Chapter 12 - The Lockdown Protocol
The crimson alarm lights pulsed rhythmically against the gleaming black mainframe towers, casting long, writhing shadows across the server room floor. Arthur cursed loudly, abandoning his cautious demeanor as he rushed back to the entrance door and slammed his fists against the reinforced steel.
"Open this door!" Arthur yelled into the intercom keypad beside the frame. "This is Director Arthur! Release the internal locks immediately!"
The intercom hissed with static, followed by a calm, mechanical voice that sounded entirely devoid of humanity: ACCESS DENIED. FACILITY QUARANTINE ACTIVE. INCINERATOR CORE AT MAXIMUM CAPACITY.
Julian stared at the monitor screen with wide eyes. The green progress bar had surged past 97%... 98%... 99%...
"Sharda, look!" Julian cried out, pointing to the flashing prompt on the screen: DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. SECURE DRIVE READY FOR REMOVAL.
Sharda didn't hesitate. She reached out, gripped the small silver flash drive protruding from the terminal port, and yanked it free just as the monitor screen went entirely black.
Arthur whipped around, his face twisted into a mask of pure panic and rage. He abandoned the locked door and lunged across the room toward them, his hand outstretched to grab Sharda by the collar. "Give me that drive, you little brat!"
Before Arthur could reach them, a heavy metal maintenance hatch in the server room ceiling blew inward with a deafening bang, showering the linoleum floor with insulation and drywall dust.
"Catch!" a voice shouted from above.
Agent Miller dropped down through the ceiling hatch, landing squarely on her feet with her service weapon raised. Without a moment's hesitation, she fired two precise shots into the floor directly in front of Arthur's boots, kicking up a shower of white linoleum chips and forcing him to dive backward behind a server rack.
"Move, move, move!" Miller yelled, grabbing Julian and Sharda by their hands and pulling them toward the open maintenance ladder dangling from the ceiling.
"He's going to shoot!" Sharda screamed, scrambling onto the first rung of the metal ladder as a bullet sparked off the metal frame just inches from her ear.
"He can't shoot through three layers of reinforced lead plating!" Miller shouted back, firing a suppressing round toward the server rack where Arthur was pinned. "Up the ladder, Julian! Now!"
Julian scrambled up the rungs behind Sharda, his small arms burning with exertion as he climbed into the dark, narrow ventilation shaft above. As Miller hoisted herself up after them, pulling the heavy metal hatch shut and throwing the manual locking bolts into place, the entire floor beneath them shuddered violently.
"What was that?" Julian asked, his voice shaking as they crawled through the narrow metal tunnel in the dark.
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"The incinerator core just breached the lower sub-basement," Miller replied grimly, her breathing ragged as she led the way through the labyrinth of pipes. "The whole facility is going up in flames."
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