Detonate

Chapter 19

                Most of the rooms provided nothing of interest.

The majority of them were the same, dull offices, uniform to a fault. Each containing one laminate desk, one black woven chair, one new computer monitor and tower, one keyboard, one mouse and one standard sized, blue mouse pad. One staler, one stack of post-its and a pen holder were placed strategically on top of the desk. One shoulder height grey filing cabinet hugged the wall, with and a one metre high fern sitting next to it.

Room after room, Kate opened the doors to these sad, grey spaces with no personal affects or any real signs of life. Working here must be hell, she thought, but then remembered who these people were working for. Kate wondered to herself if any of them knew what their company was doing, about the cells and the testing, or if it was all just numbers on a page to them. She shook herself and kept going.

Thankfully there weren’t any of the workers loitering around. John Gilchrest must have indeed evacuated the building and Kate was grateful for that. The hallways rang with their footsteps, echoing loudly. She wasn’t sure how much time they had, but so far they had found nothing.

“We have to hurry, I want to get back to James,” exclaimed Peter, between puffs of breath. Searching was taking its toll on their bodies.

“Me too. How much more to go?” asked Kate. She was bent over, hands resting on her knees and breathing heavy. These stop starts and burst of speed were not fun for her at all.

Peter consulted the fire escape plan he had ripped from the wall near the stairways. Kate had to give him credit, it was a great idea. She didn’t know he had it in him.

“There’s only one floor left.” He looked down at his watch, “But we’re almost out of time. Let’s go before we run out.”

Kate followed him through the snaking passageways, eyes flitting between the offices and Peter’s back. There was no point going in to each of them. They were all duplicates of each other, carbon copies right down to the number of pens they had.

Avoiding the lifts, they hit the stairs, taking two at a time. When they reached the door to the next level, Peter pushed it open a fraction, just enough to peek through.

“Looks clear,” he whispered.

 With that, they slowly made their way into the open. The space was bigger here and brighter here, so different from what they had seen downstairs. Ferns reigned supreme, the vibrant greens jumping off the newly painted white walls. Frosted glass panels and black leather chairs surrounded them. They had walked into a modern, expensive looking waiting room, with no banner or company name, just the Red Lady’s insignia above an empty receptionist’s desk.    

“Head Honcho must be through there.” Peter gestured to a pair of thick, black painted doors. “Let’s hope he’s at golf on Saturdays.”

Kate had an ominous feeling building in her stomach. She pushed it aside and followed Peter into the room, both of them making their steps as small and light as possible.

The office was huge and to Kate’s relief, completely empty. At least this room looked like it had a person in it occasionally. Elaborate, dark furniture was laid about the room, paintings lined the walls, and she could even see some photographs on the shelves.

Peter headed to the desk, but was disappointed to find that there was no computer, just the charger.

“Damn, they took their laptop with them.”

“Let’s just get some files and go.” Kate headed to a filing cabinet pressed to the wall near some impressive floor to ceiling windows.

“Do you hear that?” asked Peter.

Kate heard. The sound of a helicopter churning its blades was undeniably a sound she wished to avoid. Yanking the cabinet opened, she began grabbing random files and shoving them into her bag. Looking up she saw a photograph in a gilded frame. It looked old, but well cared for. She wasn’t sure, but a familiar face stood out amongst the crowd.

A loud, cracking sound broke her out of her musings. She turned around to see Peter, sitting at the desk, holding a safe door in his hand, its metal warped at the hinges.

“Whoa, what the hell is that?” he said. Kate hastily thrust the photo amongst the files in her backpack, making her way towards him.

Peter threw the safe door to one side and gently lifted something out from under the desk. When he brought his hands up, Kate was both confused and awed. He was holding a metal canister, the likes of which she had never seen before. It was shiny, with twisted pipes and plates around both ends. In the middle was a small window. Green light was faintly streaming out of it. Kate could almost feel it pulsing.

“What is that,” she asked. “A bomb or something? Plutonium?”

“I really don’t know.”

“Is it safe?”

Peter shrugged. “Should we take it?”

Kate thought about what Mel had said to her this morning. It felt so long ago now. The helicopter was so loud it must have been right above their heads. Time was up.

“Grab it, let’s go. Now.”

Peter carefully put the thing into her backpack and zipped it up tightly. They were running to the stairs just as the fire alarm sounded. Little sprinklers came down from the roof, soaking them and everything around them. Kate put her hands above her head and kept running.

They saw James standing outside the security room, hopping from foot to foot. His face was white and pinched. He was using his body as an umbrella, trying to keep the hard drive dry.

“Took you long enough.” He shouted above the sound of the sprinklers. “All good?”

“Yep,” said Peter. “Let’s kick it.”

Kate could remember the last time she had run like this. She was escaping from the compound, scared and frantic. It felt a lot like now, except this time she was wetter. They continued down the stairs, bodies pushing it to the line. Kate took the lead now, more used to fleeing than the other two.

On the bottom level, Kate burst through the doors, colliding with Mason. He caught her just as she was about to fall. She felt awkward where his hands touched her, caught between the feeling of wanting them to stay and needing them off her immediately. Over his shoulder, she saw Annie and Mel. Mason’s hands dropped to his side and he stepped out of her sight. But Mel wasn’t looking at her at all. She had their eyes fixed across the foyer, right at Doctor Beta.