with a different salutation. On the most recent one, it was signed:
Best,
Edwards.
Back at the login screen, I entered “Best” as the user ID and “Edwards” as the password.
Access Granted.
I found the lab door in the directory and selected it, marking it to manual, rather than electronically locked.
I gasped as I heard it click, and could feel Elias appear behind me, his chin inches from my ear, his eyes on the screen.
“Excellent job,” he said, and I felt his breath on my neck. He pulled away and began walking toward the door, before turning to look at me. “Have you made any progress with the vaccine?” He asked.
“No, not really–wait. Yes. Today I had a small success. Nothing set in stone yet, but the first forward progress we’ve seen. I was about to tell Dr. Fassi before he. . .” I trailed off.
Elias’s expression softened, but he didn’t dwell on my words. “Did you notate your findings on your laptop?”
I nodded.
“Then bring it with you.”
I snatched the laptop from the table and held it close to my chest.
Elias tugged the door open, and it stopped after a few inches, not nearly wide enough to squeeze through.
He jammed his foot in, desperate to widen the gap, but it wouldn’t budge.
Like it was being controlled remotely, it began to shut on his foot, and he was forced to remove himself before the door crushed him.
As the door shut, the light on the door went out, and we didn’t need to know how the door worked to know that the power was cut off completely, and we were not getting out that way.
“Christ, can nothing go right around here?” Elias huffed, kicking the door.
“Back to the first plan?”
He sighed. “Yeah, we’re going to have to go through the ventilation system.”
He dragged the stool to the center of the room beneath the large vent before pulling a knife from a hidden holster near his ankle. He set his gun down and looked at me. “Don’t shoot me.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” I said.
He undid the bolts one by one with his knife, before lowering the metal cover. “Can you set this down? I don’t want to make more noise than I have to.”
I walked over without answering, taking the large piece of metal from his hands, and setting it on the floor. I expected it to be heavier.
“I’m going to get up first, then I’m going to pull you up. Sound good?” He put his gun back in the holster, tightening the strap around his calf.
I hesitated. “I’m heavier than I look.”
“I’m stronger than I look,” he retorted.
“Not possible,” I muttered.
He smiled, but hoisted himself into the ceiling with ease.
I climbed the stool after him, and stood staring up into the dark hole in the ceiling.
“Laptop first, please.”
Without thinking, I handed him the laptop, freezing as he took it from my hands.
If I had any sense of self preservation, I would have demanded he pull me up first, lest he leave me behind.
My laptop had important information, and I was only a witness who would slow him down.
Thankfully, he spoke again before my ruminations could take over.
“Alright, pretty girl, time to come up.”
I raised both of my arms, and he gripped my forearms tight and pulled.
My waist caught the metal lip. It wasn’t sharp by any means, but it was uncomfortable, and probably bruised as he dragged me around the 90 degree angle.
When I had the leverage, I was able to use my legs to push my body the rest of the way.
“Damn,” I said, rubbing my stomach. “That kinda hurt.”
He handed the laptop back to me. “I can kiss it better for you when we’re out of here.
” The grin that followed his words disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
“This is important that you listen to me from here on out. When I direct you to do something, I need you to do it without hesitation. I can only keep you alive if you can agree that you will help me do so. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, breathless.
“You cannot let infected blood enter your body. Do you have any open wounds? Cuts? Scrapes?” He asked.
“No.”
“Good. A single drop won’t infect you, but it doesn’t take much. You cannot let their blood into your mouth or up your nose or into your eyes. Say that you understand.”
“I understand.”
“Any questions before we run for our lives?”
“Only, one. What is happening here?” I asked.
“It appears there has been an outbreak of the virus you’re developing a vaccine for. This virus will kill you, but not before making you kill everyone around you.” He was whispering now, cautious of letting his voice carry too far.
I lowered my voice, too. “How do you know this?”
“That’s classified. For now, at least. When we make it out of here, I’m happy to give you more information. But it is best that we leave now before this entire building is compromised.”
“Okay,” I agreed. “Let’s go.” I had no other option, and even if I did, Elias might be the best one. Big guy. Big gun.
The ventilation system was extensive, but not so large that we could walk, or even crawl on our knees.
We had to army crawl, shimmying across the shiny metal.
I always thought it looked easy, but it was rather difficult to move my body in such a tight space.
Though if I was only judging Elias’s movements, I might think it was a walk in the park.
The next vent cover we came across, Elias shook his head. It was just another entrance to a lab, and we likely wouldn’t be able to open that door either.
We weren’t crawling for long when Elias froze ahead of me, holding up his left hand to signal a stop.
After we were both still, I could hear the sound of another person in the vents, making their way toward us.
I resisted the urge to call out, to see if there was another person alive here, but I told Elias that I would listen to his commands, and I was fairly certain he was commanding me to be silent.
Lifting my head to see around his shoulders, I caught a glimpse of the person, illuminated by Elias’s Maglite, dragging themselves around a corner up ahead. Nearly the same time I saw their hair rounding the bend, I saw their bloody eyes.