Chapter 47 - The Seventh Floor
The elevator doors hissed open onto the seventh floor, releasing a blast of refrigerated, sterile air that smelled of ozone, formaldehyde, and copper.
The floor was a ghost ship of ultra-modern medicine. Transparent glass walls separated high-tech containment suites, but there were no nurses, no orderlies, and no doctors. On the floor of the main nurses' station, two private security contractors in Mercer corporate tactical gear lay sprawled face-down in pools of congealed crimson.
"Point-blank execution," Miller muttered, crouching down to inspect the wounds. "Nine-millimeter hollow points. Someone cleaned the room from the inside."
Nathan stepped forward, his heart hammering against his ribs like a sledgehammer. At the end of the long, glass-paneled corridor, beneath a flickering fluorescent panel, stood Room 704.
The door was reinforced steel, fitted with an illuminated digital console that glowed an angry, pulsating crimson. Inside the glass observation window, Nathan could see the silhouettes of two medical beds surrounded by towering arrays of life-support hardware and glowing server racks.
Eli walked up to the scanner without hesitation. He stood on his tiptoes and pressed his right eye against the optical scanner cup.
A green laser swept across his pupil. A mechanical chime echoed through the silent corridor, followed by the heavy, hydraulic click of three pneumatic deadbolts disengaging.
*ACCESS GRANTED: CALDWELL, HAROLD — GENESIS PROTOCOL ACTIVE.*
The heavy steel door slid open.
Nathan stepped into the room, shotgun raised, Miller sweeping the flanks with her pistol.
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The sight before them made Nathan’s breath catch in his throat.
One bed was empty, its sheets soaked in blood and surgical fluids, a bundle of severed IV lines dangling limply toward the tiled floor. On the other bed sat Vanessa Mercer.
