An explosion echoed down the stairwell. Mike ignored it. They hit the sixth floor and turned down onto the fifth. So far, they hadn’t seen anyone. He knew it wouldn’t be long before they came out of the escape tunnel in the office and were behind them.

More importantly, what was waiting for them at the bottom? He was confident more troops would be down there. But that wasn’t a given, whether they’d be waiting for his team or actively searching. Either way, his little group would have a hard time in a fight from the front and coming from the rear.

“Hold up.”

The six met on the fifth floor, where the reinforced entrance to the labs stood wide open. It was the first time Mike saw the labs beyond through the thick glass partition.

Tom looked down the stairs. “What’s up?”

“I don’t see any advantage to going any further. We go up or down, we're going to meet the enemy. They have the numbers, and it looks like we’ll get trapped between two groups.”

Al glanced at Tom, who lifted his shoulders.

“What?”

Al grinned. “We're not going all the way down, are we?”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“No. We're going to hide in there.” Mike motioned to the open door. “We’ll wait for the group above us to pass, then hi-tail it to the helipad. We’ll set up there and wait for them to come to us.”

“Roger that.” Al’s grin went from one end to the other.

Tom was the last to enter the room.

“What’d you guys bet.”

“One million dollars.” Tom’s mouth formed a smile echoing Al’s. But, the jokes on him because I’m broke as a mo’fo.”

“One million dollars and bragging rights.” Al’s smile dropped. He stepped closer to the window, then twisted his head, looking in the other rooms as far as he could see. “We got another problem.”

Mike stepped up to the window. “What now?”

“See that oxygen tank? The big green one?”

“Yeah.” Mike’s stomach dropped.

“There’s another one in the next room and probably more in the other rooms. And I’ll bet they're all open.”

“Okay, why?”

Al put his finger to the glass. “See those smaller cylinders with what looks like a digital timer on it. I’d say we have forty-five minutes. Then that one in the other room, and I assume one in each other room, destroys the lab complex.”

Mike looked at his watch. Forty-five minutes was a lot of time.

“I’d say they’re thermobaric charges.”

Randall let go of his charge and backed toward the open door. “What does that mean?”

Tom grabbed him and pushed him back to the kid.

Al took Randall’s hand and put it on the boy’s shoulder. “ It means that type of explosive device uses the surrounding oxygen in the air to generate a high-temperature explosion. They’ll use all the oxygen they can to create a large and intense blast wave.”

Randle dropped his hand and acted ready to run.

Mike grabbed the bio-nerds hand and squeezed. Randall’s hand curled around the material of the boy’s shirt. “Relax. It’s not going off for a while, and we’ll be long gone by then.”

He let go of Randall. “Now, everyone stay quiet.”