Zack had studied the maps well enough to be able to get them to the ground floor of the hospital. They should have made it there in less than seven minutes, but due to one wrong turn and a block, it took over eleven. Four or five minutes wasn't much time, but it could be critical to success. He had to stay calm and keep things moving. This was Bryn's only chance for freedom, and he wasn't going to let emotion ruin it.
They made almost no noise as they slipped through the ventilation system. Over some of the exits were laser alarm systems. If you broke the laser contact, the alarm would go off. Luckily they didn't need to use an exit just yet, and the red beams were easy to avoid. A couple of times they saw some people in the hallways, mostly medical personnel. Zack saw one guy that looked like one of the X-6 that had been in Seattle. He wasn't sure if it was one of them, and since the possible X-6 didn't notice them, he let it drop for now. It was too late to back out.
They finally came to the exit vent they wanted. Alicia said it dropped into a closet on the bottom floor. The vents didn't go to the underground sections. That area had a closed off air system. Still, the vent had a laser protection. Jhondie slid next to it, and dropped two mirrors in it to get the lasers to bounce back and forth on the sides so that she could reach her hands into its controls. Thirty seconds later the red lights went dark.
Zack undid the vent cover and crawled out carefully. It appeared to be a janitorial closet. He made a motion and Max and Jhondie came out. Max had the best hearing, and she went to the door, and listened very carefully. She could hear guards talking. The closet was supposed to be about ten feet from where the only way down was supposed to be. It sounded like there were only two of them.
"Who knows what they're doing to those freaks?" one of them said. "I'm just glad I don't have to be part of it."
"You never wanted to go down?" the other one asked.
"No way!" the first one declared emphatically. "You hear rumors once you've been around here long enough. Very weird rumors." He sounded like an older guard trying to scare a young kid. It sounded like it was working.
"L…like what?" the other guard asked.
"Oh, weird stuff like alien-human hybrids, and animal-human hybrids. You see lab techs looking real grim sometimes. Makes you wonder what happened. And sometimes a guard will disappear, never to be seen again."
"Now you're just messing with me!"
"Not about that," he replied, sounding serious. "Hey, there was this guy Sgt. John Kellman that came in here a few months ago for a special guard assignment. This blonde A-1 that none of us knew why she was here or what she was doing. A few days ago a buddy of mine at the airfield says that they got a body bag on a plane heading east, and the air bill says Sgt. J. Kellman is residing inside. Maybe it was a different guy, but I'm not going on any special assignments if I can help it."
The other guard didn't say anything back. Max smiled in the closet. If they were a little freaked about a blonde with A-1, maybe she could use the badge that she had again.
She pulled it out, and then casually stepped out of the closet. Both guards immediately had their rifles at her. She held up her badge before either of them tripped the alarm.
"You do not want to be shooting your superior," she declared arrogantly. They paused for a moment. Alicia had said several times to make sure nobody actually called in to check the clearance. Max walked towards the guards, motioning behind her back to Zack and Jhondie to stay put.
The first guard looked at the badge. Blonde. A-1. Had she heard them? It could be the same one. The picture looked a little off, but they only updated them every few years.
"We have to clear this, uh…" he glanced at the name. A.D. Lydecker. No rank. "Ms. Lydecker. No offense, everyone has to be checked through tonight."
"None taken," Max said with a sweet smile. Before the guard could twitch, she grabbed the gun, pulling him forward, and kicking him in the head. The other guard froze for a second, and she was already on him before he could pull the alarm. Two hard punches, and a kick, and he was down for the count. Jhondie and Zack came out of the closet.
Jhondie checked the security cameras. Everything was fine. They were fourteen minutes into penetration. Zack and Max bound the guards, and gagged them. They couldn't risk a gunshot inside. If the silencer failed, half the world would be there in a second. The guards were put into a closet and injected with a tranquilizer. They would be out for hours.
They ran the swipe cards taken from the techs through the elevator slot and the doors opened. It only had one choice for the floor. They got in, and then crawled out of the car and onto the roof of the elevator. They didn't want any surprises when the doors opened. None of them noticed the A-1 badge still on the floor where the guard had dropped it when Max kicked him.
**********
The guard at the front desk looked up, startled when the elevator door opened, displaying the empty car inside. From where he sat, whenever the elevator was activated, the name of the person whose card was swiped was displayed. For security reasons there weren't any cameras on the elevator. Nobody wanted to risk a record that went upstairs of who was in that elevator.
Mike's card had been swiped to send the elevator down. Charlie knew that Mike and Amanda had gone for a smoke break. He wasn't supposed to let people come and go until their shift was over, but it was one in the morning, nobody was around, and it wasn't fair that those two had to be locked up here for sixteen hours, and no smoking was permitted within the facility. Mike had been here for almost three years, and Amanda for a little over two. Charlie knew they weren't a security risk. But the elevator was empty.
He'd been warned to keep an eye out on suspicious activity tonight, but he'd gotten that warning a thousand times. There were few people that knew about this place. Even if they could get onto the base, and to the hospital without detection, there was no manual override to activate that elevator. Without a swipe card, it was not moving. Not to mention there were two guards upstairs that knew to fire a warning at the least provocation. Nothing unusual had ever happened down here. Until tonight.
He keyed his LASH system. It was a communication device that hooked to the ear, and the microphone actually went to his throat. It more or less picked up on his voice vibrations and transmitted that. It meant he could be nearly silent, and still heard loud and clear.
"Two missing lab techs," he muttered. "Doors opened with their key. Will fire on command."
"No known personnel should be there," came the reply. Charlie was glad to hear that from Bailey. That guy Lydecker and those kids were creepy. He'd much rather take orders from a normal person any day. "Fire on any entry." Charlie leveled his rifle, and approached the empty elevator with extreme caution.
From above the car, Jhondie could see the guard approaching in the mirror. The escape door on the top had been pulled back a couple of inches so that she could slide down a small recon mirror to scope out the area. One guard. Armed. He looked like his lips moved barely, and then starting approaching the elevator, rifle up.
Jhondie signaled to Zack. He motioned for them to back against the walls as tightly as possible, and then made another signal to Max. She nodded in response, and palmed some plastic packets filled with a red fluid. So far the guards had done exactly as they'd been trained to do. Alicia had warned them that if they kept that in mind, they could get around any norms on base. So far, she was right.
The guard moved forward very carefully. He didn't enter the elevator so that there couldn't be any attacks from above. He didn't risk communicating with the other guards upstairs. He aimed, and then fired half a dozen rounds into the roof of the elevator. There was a loud thump, and still cautiously, hit the release button on the side of the elevator that automatically caused the escape door to fall away. A blonde female fell through it, smeared with bright red blood. She lay there perfectly still, not breathing. He knew better than to approach before calling in.
"Subject down," he murmured. "Single female, blonde, appears dead."
"Dead? Are you positive?" Lydecker came back. The guard mentally cursed himself. He'd accidentally hit the general frequency button instead of the one that took him just to Bailey.
Lydecker saw Cole turn white as they looked at each other. Dead? Alicia? No, she wasn't. It wouldn't end like this. It couldn't. She was trained to well to…she wasn't dead at all.
"I'm going to make sure now," the guard whispered.
"No!" Lydecker shouted. "Do not approach! Do not approach!"
From the guard's communications Lydecker suddenly heard a surprised shout, crashing, a few more gun shots, and then silence. He was already at a dead run to get to his jeep and the hospital.