After incapacitating the guards, it was just a matter of time before they were discovered. TINA was working overtime looping cameras, suppressing communications, disabling alerts, and opening doors, but no amount of hacking could stop plain ol’ bad luck.
They’d tried to time their approach to avoid the guard’s shift change, but another employee must’ve run into the nanite-covered guards.
Mod had hoped that having TINA in their systems would stall them a little longer—they’d barely gotten two minutes. Apparently, Gnosis had acoustic channels in the walls, like a vintage intercom system. Again, it was something deliberately kept out of written records, so TINA hadn’t been able to plan for it. They’d briefly discussed trying to clog the channels with nanites, but it would simply take too long and take too many nanites to do so.
So they ran through the lower levels of Gnosis—a section referred to as the Testing Grounds.
They ran through the halls of Sublevel 23. Gone were the white tiles and blood-colored decor. Down here there was no more pretending that Gnosis was a makeup or a pharmaceutical company. Twenty floors below ground there was nothing but industrial concrete hallways with occasional panels for piping and wiring. Overhead lights flickered ominously, highlighting the pits and craters in the concrete. The air was dead and musty, but occasionally, Mod caught the smell of bleach.
Doors whipped by as they ran. Each set were heavy and metal. Mod was glad they had TINA helping them navigate and open doors when needed. Who knew how long it would take to brute force their way through.
It wasn’t long before they ran into more guards.
The guards must’ve expected Mod’s group to be further away than they were—they entered the hallway of sublevel 23 without their guns drawn. Mod’s group practically ran them over. He hit each one with a nanite round, then Athena knocked them off their feet.
Mod, Arsenal, and Athena didn’t pause—they simply hurdled the downed guards and kept running.
The next batch of guards was ready for them. Mod’s group rounded the corner and was met with a hail of gunfire. They’d taken position at a junction in the hallway, some even using doorways as cover.
Athena grunted in surprise, but conjured a barrier to block the assault.
Mod whispered, “TINA, a little help.”
On cue, the doors hissed closed, pushing the hidden guards out into the hallway and cutting off the possibility of reinforcements.
Mod pulled a sonic grenade. In the split second before he threw it, nanites coated the gadget. He threw it high across the hall so that it slipped between Athena’s barrier and the ceiling. it engaged a moment later. The whine of the sonic filled the hall as nanites coated the guards.
Mod, Arsenal, and Athena advanced at a sprint. Pummeling the few vampires that had the constitution to stand.
The lights flickered and went out. A moment later, red emergency lighting came on, bathing the halls in a bloody glow.
“They’re manually cutting power to this section.”
Both Mod and Athena groaned in frustration.
Arsenal asked, “On a scale of one to ten, how hosed are we?”
“Three—if you move quickly. Rerouting now… Follow my directions.”
Directions appeared in Mod’s vision, along with a small mini-map of the floor. They’d went over the schematics of the compound before, and Mod knew exactly where TINA was taking them.
“You want us to go through the Testing Grounds?”
“It’s the fastest route and the one Gnosis has the least manual control of. It will also have the most resistance.”
Athena clapped Mod on the shoulder. “Come on. I’m not getting any younger.”
Arsenal leaned her shoulder into the right-side door—one that TINA had just shut. Metal crunched against metal, but the door didn’t budge, not even when the back of her suit flared with power. Mod quickly leapt to her side, digging his heels in and shoving with all his strength.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
The door ground open and shouts echoed from behind it. Apparently, Mod and Arsenal hadn’t just been fighting the weight of the door—more guards had arrived and tried to push against them.
As the door opened, a clawed hand reached around the opening. Arsenal turned and grabbed the vampire’s hand. She rocketed through the gap in the door, and there were more shouts and a crash as she hurled the vampire into the other guards.
Mod slipped into the room a moment later, riddling the five guards with nanite rounds.
The group sprinted through the next rooms that looked like morbid doctor’s offices—waiting rooms and a surgery suite filtered with red emergency light. Gnosis doctors and nurses hunkered against the wall as they passed.
TINA guided them through another set of surgical suites and then what Mod could only describe as a prison cellblock. The long room was two stories tall, and lined with heavy, reinforced doors with bulletproof glass.
