Page 120 of The Hero Within
"Can we focus?" Arik growled under his breath.
"Right." Johnny straightened, his relieved cheerfulness fading off him as if he forced himself to lock down his emotions. "Let’s get the hell out of here."
He helped her pack two of the refrigerated cases. Eden wanted to take as much of the vaccine and Ener-V cure as she could. She hated not knowing what was going on back home. Who knew how many people were affected? With this, she had enough of the cure for three hundred people. It would have to do to start with.
"What do we do about these two?" Lincoln asked, gesturing toward Nigel and Miles.
The sound of Arik removing the safety on his gun echoed loudly through the room.
"No," she said sharply, pressing a hand to her temples. "It's too easy. They should suffer. I want them to suffer." She looked at Mayhew. "What are you going to do with that footage?"
He gave her a lethal smile. "I think the good citizens of the Confederacy deserve to know what's going on behind the closed doors of Ragnarök."
Complete ruin. The Wentworths would lose everything. Possibly even end up on the wrong side of General Bligh, if this erupted in his face.
"I need Bligh."
Just in case there were more than three hundred plague victims.
"Then I'll hold it over Bligh's head. I don't think he'll be very happy with the Wentworth's."
"Perfect," she said, with a brisk nod, though her gaze lingered on Nigel and the uneasy way he shifted. Instinct made her tense. His smile seemed out of place.
"What's that smell?" Johnny asked, rubbing his nose. "Smells like—"
The second he said it, her gaze shot to Nigel.
Nigel snatched at a small tap on the bench, and gas began hissing into the room. Further along the bench, another tap shimmered in the air as gas trickled silently from its nozzle. He must have slipped it on when they were distracted.
"Don't shoot!" she screamed as Nigel suddenly bolted for the panic button.
Arik hauled his pistol into the air, just as Johnny leapt for Nigel. He slammed into the scientist, but it was too late.
An alarm began blaring, and the lights suddenly cut off, plunging them into a sudden darkness. All she could see was the red glow flashing from the alarm in the corner, and the flash of shadow moving as Johnny lifted his weapon and pistol-whipped Nigel with it.
"You fucking piece of snot," he snarled, and Nigel whimpered and hit the floor.
"Oh, shit," Mayhew said, looking around frantically. "We need to get out of here."
"What about them?" she demanded, gesturing to where Miles cowered next to his brother's fallen body.
"Justice will just have to wait. Move!"
"They know we’re here!"Johnny yelled, as they sprinted along the hallway. "How many are we expecting?"
"Full squad of twenty," Arik yelled back. "They won’t know exactly where we are at first. They’ll be waiting for commands from central, and central will be sending drones out."
"On it," Mayhew called.
The lights in the hallway had been cut, and the only illumination came from the red alarms, pulsing in and out.
"Time for that diversion, Mayhew," he called, grabbing Eden by the arm and hauling her close against his side, just in case.
She pounded down the hallway with him, but he could hear her breath rasping. While the injection was hopefully starting to work, her system was still ravaged, and she wouldn’t have the strength to keep this up for long.
"With pleasure," Mayhew said, fingers racing over his datapad. "Let’s confuse them."
Outside, a series of explosions rocked the air.
