The door gaped open. A very small, stainless steel elevator waited. It was only big enough to fit a tall, large man. Holding Ava firmly against her chest, Minji stepped into the elevator. Only one person was supposed to enter at a time and when the door slammed shut, she knew why.
“Two heartbeats detected. Beginning security protocol,” a voice intoned from above.
There was a terrifying hiss from above her head and gas filled the elevator. Minji attempted to hold her breath, while pressing her hand against Ava’s lips. Hopefully it was just a knock out gas and nothing lethal. Ava’s gaze met hers as her vision became gray around the edges. Tears dripped from the corners of Minji’s eyes when she realized she was about to fail. Now Alec was their only hope. Or would the elevator lock down and not let him in?
Darkness swallowed her vision and Minji slumped against the wall. Ava’s tiny hands pressed against her face, cool and comforting.
Minji’s mind was engulfed in sounds and sights that sent her to the brink of madness.
Chapter 33
Minji opened her eyes when the elevator doors opened. The gas had been sucked back into the vents and the air was fresh. A rush of adrenaline made her heart hammer in her chest in a painful staccato beat. She should be unconscious, taken down into the depths by the gas in the elevator, but she was vividly awake. It was the child entity in Ava who was doing it, keeping her mind alert when her body should be asleep. The fine spider web tendrils of the child were wrapped around her brain. She could feel each individual one.
The hallway was surprisingly dull with gray walls and off-color ceiling tiles with black flecks. The floor was highly polished concrete. There wasn’t a speck of color anywhere except for a small plant sitting on what Minji assumed was the receptionist desk. There was no sign of Arthur.
Stepping forward, Minji peered over the desk and saw a man in uniform lying alongside a woman. Both were dead and the stench of decay hung in the air. On the desk under a bit of clear plastic was a layout of the facility. Minji fished it out and studied it. A lot of areas were blacked out and some rooms had no names. Alec had mentioned the name of one of the scientists and it took her only a few seconds to locate his office. Checking over her shoulder at the long, dimly lit hallway, she wondered if Arthur had seen the same layout.
“I’m going to get a weapon,” Minji said to Ava and the other. Though she had no idea how to use a gun, she supposed she could use it to scare Arthur if she had to. She ducked around the desk and squatted next to the soldier. The holster was empty.
“Shit.”
Rushing after Arthur was a bad idea if he was armed. He was already crazed with grief and highly suspicious of her and Ava. She was almost certain he would shoot her. Arthur was immune to the mother entity’s influence, but not the child’s. If only she could find out how long it would take for the child’s powers to recover.
Minji studied the diagram again. She was fairly certain the largest blacked out area was where the doorway was located. Shoving the card into her jeans, she chewed on her bottom lip, mulling over a new plan.
Arthur was most likely looking for the tablet, or the child. Minji couldn’t be sure if Alec had made up the tablet, or not. If she tried to locate Arthur, he’d probably shoot her on sight. If she made her way to the control room for the experiment, then maybe she could find a way to barricade the door to protect the child until she could figure out what to do next.
A quick look at the elevator revealed that the glass panel was muted. Did that mean it was ready and on its way up to the surface? Or was it still resetting? Either way, she didn’t have time to wait around for Alec.
“Shit,” she muttered again, then hurried along the hallway holding Ava on her hip.
Clutching the paper in one hand, she navigated through the facility’s corridors past rooms littered with dead bodies. The cold, stale air barely held a whiff of rot. Perhaps there were special air filters in the air conditioner. After the last day, Minji was glad for it.
Wary of the hallway leading to a block of offices, she scampered past it and darted down a stairwell. Worn concrete steps and yellowish lighting created a bleak, foreboding atmosphere. The closer she came to the lower floors, the more misgivings she suffered.
What if Arthur was already down here? She had passed out in the elevator for a brief period of time. Or hadn’t it been brief? She actually had no real sense of time anymore.
At the bottom of the stairs, she hesitated and timidly poked her head around the corner. A massive room spread out before her. It was far wider than it was tall, giving it a squat appearance. The walls were roughly hewn and a matrix of lights sprawled across the ceiling. A small, one story concrete structure stood a few feet away. A heavy metal door with a glowing glass panel stood open at one end.
Cautiously, Minji edged out into the massive room.
Ava let out a small whimper.
The sound echoed.
Stepping over bodies and pools of blood, Minji approached the open doorway. Death surrounded her, but she couldn’t let it affect her. All her energy had to be on saving everyone. She was almost to the door when another simpering cry echoed throughout the vast room.
It had to be the other.
Reaching the open entryway, she cautiously peered inside. Lights blinked on the vast array of consoles and panels and cast an eerie glow over the faces of the dead. A wide bank of thick windows looked out over the main room. What Minji hadn’t been able to see on her approach was that near the center of the room a section was set up with clear plastic sheeting. It reminded her of a fumigation tent with all the thick hoses snaking around the exterior and the heavy machinery humming nearby. Within the plastic tent was a baby incubator.
Ava pointed at the setup and made an odd noise in her throat.
“That’s you,” Minji whispered.
“Baaby,” Ava answered.
A scuff of a heel jerked Minji’s attention to the door. A shadow flitted over the threshold and she bolted behind a bank of large servers.