Mod’s pace slowed enough so that he could make out a few of the faces that peered back through the glass. Some of them were clearly test subjects—some with the elongated fangs of vampires, and two whose hair seemed to float weightlessly behind them. They were likely on the same mutagen as Hair-girl, from back at the mutagen warehouse.
It felt like time slowed down as Mod looked at all of them. Had they chosen to be test subjects? Chosen to be imprisoned down here?
How much of a choice was it really though? From everything Mod knew, Lock had signed up to be a test subject. But that didn’t mean much from a corporation like Gnosis. They could make someone an offer that was too good to refuse or straight up blackmail them. It wasn’t hard to believe that Lock would take a deal like that. He’d been scraping by, working late nights to get through school and to help out his sister.
Money didn’t matter when Mutagen-X was going to drive you crazy in three years. Hell, Lock hadn’t even made it that long—
TINA’s voice brought him back to the moment. “Mod, we need to get through the next set of doors. Use your nanites to open the lock.”
Arsenal and Athena were already across the room and examining the large double doors. Mod was there a breath later. He pressed a hand against the lock in the center. Nanites oozed into it and then into the thin seam between the two doors.
Mod took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. They’d briefly played around with using nanites to open locks, but only on the small door locks in Athena’s apartment. The nanites gave him a general sense of things, so he could feel the shape of the lock, but it felt a bit like fumbling around in the dark.
“Training wheels, right?” Mod asked TINA.
“This time.”
He chuckled nervously as he fumbled with the lock. Nanites seeped into each nook and cranny, and soon he could feel the shape of the tumbler. The problem was, it was heavier than the small locks he’d practiced with, and finding leverage inside the narrow confines was infinitely more difficult.
It didn’t help that footsteps were quickly coming up from behind.
More guards entered the cellblock. The guards in power armor quickly took positions at the entrance and leveled rifles. Five vampires in the front didn’t stop. They sprinted directly toward Mod’s group.
Arsenal turned and took a combat stance, but Athena had already thrown up a barrier between the two groups. The vampires ran directly into it, but it didn’t stop them for long. As soon as they recovered, they pummeled the barrier while the other guards opened fire.
“We don’t have time for this!” Athena shouted. “Get back!”
Athena flicked her other hand toward the door. Mod barely got out of the way in time.
Blue flashed between the double doors. Metal squealed as Athena’s barrier cut through the lock. There was a second flash between the left-hand door and the wall that sheared through the hinges.
“That will speed things up considerably,” TINA replied.
Mod didn’t wait. He braced his shoulder against the door and pushed. His muscles strained and servos in his limbs whined. Metal and concrete protested as thousands of pounds of metal were forced out of place. Arsenal slammed into the door beside him and flared her power, but despite their combined strength, the door moved agonizingly slow.
All the while, guards hadn’t stopped firing and trying to get through Athena’s first barrier. The sound of gunfire grew deafening.
“Keep pushing.” TINA’s voice sounded like it came from inside Mod’s head, but he didn’t have time to contemplate it.
A second later, he felt more nanites seeping into the gaps between the door, the ground, and the frame. He took a deep breath and pushed again. With the nanites acting as a smooth layer, the door began to slide outward.
Finally, the door slid back enough to reveal a small gap. Mod and Arsenal slipped through, followed quickly by Athena. Then they leaned against the door and started pushing it back into place. Gunfire echoed through the gap, but Athena kept her shield up to block while they pushed.
By the time they got the door half-way wedged back into the gap, Mod’s legs burned and his chest was heaving from exertion. Arsenal didn’t fare much better, despite her suit and power.
They’d successfully made it to the Testing Grounds. The large, cavernous room stretched out into the gloom. The only light came from the tiny red safety lights high in the ceiling.
Arsenal huffed. “You can cut through steel? Couldn’t you just cut through the door?”
“Cutting through a lock and cutting through a blast door are not the same thing.”
Mod barely heard their conversation. He was too busy staring across the room. He could see clearly through the darkness—
And clearly see the one vampire waiting for them.
~ ~ ~