Ch.37: The Leak

Greta pushes the heavy door. It screeches against the frame, then swings open.

The hallway is dark. The emergency lights are flickering, victims of the power surge. The air is already tainted with the sharp, stinging scent of chlorine.

"Go," I rasp. "Get to the East Wing. Get Leo."

Greta hesitates. She looks at me in the wheelchair, weak and broken.

"I can't push you," she says. "Not fast enough."

"Leave me," I command. "I'll find another way."

She nods, tears streaming down her face behind the mask. She turns and runs toward the stairs, disappearing into the gloom.

I wheel myself into the corridor. My arms are burning, but I force the wheels to turn.

I have to get out. I have to find a way to the surface.

But then, the alarm changes.

It isn't the standard breach siren anymore. It’s a lower, more ominous tone. A deep, resonant *BWAHH... BWAHH...*

I know that sound.

**CONTAINMENT BREACH. CHEMICAL HAZARD DETECTED.**

The house knows. The sensors in the vents picked up the chloramine.

And the house is reacting.

**SEALING SECTORS.**

Ahead of me, a heavy blast door begins to descend from the ceiling. It’s designed to isolate the lab from the rest of the basement in case of a biological leak.

"No!" I scream.

I push the wheels harder. I throw my weight forward.

The door is heavy. Slow. But inevitable.

I am ten feet away. Five.

It slams shut with a bone-jarring *CLANG* just as I reach it.

I am sealed in the corridor.

I turn around.

Another door is descending behind me, blocking the way back to the lab.

I am trapped in a thirty-foot stretch of hallway.

And the gas is coming with me.

The ventilation system is still running on the emergency circuit, pulling the toxic cloud from the lab and pumping it into the corridor. The white fog seeps under the blast door, curling around the wheels of my chair.

I cough. It hurts deep in my chest. My eyes are watering so badly I can barely see.

I look at the monitor mounted on the wall—a repeater for the security station.

The screen shows the East Wing.

Greta is running down the hallway. She reaches the door to the patient wing.

But the blast doors there are closing too.

She slides. She tries to dive under.

She makes it. She scrambles through just as the steel plate hits the floor.

She is inside. She is safe from the gas.

But she is also trapped. The East Wing is now a sealed vault.

I look at the other screens.

The ballroom. The guests are gone, fled to the terrace. But the doors are sealed behind them. They are locked out.

The kitchen. Empty.

The foyer. Empty.

The house is locking itself down room by room, sector by sector. It is compartmentalizing the threat.

And I am the threat.

I cough again. A spasm that racks my entire body. I taste blood. The gas is eating the lining of my lungs.

I need air.

I look for a vent. A panel. Anything.

There is nothing. Just concrete and steel.

I am going to die here. Alone in the dark, choking on my own vengeance.

Then, the monitor flickers.

The feed changes.

It shows the sub-basement. The furnace room.

Thorne.

He is still there. The guards left him to deal with the gas upstairs.

He is pounding on the door. He is shouting something, but there is no audio.

He sees the gas seeping in through the vents. The heavy white fog is pooling on the floor.

He retreats to the far corner. He covers his face with his shirt.

He is trapped too.

We are all trapped.

Aris wanted a fortress. He built a tomb.

I lean my head back against the wheelchair. I close my eye.

The burning is unbearable. It feels like my skin is melting.

I tried to burn it down. I tried to destroy him.

But fire doesn't care who it burns.

I take a shallow breath. It rattles in my chest.

We trapped ourselves in.