Chapter 8 - Level Three
“Move, move, move!” Miller roared, hauling Evan down into the narrow maintenance trench just as the classroom floor panel above them slammed shut with the force of a hydraulic press.
Absolute darkness enveloped them, broken only by the faint, flickering beam of Mrs. Gable’s keychain light as she dropped down behind them. The trench was barely four feet wide, lined with thick bundles of fiber-optic cables that pulsed with an eerie green light. The air was hot, stale, and thick with the metallic taste of ozone.
“Keep your heads down and follow my boots!” Miller ordered, crawling rapidly on his hands and knees over the cold metal tracks.
Evan crawled directly behind him, his fingers brushing against discarded plastic wrappers and metallic tags stamped with serial numbers and bar codes. Every few feet, small glass lenses were embedded in the trench walls, staring out into the darkness like unblinking mechanical eyes.
“How far to the boiler room?” Mrs. Gable gasped from the rear, her breathing ragged and panicked.
“About fifty yards,” Miller called back without stopping. “Stay close to the wall. The middle tracks are rigged with live induction coils.”
As if to prove his point, a sharp electric crackle snapped through the air just inches above Evan’s back. A bolt of blue current leaped from a rail in the center of the trench to the metal housing of a cable bundle, scorching the insulation and filling the narrow space with the acrid smell of burnt plastic.
Evan flinched, flattening himself completely against the concrete floor. “They’re hunting us!”
“They’re not hunting us, kid. They’re containing us,” Miller corrected over his shoulder. “There’s a big difference. Hunters want trophies. Containment protocols just want to make sure nobody outside these walls finds out what’s being brewed down here.”
They reached a junction where the trench split into three distinct paths. Each tunnel looked identical, marked only by small, glowing alphanumeric symbols stenciled onto the curved steel walls: Alpha-7, Beta-4, Omega-1.
Miller stopped, shining his tactical flashlight down each passage. The hum of the machinery grew louder here, vibrating directly through their chests.
“Which way?” Evan asked, wiping sweat from his forehead.
“Omega-1,” a voice answered from the dark.
It wasn't Miller. It wasn't Mrs. Gable. It was a clear, young female voice, coming from a small speaker grille mounted directly above the Omega-1 junction.
Miller instantly drew his flashlight like a club, aiming it at the speaker. “Who’s that? Identify yourself!”
May you like
“Don't go down Alpha or Beta,” the voice continued, ignoring Miller entirely. It sounded like a girl around Evan’s age, calm, steady, and exhausted. “They flooded those tunnels with neurotoxin ten minutes ago. Omega is the only way out, but you have to bypass the biometric tripwire before the automated turrets spin up.”
---
