Chapter 5 - The Resurrected
Ten minutes later.
The heavy steel locking bar on the outside of Vault 4 was thrown back with a violent, screeching crash.
The door flew open.
Bright, warm, yellow halogen light flooded into the pitch-black room, cutting through the swirling cloud of white nitrogen fog.
"ALICE!" Detective Ortiz’s voice roared through the doorway, backed by three uniformed troopers carrying heavy tactical flashlights and drawn weapons.
They found me sitting on the floor, slumped against the base of Container 001, my body shivering in slow, weak spasms, my face pale as death, my right hand still locked around the handle of my aluminum cane.
"Paramedics! NOW!" Ortiz screamed over her shoulder, dropping her weapon, pulling off her thick leather winter coat, and throwing it over my frozen shoulders.
She pulled me into her arms, rubbing my sleeves vigorously, her face pale with horror.
"You're okay, Alice... you're okay," Ortiz gasped, her voice trembling. "We caught Cross in the parking lot trying to reach his SUV. He gave up the vault override."
I raised my head slowly, my lips blue, my tongue feeling like a lump of cold lead inside my mouth.
"The... the containers," I choked out, pointing a trembling, waxy finger toward the six steel boxes. "Don't... don't let them take them."
Ortiz looked at the broken copper pipe, then at the steel boxes marked NORTHLINE-BIO-SECURE.
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"What's in there, Alice?" she asked softly.
"Everything," I whispered, my vision beginning to blur into warm, golden light as two paramedics rushed into the room with an emergency warming blanket and an oxygen mask. "Everything Mark sold... to burn our family to the ground."
