UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED. SECTOR LOCKDOWN INITIATED.
I stood up quickly, drawing my sidearm, backing away from the terminal. My heart hammered wildly against my ribs. I was trapped.
From the pitch-black corner of the server room, a cold, metallic click echoed through the darkness. It was the sound of a pistol hammer being pulled back.
"I told you to walk away, Elias," a voice whispered from the shadows.
It was Sarah. And she was pointing a suppressed pistol directly at my chest.
The red emergency lights flickered on, bathing the freezing server room in a bloody, pulsating glow.
I froze, the barrel of my own sidearm pointed loosely toward the floor, my eyes locked on the dark silhouette emerging from behind the massive, humming server racks.
Sarah stepped into the crimson light. She was breathing heavily, her uniform torn at the shoulder, a thin line of blood running down her cheek. The suppressed pistol in her hand was perfectly steady, aimed directly at my center mass.
"Drop the gun, Elias," she ordered, her voice tight with pain and adrenaline. "Kick it away. Right now."
My mind was a chaotic storm of shock, anger, and absolute betrayal. The audio recording was still echoing in my head. The squad is acceptable collateral. Vance had sold my men. He had sold my soul. And for five years, I had called him a savior.
"You were there," I whispered, my voice trembling not with fear, but with an overwhelming, crushing grief. "You tried to send the choppers."
Sarah's eyes narrowed slightly. She glanced at the red flashing screen on the terminal behind me. She saw the audio file icon. She realized I had heard it.
Slowly, carefully, she lowered her weapon, keeping it pointed at the floor. She didn't look relieved; she looked absolutely terrified.
"I didn't lock the door," she said, her voice dropping to a rapid, urgent whisper. "The system detected your unauthorized swipe on the terminal. Vance’s security algorithm just locked us both in."
I slowly holstered my weapon, my hands shaking violently. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let me believe you were the enemy?"
"Because if you knew the truth, you would have marched into Vance's office and put a bullet in his head," Sarah stepped forward, wincing as she favored her left leg. "And then his private security force would have gunned you down, swept the evidence under the rug, and my five-year investigation would have died with you."
The magnitude of her statement hit me like a physical blow. The major belief that had governed my entire adult life—that I was a failure, that I deserved my pain, that Blackwood was my redemption—was entirely false. I had been living in a carefully constructed prison built by the man who murdered my brothers.
"I thought he was punishing you," I said, gesturing to her torn uniform. "I thought Vance sent you to Sector 4 to be isolated."
"He did," Sarah rapidly moved to the terminal, pushing me aside and typing frantically on the keyboard. "He sent his two elite enforcers to quietly execute me thirty minutes ago. I managed to neutralize one of them, but the other one triggered a silent alarm before I could put him down. I barely made it back here to secure the physical drive."
She slammed the enter key. The terminal beeped violently. A small, black encrypted hard drive popped out of the console. She grabbed it and shoved it deep into her tactical vest.
"This drive has the financial records," she said, breathing rapidly. "It proves Vance sold the heavy weapons to the militia, and it proves he ordered the strike on your team to cover it up. I have the federal authorities on standby, waiting for my signal. But we have to get this drive out of the facility."
Suddenly, a loud, piercing siren began to wail throughout the entire Blackwood compound. It was the high-frequency breach alarm. Red strobe lights flashed furiously in the ceiling.
The main intercom system clicked on. A burst of static filled the room, followed by the terrifyingly calm voice of Director Vance.
"Attention all Blackwood personnel. This is Director Vance. We have a Code Red breach in the main administration building. Tactical Instructor Elias Thorne and an unidentified female intruder are armed and highly dangerous. They have compromised classified company data. Lethal force is authorized. I repeat, lethal force is authorized. Secure the perimeter. Nobody leaves alive."
My blood ran completely cold. The emotional low point crashed over me, suffocating and heavy. My entire life was gone. My career, my reputation, my mentor—everything was a lie. And now, I was a hunted animal in the very facility I had spent three years protecting.
"He's mobilizing the entire compound," I said, looking at the heavy steel door. "There are over two hundred heavily armed contractors out there, Sarah. And they all think I'm a traitor. We are completely trapped."
"We aren't trapped yet," Sarah quickly moved to a large metal ventilation grate near the floor in the corner of the room. She pulled a heavy combat knife from her boot. "The biometric locks engage the main doors, but this facility was built in the seventies. The HVAC system runs independently. Help me pull this grate."
I rushed over, hooking my fingers into the cold metal slats. Together, we ripped the heavy grate out of the wall, exposing a dark, narrow ventilation shaft.
"I'll go first," she said. "Stay close. And whatever happens, do not fire your weapon unless it is absolutely necessary. These contractors are just kids following orders. They don't know they're working for a monster."
I nodded, my jaw clenched tight. I crawled into the cramped, dusty darkness right behind her. We moved rapidly through the narrow metal duct, the sound of our breathing masked by the blaring sirens echoing outside. Every few feet, we passed over metal grates that offered terrifying glimpses of the chaos below. I saw squads of contractors running down the hallways, racking shotguns and clutching assault rifles, sweeping the rooms with tactical flashlights.
We crawled for nearly fifteen minutes. My muscles burned, the enclosed space triggering a claustrophobic panic that I fought down with pure, unadulterated rage. I wanted Vance. I wanted to see his face when he realized he hadn't broken me.
"We need to reach the loading bay," Sarah whispered over her shoulder, pausing at a junction in the ductwork. "My extraction vehicle is parked in the lower garage. If we can get to the truck, the armor plating will hold off small arms fire long enough for us to crash through the main gate."
"The loading bay is on the opposite side of Sector 4," I whispered back. "We have to cross the open catwalk above the armory to get there."
"Then that's what we do."