The Virus Within: The Unranked (Book 4)

Ch. 36: A Different Way To Make A Door

I walked around the outer edge of the room as Daniel chiseled a larger hole to check what was behind the cinder blocks. I knocked the wooden boards off a window and climbed outside to see if I could sneak in the back way. Alas, each window in that room had metal plating behind the glass.

As I climbed back inside, Daniel said, "There's more cinder bricks behind these."

"Why am I not surprised?" I muttered. "Were these people trying to build a replica of Fort Knox or something?"

"It's very hard to keep teenagers or desperate looters out of anything that doesn't resemble a maximum-security prison."

"But cinder blocks and metal plates? Really?" I knocked on the wall, which didn't even echo. "Even Nicky can't pick a lock if she can't find a door, and I can't fathom looters getting past all the welded doors and walls of bricks to get here."

"Perhaps, but I'm neither Nicky nor an average looter." He picked up a steel plate from one of the doors. "I can use this to protect my shoulders as I batter a hole in the wall."

I regarded the bent piece of metal dubiously and glanced at the ceiling. "Is that wise?"

"I checked the side walls in the other rooms. It isn't a load bearing wall, and this is the easiest way in."

There was no way to argue with that, and the prybar was already looking beat up. I gestured to the wall and stood well to the side. "Keep in mind there are probably fragile things stacked inside, so don't careen too far into the room and break whatever is in there."

"I'll aim for where the door originally was and the cinder blocks should slow my momentum."

He bent the metal until it almost perfectly wrapped around his entire right side, protecting his shoulder, head, front, and back. His heel touched the opposite wall as the light in his pocket illuminated the bricks and the determination in his expression. As he eased into a crouch and prepared to make a door, a faint red glow came from his eyes, evidence that he was tapping into his true abilities, and his instincts were too high to remain camouflaged.

Angling sideways for a shoulder-check, he lunged forward fast enough that my instincts flared defensively. The impact was marked by a crash that echoed down the hall and made the floor quiver under my feet.

Dust billowed into the air and clogged my nose. Daniel's silhouette backed away from a dark hole vaguely visible through the haze. The clang of the metal plate hitting the floor was softened by the clinking of brick fragments still falling from the damaged cinder blocks.

I walked over, and sure enough, the next room was visible through the new doorway. Daniel massaged and rotated his shoulder, but he seemed unharmed despite plowing through not just two, but three brick walls.

I ran my hand along the crumbled brick, knocking more grit loose. He had probably hit it with more force than a small car careening off a side street. My thoughts paused as I finally noticed the contents of the makeshift vault.

"Well, I think we hit the jackpot," I said as I ventured inside.

Light came from behind as Daniel followed me. His footsteps stopped just inside as he scanned the room. "I'm relieved to see all this."

I picked up a dusty, circular object that I actually recognized and held it up. "We don't even need to worry about finding the right motor when we can just take a new centrifuge or two."

"A few of these are things I don't think I've seen in Nina's lab, so I'd like to take those," Daniel said, walking down the narrow path between the shelves of carefully arranged items.