Chapter 8 - The Cleanroom Protocol
The cold smell of ozone and disinfectant hit Julian the moment Marcus kicked open the security door to Sub-level Three. The lighting here was glaring, stark white fluorescent tubes reflecting off sterile epoxy floors. Maya stayed close between them, Marcus holding her small hand while Julian led the point with his weapon drawn low against his thigh.
They moved past rows of empty examination rooms, their glass walls fogged with condensation. A red warning light flashed rhythmically down the corridor, accompanied by an intermittent siren that set Julian’s nerves on fire: Evacuation Warning: Primary Archive Deletion in Progress.
“She’s purging the patient records,” Marcus muttered, his eyes darting to the overhead security monitors. “She’s setting the system to incinerate the biological samples.”
They rounded the final corner to Pod B. Through the reinforced observation glass, Julian saw Victoria.
She was no longer wearing the white wedding veil; it lay discarded on the bloody floor tiles like a discarded snake skin. She had thrown a white medical coat over her wedding gown, her hands encased in blue latex gloves as she feverishly typed commands into a central console.
Inside the pressurized glass chamber behind her lay a bed surrounded by life-monitoring hardware. On it lay Elena. Her face was pale and hollowed by months of induced sleep, but the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest was real. She was breathing.
“Elena,” Julian breathed, his palm slamming against the glass partition.
Victoria spun around, startled. Her face contorted from shock into a twisted sneer as she saw Julian and Marcus through the observation window. Behind her, two armed laboratory technicians reached for their holsters.
“You’re too late, Julian!” Victoria’s voice crackled through the intercom speaker on the wall. “The purge protocol is irreversible! In two minutes, the oxygen mix in that pod drops to zero, and the medical locks will seal for four hours!”
“Open the door, Victoria!” Julian shouted, aiming his weapon at the reinforced glass. “It’s over! Claire has already alerted federal authorities!”
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Victoria laughed—a shrill, manic sound that echoed through the sterile corridor. “Federal authorities? By the time they breach the outer gates, there will be nothing left here but an industrial accident. Including you.”
She pressed a heavy red override switch on the console. A heavy steel blast shutter began to grind downward over the observation glass, slowly cutting off Julian’s view of his wife’s face.
