With no time to waste, Alexei decided to forgo as much of the facility as possible and make his way to Sector B.
“Tanaka, take point. Martínez, Smith, with me.” Alexei ordered the squad forward.
Leaving the operations center, the squad found themselves in the hallway of the security junction.
It was dark – all they had to see was the light provided by their flashlights.
Alexei found it odd that the emergency generator for their sublevel didn’t activate but ignored the concern. He would have time once they had restored power.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t regret not taking the time to investigate.
“Sergeant, this way,” Tanaka called ahead, moving towards the Sector A access junction.
The squad followed.
The junction was deserted, the long winding corridor angled downward at fifteen degrees stretched on for roughly a hundred feet, broken up every twelve feet or so with an access panel attached to a sealed door.
The flashlights pierced the darkness. There wasn’t much to see. Normally, these junctions were reserved for technicians or maintenance crews, so the asphalt-coated ground was empty.
After around a minute, the ground leveled off, and they approached a checkpoint labeled “Sector B,” connected to a large metal barrier that cut off the junction from Sector B.
As they approached, Alexei noted that the checkpoint was manned by two security officers. Each of whom was holding a flashlight.
“Sgt. Alexei, sir!” The two snapped to attention. Man, are we glad to see you! We’ve been standing in the dark for almost half an hour now.”
“At ease, Chief sent us here to fix the issue,” Alexei informed the duo. “Do you know if any of the technicians or maintenance engineers are here?”
One of the officers responded immediately. “Well, sir, everything went dark mid-shift. Most of the techies were already up in Sector A or down in Sector D. But I think Carlos was in medical for a sprained wrist. He’s a sector D engineer.”
“Alright, round up anyone in Sector B and move them to the dorms,” Alexei told the pair. “Keep everyone calm and let them know that security is handling the situation.”
"Sergeant!" The pair snapped to attention before leaving to follow his orders.
Alone with his squad once more, Alexei turned to Smith. “Jason head down to medical, follow this maintenance shaft, and get Carlos.” Alexei pointed out a nearby ladder inside the checkpoint that extended downward. “Tanaka, Martínez, we are going straight to Sector C.”
“Uh, yes, sir!” Smith stuttered slightly. He then went over to the ladder and climbed down to the next sublevel.
“Ugh, fucking new guy.” Martínez groaned.
Alexei shut it down quickly. “Can it. Everyone has to start somewhere.” He turned to face them, “Either way, Sector C is locked down, and we can’t waste time. Smith will get the engineer, and we will release Sector C’s lockdown protocol.”
“Sir, should we be worried about anything in Sector C.” Tanaka quietly asked.
Shaking his head, Alexei responded. “No, the spooks in charge of Sector C wouldn’t have anything dangerous inside the facility. I think Chief said that they are working with animals down there.”
“Okay,” Tanaka replied. The Japanese man looked relieved.
That settled, Alexei motioned his head forward. “Now, let's get going.”
The trio moved through the checkpoint into the next access junction. Like before, it was deserted. However, as they neared the bottom, the darkness gave way to a distressing flashing yellow.
“At least their backups are working,” Alexei said aloud.
Overhead emergency lights flashed on either side of Sector C’s containment barrier.
“Well, shit.” Martínez walked ahead, flashlight tucked away. “How the hell are we supposed to get past this.” He waved his hand at the floor-to-ceiling barrier with no visible entrance.
Alexei walked past him. "Easily," he said, moving toward a panel on the wall next to the barrier. “All containment barriers have manual releases from outside the affected area in case this exact scenario happens.” He opened it, then pulled a lever inside. The Sector C barrier let out a loud hiss before a small, door-sized section slid open.
Once the way forward opened, the trio could suddenly hear the piercing screams of klaxons from inside section C.
“Shit!” Alexei yelled, rushing forward, followed by Tanaka and Martínez.
Concrete and asphalt gave way to pristine white tile. Every time Alexei entered, he was struck by how… sterile it looked—white walls, white tile, white lights. But now, it was anything but sterile. Sublevel 17, the office space for Sector C, was in chaos.
Coming in from the junction, the connecting corridor was filled with people, huddled about, panicking.
“What are we going to do?” One man cried out, looking terrified.
A pair of women were whispering furiously to each other. “How could this happen? Don’t we have protocols in place to prevent this!?”
There was an overwhelming sense of dread in Sublevel 17.
Then, the people noticed Alexei and his men coming in from the junction access point.
“Help! Finally!”
Alexei was swarmed by panicking people. Even with Tanaka and Martínez at his side, they couldn’t stop the swarm of people from quickly surrounding them. He couldn’t even process what was being said to him. Between the klaxons screaming on the walls and the Sector C employees yelling at him, he might as well have been deaf.
"Enough!" he shouted, raising his gun in the air and firing off a warning shot with a loud BANG.
Immediately, the people around him backed off, giving Tanaka and Martínez the opportunity to close ranks with Alexei.
"Now, would someone calmly tell me what is happening?" Alexei asked the crowd, frustration coloring his voice. He didn’t have time for this.
