Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Ben had been staring at the ceiling of his holding room for what felt like eternity, but was probably around three hours, when the door lock finally disengaged at two o’clock in the morning.
He’d spent those hours memorizing every detail Eric Hargrove had shared during his brief, nervous visit at eleven.
Ben wasn’t sure how the other man had managed it, but he’d slipped a folded note under Ben’s dinner tray.
Ben had palmed it immediately and read the message only after the guard who’d delivered his meal had departed.
The note reiterated what the man had already told him, but Ben supposed that Hargrove had wanted to confirm those eight precious minutes, had wanted to let him know that the plan hadn’t changed.
He leaped from the bed and ran to the door. Through the narrow window, he could see that the corridor beyond was dark — not the dimmed overnight lighting he’d observed earlier, but complete blackness. The utter dark suggested a comprehensive power failure rather than a simple lights-out protocol.
Sidney. It had to be. She’d promised to come for him, and Sidney Lowell was nothing if not relentlessly stubborn about keeping her promises.
He eased the door open and paused to listen.
All seemed quiet. The emergency lighting should have activated within seconds of the facility’s main power loss, but the corridor remained dark.
Either Sidney’s electromagnetic attack had been more comprehensive than expected, or Hargrove had disabled the backup systems as part of his sabotage.
Either way, Ben couldn’t count on anything more than the promised eight minutes.
The security badge Hargrove had given him earlier was concealed in his pocket — he’d hidden it under the mattress after the scientist’s visit, then retrieved it once the overhead lights died.
He pulled it out now, although in this darkness, it was functionally useless.
The card readers would be offline along with everything else.
Which meant the doors would either be magnetically locked or released, depending on their fail-safe settings. He’d have to test each one manually and hope like hell it wouldn’t slow him down too much.
He moved into the corridor and kept one hand on the wall for orientation.
His eyes had begun to adjust enough to make out basic shapes, so he could see that the hallway stretched maybe thirty feet before turning left.
Northeast stairwell, Hargrove had said. Ben tried to recall the route they’d taken when they’d brought him to this room earlier.
Two right turns, then a left. Or had it been two lefts and a right?
A soft sound behind him made him freeze. Footsteps, moving fast but trying for stealth. He pressed himself against the wall and prepared to either fight or run, depending on who appeared.
Rebecca Morse materialized from the darkness, her weapon drawn but pointed at the floor. She’d swapped her outdoor gear for dark civilian clothes, and her blonde hair was pulled back tight under a black knitted cap.
“Sanders,” she whispered. “You’re late. We have six minutes left.”
“I didn’t know the exact route.” Ben kept his voice equally low. “Where’s Sidney?”
“Outside the facility, maintaining the electromagnetic interference. She can hold it for maybe four more minutes before the cost gets too high.” Rebecca was already moving as she spoke, and Ben followed. “The northeast stairwell is this way. Stay close, and stay quiet.”
They moved through corridors he didn’t recognize.
Morse navigated the near-black hallways with the confidence of someone who’d studied the facility’s layout extensively.
The darkness was absolute except for the few places where emergency exit signs glowed faintly — battery-powered and apparently immune to Sidney’s interference.
“How did you get inside?” Ben asked as they descended a stairwell.
“Hargrove disabled the perimeter sensors on the east side. I walked right in.” Morse checked her watch, the faint glow from its display illuminating her grim expression. “Four minutes. We need to move faster.”
They emerged on the first floor, and Ben could hear activity now — guards shouting to each other, flashlights cutting through the darkness as security teams tried to restore order.
Morse pulled him into a storage alcove as two guards jogged past, their radios crackling with static that suggested Sidney’s interference was affecting communications as well as power.
“Hargrove said eight minutes,” Ben whispered once the guards passed.
“Hargrove’s eight minutes started when the power failed. We lost time finding you.” Rebecca checked the corridor and gestured him forward. “The service exit is close. Fifty yards, one turn.”
They made it maybe thirty yards before the emergency lighting flickered to life.
Not full power yet — the overhead lights remained dark — but the emergency systems were activating, filling the corridors with a dim red glow.
Ben heard more shouting, closer now. The facility’s security teams coordinating and responding to what they probably thought was a simple power failure rather than an infiltration.
