Chapter 40 - The Original Specimen
Marcus rushed to the console, laying Chloe down gently on the padded examination table beneath the harsh overhead heat lamps. The girl’s lips were now completely violet, her respirations shallow and spaced twelve seconds apart. The neurotoxic antidote—the single compound capable of reversing Eleanor’s synthetic pathogen—had to be down here. It was the only reason Eleanor kept this lab running beneath the graveyard.
"Think, Marcus, think," he snarled at himself, slapping his own cheek to banish the fog of terror.
He searched the alphanumeric keyboard of the main terminal. Beneath the monitor, three pneumatic drawers were locked behind mechanical biometric scanners. A red laser light swept the empty scanner bed.
*AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED: GENETIC KEY OR MASTER BYPASS.*
Marcus slammed his fist onto the stainless-steel desk. "Damn it, Mother!"
He looked toward the cryogenic pod holding the frozen original Chloe. On the base of the chamber, an analog glass vial rested within a temperature-controlled thermal port. The liquid inside was a vivid, luminous emerald, swirling with microscopic particulate. Above the port, a stenciled label read: *CHIMERA STABILIZER / INVERSION AGENT - LOT 00-ALPHA.*
It was the cure. It was sitting less than five feet away, trapped behind two inches of ballistic reinforced glass.
Marcus grabbed a heavy steel oxygen wrench from the emergency medical crash cart in the corner. He raised it high above his head and struck the pod’s viewport with everything he had.
*CLANG!*
The impact reverberated through his teeth, sending shockwaves up his forearms. The glass didn't shatter. It didn't even scratch. Instead, a digital display beside the pod’s latch flashed red:
*STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY THREAT DETECTED. AUTOMATED DEFENSE PROTOCOL ACTIVE.*
A mechanical valve hissed open at the ceiling. A cloud of aerosolized halon gas began venting into the chamber, designed to starve any fire—or any living human intruder—of oxygen.
Marcus dropped the wrench, coughing violently as the cold, odorless chemical hit the back of his throat. He looked at Chloe on the examination table. Her eyes cracked open slightly, glassy, unseeing pupils staring toward the ceiling.
"Daddy..." her tiny voice was barely a breath of vapor. "The lady in the white dress... she said I have to sleep now..."
"No, sweetheart. Look at me! Look at Daddy!" Marcus yelled, kneeling beside her, his vision swimming as the halon gas began displacing the breathable air in the sealed bunker. "You stay awake! You hear me? Chloe, stay awake!"
She wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the pod. Her small, trembling arm lifted weakly toward the frozen girl behind the glass.
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"That's my sister..." she murmured, her eyelids drooping shut. "She's cold, Daddy..."
***
