Chapter 9 - The Sabotage at Facility Seven
The black SUV tore through the rain-slicked highway,
its engine roaring as Ethan pushed the vehicle past one hundred miles per hour.
Red rain bounced off the windshield as lightning illuminated the dark industrial sector ahead.
In the passenger seat,
I racked the slide of a tactical pistol provided by Ethan's supply kit,
checking the magazine with practiced efficiency.
"Facility Seven security feeds went dark three minutes ago,"
Ethan reported,
staring through the rain while holding the steering wheel tight.
"That means the infiltrators are already inside the main research hub."
"They have internal access,"
I said,
my eyes focused on the glowing GPS map.
"Someone on the board gave them master keycards and override codes.
Marcus Sterling wasn't the only mole."
We pulled up to the perimeter gates of Facility Seven,
a massive,
windowless concrete facility surrounded by razor-wire fences.
The security guard booth at the gate was empty,
the glass doors shattered,
and smoke curled into the night air.
Ethan killed the headlights,
coasting the SUV into the shadow of an outer loading dock.
We stepped out into the pouring rain,
our weapons drawn,
moving in tactical stack formation toward the side entrance.
The emergency red alarms were flashing silently inside the hallways,
casting a bloody hue across the steel walls.
As we rounded the corner toward the main server vault,
I spotted two guards lying unconscious on the floor,
their keycards missing.
"Standard mercenary entry pattern,"
Ethan whispered,
gesturing toward the heavy blast doors of the R&D server room.
"Two men holding the breach point,
one tech specialist downloading the Core data."
"I take the left,"
I whispered back,
feeling the cold air settle into my lungs.
"You take the right.
On three."
One.
Two.
Three.
I kicked the side access door open,
slicing the room with my firearm.
A mercenary dressed in black tactical gear swung his submachine gun toward me,
but my training kicked in instantly.
I fired two precise shots into his center body armor,
knocking him off balance before closing the distance and driving my knee into his chest.
Ethan fired a suppressed round into the second guard,
dropping him instantly before he could raise an alarm.
Inside the central server control room,
a man sitting at the main terminal frantically pulled out a flash drive as he saw us enter.
It was not a foreign mercenary.
It was Dr. Aris Thorne,
my father's chief software architect.
Thorne froze,
holding a glass vial filled with amber liquid in his left hand over the open ventilation duct.
"Stay back!"
Thorne screamed hysterically,
his hand shaking violently over the duct.
"If you take one step closer,
May you like
I drop this neurotoxin into the main air intake!
Everyone in this building dies in sixty seconds!"