“Damn it,” Rebecca breathed. “Sidney’s interference just failed. We’re out of time.”
Ben wasn’t about to give up, not when they were so close. “Then we’ll run.”
They sprinted the remaining distance, Rebecca in the lead. The service exit appeared ahead, a heavy steel door marked with emergency signage. She hit the crash bar and shoved it open, and they emerged into cold night air and darkness.
Flashlights swept across the perimeter while voices shouted conflicting orders. Ben spotted armed guards converging on the main entrance, probably responding to whatever alarm Sidney’s failed interference had triggered.
“Treeline,” Rebecca said. “Fifty yards north. Sidney’s waiting there.”
They ran again, crossing open ground that felt impossibly exposed.
Ben expected shouts or weapons fire, tactical teams emerging from the darkness to drag them back.
But the facility’s security seemed focused on the main entrance rather than the service exit.
Hargrove’s sabotage had worked exactly as promised, creating confusion in the crucial minutes of their escape.
They reached the trees, and Ben nearly collided with Sidney in the darkness.
She was on her knees in the undergrowth, both hands pressed against her temples, blood streaming from her nose in a thick flow.
Even in the faint emergency light from the facility, Ben could see she was trembling violently.
Her arms bore marks he’d never seen before — dark patches that looked almost like burns, but with an iridescent quality that suggested something far worse than simple heat damage.
“Sidney.” He dropped beside her, his hands hovering over her shoulders, afraid to touch her in case it caused more pain. “Sidney, I’m here. We made it.”
Her eyes opened slowly, their pupils dilated and unfocused. When they found his face, something in her expression crumbled. It wasn’t relief he saw there, but the desperate recognition of someone who’d been holding themselves together through sheer force of will and had just run out of strength.
“Ben,” she whispered. Then she pitched forward, and he caught her.
She weighed almost nothing in his arms. Her body felt far too light, too fragile.
Through the strange electromagnetic bond that connected them — fainter than it should have been, muted in a way that terrified him — Ben could feel the extent of her depletion.
She’d pushed past every safe limit, had burned through power reserves that should have taken days to recover, and had kept going anyway because he’d needed her to.
“I’ve got you,” he said, pulling her close. “You’re okay. We’re both okay.”
Sidney made a sound that might have been agreement or might have been a sob.
Her face pressed against his shoulder, and he felt blood from her nose soaking into his shirt.
The dimensional burns on her arms looked worse up close — not just surface damage, but something that went deeper, affecting the tissue underneath.
Permanent scarring, he realized. The kind that would never fully heal.
The cost of rescuing him.
“We need to move,” Rebecca Morse said from behind them, her voice urgent but not unkind. “It’ll be only a minute or so more before they realize we’ve breached the perimeter.”
Ben stood and gathered Sidney into his arms. She didn’t protest, which scared him far more than the blood or the burns. Sidney always protested when she thought people were treating her as fragile. The way she’d gone limp meant she truly had nothing left.
They moved deeper into the forest, Rebecca leading, her weapon held ready. Behind them, the facility’s emergency lighting continued to strobe, and Ben could hear sirens now. Soon, the full weight of DAPI’s resources would turn toward finding them.
“How far to the extraction point?” Ben asked, adjusting his grip on Sidney. She’d passed out completely at some point, her head now lolling against his shoulder.
“Two hundred yards. Vehicle’s hidden just off a maintenance access road.” Rebecca glanced back, checking for signs of pursuit. “Can you carry her that far?”
“Yes.” His arms were already aching, but he’d carry Sidney two miles — twenty miles — if necessary. She’d nearly destroyed herself getting him out of the DAPI facility. The least he could do was get her to safety.
They’d made it a hundred yards before Sidney stirred in his arms.
“Down,” she mumbled against his shoulder. “Put me down. Too heavy.”
“You weigh about as much as my field equipment,” Ben said without breaking stride. “I can manage.”
“Ben.” Her voice was stronger now, although still hoarse. “I can walk. Save your strength.”
He set her down reluctantly and kept one arm around her waist for support. She swayed badly but managed to stay upright, one hand braced against a nearby pine trunk.