Chapter 8:
Apocalypse Punk
The oxygen tank on my back was only going to last me a whopping three minutes. I had to jump in and out of there quickly, or that gas was going to do me in. Adding to the pressure, these scientists had been locked in here for a while, so they needed to get out ASAP.
I waited for Yuri to close the glass door behind me before I started breathing through the mask. Once that task was completed, the metal door to the lab parted open, allowing me to enter into the frigid argon filled room.
Keeping a steady paced breath was going to be important, otherwise I’d be using up too much air all at once. So my physical activity needed to stay to a minimum, while also accounting for my time crunch.
The lab was full of chemicals. Plenty of stuff worth snatching, but most of the good stuff looked like it was on the other side of the room. All the bottles on the tables were either empty or looked pretty old.
I didn’t want to speak and waste more breath, but there was such a nagging urge to talk to myself as a coping mechanism for the high stress. Instead my body just went into a hyper focused mode, using my eyes and senses to keep me grounded.
Where are they?
I was already thirty seconds in and hadn’t spotted them. Hell hath no fury like what I’d do to Yuri if this wasn’t the right place with his brother.
Fortunately for him and my sanity, I spotted the scientists all the way at the other end of the lab behind a table. There were three of them, each looked exhausted and unconscious, if they were alive at all. None of their hazmat suits were damaged.
How the hell am I dragging them out?
This was where the issue of three minutes came into play. Getting them out would be easy if they could walk, but they were as good as wet sandbags right now.
With only two minutes left, my ass kicked into adrenaline mode and scanned around the room for inspiration.
Is that a flat cart?
It had a handlebar and wheels. That was good enough for me!
I shoved off all the crap on top of it, mostly boxes and crates that erupted with cold white gas that scattered across the floor upon impact. Then I put all my strength into dragging up two full grown men and a woman who somehow felt like she weighed under 100 pounds, piling them up onto each other.
This was perfect. It seemed like I had plenty of time to cart them out of here. I didn’t check if any were actually dead or not, so I could have been wheeling three corpses out of here for all I knew. That would be a future me problem.
Once I reached the door, I gave Yuri a signal through the radio to get the airlock open. Once those metal doors let me, I pushed these eggheads in.
“Uhh…” one of the scientists grunted. “In… th…”
“What?” I replied.
He weakly drew a square in the air with both his hands, then pointed a finger toward something, passing out seconds later.
I turned back to see there was a notebook on the table with a glowing yellow liquid next to it.
With about thirty seconds of breath left in my tank, I bolted over to it and collected the notebook and the liquid he likely wanted.
Plus, it also occurred to me that this room was full of great chemicals that would sell really well, especially to my brother's doctor. He was always looking for things like rubbing alcohol, bleach, and other crap like that.
As swift as I could, I snatched up a few bottles of whatever happened to be on the table and raced back to the airlock.
Something went horribly wrong though. The metal door shut just before I could make it and wasn’t budging.
“Girl, why are you still in there? What are you doing?” Yuri said over the walkie talkie.
I had ten goddamn seconds left of air and this door wasn’t opening. All kinds of horrible curses were running through my mind that wanted to roll off my tongue, but I’d wait to dish those out, or risk wasting anymore air.
“Door won’t open.” Those were the last words I said into the walkie talkie before holding my breath. With my conditioning, I could reliably hold it for a solid 70 seconds, just over a minute.
Yuri clearly went into panic mode as I heard a lot of paper crinkling around over the comms.
“Oh god… why didn’t she just come out with the others?”
I’d have to give him an earful for that comment later, even though I was the one who got a little greedy here. At least his reaction told me that he wasn’t the one who was trying to kill me.
“Alright, I found a 75 page manual. There should be a panel in there that houses the doors circuitry. Pull it off.”
I did as he instructed, feeling a burning pressure build in my lungs and throat. My skin was getting tight and turning blue.
“Once the panel is off, there will be a few wires exposed… Oh no… what happened to the next page?!”
What the fu…
“Alright, listen… There’s a wire you need to cut, but the page that tells which one it is is missing.”
I yanked out every single wire out of pure panic.
“If you cut the wrong one, it’ll short circuit the whole room.”
“Mmmm!?”
How long was he going to wait to tell me that part?
The lights above turned off, proving what he said was unfortunately true. The room didn’t have any windows, so emergency red lights switched on and barely gave me any sight.
“Did you just pull the wrong one?”
I’m going to murder him if I don’t die here!
“Alright… uh…” he flipped through the manual. “If the room’s power goes out, there is a breaker to your left. Flip it and the power sh…”
His voice trailed off as my body began trying to force me to take a new breath. If I had to hold on any longer, I’d pass out.
It’s so cold in here.
I desperately crawled my way over to where he said the breaker would be, hardly able to keep steady as I slid across the icy floors. Once I had any grip, I pulled open the little door protecting it.
My watering eyes began to freeze and mess with my vision, so I couldn’t tell exactly what I was doing. I just kept flipping switches until something happened.
This was it. I was going to die. All the strength I had left in my body went into pulling one final switch.
Did I do it?
My hearing was going. All I could do was curl up to protect myself from the cold.
“The door!” Yuri shouted over the comm repeatedly. His voice was so muffled and lost, as if it were a hundred miles away and being canceled out by a faint ringing. “Girl, the door is… It is…...pe…”
What’s one little breath going to hurt?
The urge to take a breath finally overcame me and I opened my mouth to let new air fill my lungs.
My skin felt a disturbance just as I passed out, but the cold was too much for me to discern what it was. Maybe I was being dragged down into Hell. It sure was a cold place, nothing like they said it would be. I sure would have traded ice for fire right about now.
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