One man stepped forward, and Alexei recognized him as one of the researchers who was assigned to Sector C. “Sir,” the man began, pausing to compose himself. “There has been a containment breach on Sublevel 24.”
Shit.
"A containment breach of what? You work with animals down here!" Alexei asked the man, his mind racing to think of what could be serious enough to trigger a full sector lockdown. If it wasn’t caused by a power failure, but by an actual containment breach, then he wouldn’t be able to lift the lockdown from here to reach Sector D. That could potentially endanger the entire facility.
The scientist took a moment before answering. “We… have developed something truly magnificent. A solution... you could say. To many of the world’s problems.”
Something about the man's words put Alexei on edge. He noticed Tanaka and Martínez eyeing the scientist with barely concealed apprehension.
“We perfected a retrovirus that can change a subject from one state to another," the scientist continued, either ignorant of or uncaring about the looks he was getting from the security team.
Martínez cut the man off. “What do you mean, from one state to another?”
"Ah!" the scientist exclaimed. "Yes, well, in layman's terms, we can take a human and turn them into a... dog, or cat, or bird, or fish. Yes, limitless potential, one could say!"
What!? Alexei couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was “working with animals!?” How was this considered “safe!?”
Uncaring of how rough he was, Alexei grabbed the scientist by his color and pulled him forward. “And this virus has gotten loose!?”
"Yes," the man replied quietly. "When we lost power, the containment shielding failed and exposed some samples to an extreme heat source. The sample quickly evaporated, and we thought that was it. Sadly, we underestimated our genius. Somehow, our creation became airborne in the seconds it took to evaporate."
Airborne… fuck.
Alexei immediately shook the scientist. "How far?"
"It's contained, for now, ... on Sublevel 24," the scientist explained. "When our backup generators activated, the computer system detected the contagion and sealed off the entire sublevel—including the ventilation."
Okay. … Okay. He could deal with this. Shit, he needed to get back to the Chief and let him know what happened.
"However, the generators are already nearing their limit," the scientist continued. "Once they fail, I’m afraid the whole facility might be exposed. It’s quite lucky you didn’t waste your time getting here. We still have a chance."
“What do you mean the generators are already at their limit!?” Tanaka exclaimed.
“We turned off all non-essential drains, but keeping the other samples secured in their shielding on Sublevels 20 and 22 has drained almost everything. If we don’t restore power soon, I’m afraid we’ll have a massive facility-wide infection event.”
They didn’t have enough time to get back to the Chief. Alexei shook his head, frustrated, before continuing his questioning.
“How can we protect ourselves? What are the symptoms?”
"Well, if we can get the CBRN masks down on Sublevel 23, we should remain uninfected—assuming you don’t have any exposed or open wounds." The man tilted his head in thought. "Although that won’t protect you against direct exposure from an infected subject. As for symptoms… I don’t know. We weren’t ready for human trials yet. It has been purely theoretical and model-based. We disabled the cameras on Sublevel 24 to save power, so we have no way of knowing what the process looks like or how it might affect someone beyond the broad scope."
The scientist turned to face Alexei. "Now you know why we're so excited to see you. We can all leave through the main elevator and escape before the virus breaches Sublevel 24."
"The elevator is sealed off," Alexei told him, watching the man’s eyes fill with panic. "There’s no escape that way."
"No way out..." the scientist drawled before slumping to the ground, his head between his legs. "Then it’s over. Unless we can get through Sublevel 24 to Section D and restore power, it’s over."
Alexei didn’t fall into despair. Instead, he steeled himself and looked to Tanaka and Martínez. "There’s still a chance to stop this. If we can get those masks in Sublevel 23, we can open containment to Sublevel 24 and from there make it to Sector D.”
“Animals… fucking wild,” Martínez shook his head in disbelief. “Do we even have a choice, Sarge? Something like this,… if we do nothing, we’re goners.”
“This..., it cannot get out,” Tanaka said, eyes forward, watching the scientist. “We must stop it.”
Alexei took a second, “If we do this, the computer will lock down Sublevel 23. Until we restore power, we run the risk of trapping ourselves down there with the virus.” He told them.
Neither changed their minds. They were doomed if they did nothing.
“Sir!” A voice called out from behind them.
Jason and a tall bronze-skinned Filipino man in an engineer's jumpsuit joined them from Sector B’s access junction.
…
“Jesus, we’re so fucked,” Jason said quietly after Alexei brought him up to speed.
Even if they got the masks, the risk of infection on Sublevel 24 could be extremely high. Without knowing the situation, they were going in blind. And even if they made it through Sublevel 24, they would still need to find a way into Sector D to restore power.
Carlos added his own thoughts on the matter. “If we could get the backup generators to Sector A, I could probably jury rig us a way out of here. But we wouldn’t have time to go out of our way and warn everyone to evacuate. The moment we disconnect them, if the science-guy over there is right, the virus will start spreading through the vents. At that point, everyone who is not masked may be potentially infected. And we don’t know what symptoms to look out for.”
Alexei took a moment to ponder his options.
Risk it on Sublevel 24?
Or, …