Page 22 of Captive Beta
I crouch behind the table in the middle of the room, my gun at the ready. These guys I can take out without a problem. I don’t have to keep any of them alive, and the quicker this is done the better. The sooner this is done, the sooner the danger is over and the sooner we can go home.
And right now, that’s all I really want to do.
I hear two cars drive into the alley, their lights coming in through the window and the door. They cut their engines and the lights disappear, the darkness making me blink a few times so I don’t lose too much of my sight.
People step out of the cars, greeting each other and starting up a conversation. They don’t seem to notice that anything is wrong yet. They’re joking about something, though I can’t make out the words.
Having the element of surprise is good. It means we don’t have to worry about them immediately shooting any of us.
The voices come closer and closer, and I nearly hold my breath, trying to hear what they’re saying.
I finally hear their words at the same time as the first of them comes into view. “Well, they said that today’s batch has some real potential. I can’t wait to see what they brought us this time. Let’s hope that?—”
Fury shoots through me and in one motion, I stand up, raise my gun and shoot the bastard right between the eyes.
He’ll never ever talk about the ‘potential’ of a group of kids ever again.
It takes a moment for the second guy to realise what just happened and the moment he turns to me, Caleb stands between us and shoots him.
And then all hell breaks loose.
10
Riley
The alarm is really getting on my nerves. It’s so fucking loud and that makes it hard to think. I wish there was a way to shut it off, but shooting the speaker only solves the problem partially, since the damn things seem to be located all over the place.
“Guards coming your way.” Timothy’s voice seems to have taken on an edge of worry, which is new. “I’ve instructed the others to go over to you so they can cover you, but this isn’t going to be an easy retreat.”
Fuck.
I stuff the boxes with the samples that we were here to get into my pocket. If we get those back home safely, at least the client will be happy.
Now we have to deal with the ‘guard’ Mathew took out, the documents that he found and get our asses out of here.
A quick glance at the documents didn’t give me a good feeling. There were diagrams of what looked like a bomb or, at least, something that looked like it could explode. And finding that here, in combination with what Timothy said about what high doses of the special chemical compound from the flowers could do…
‘Very bad’ is an understatement about the situation.
Let’s hope that the ‘guard’ has more information for us.
“Take him to the car.” Mathew points at the ‘guard’ and the two guys from our team grab the unconscious man. Then Mathew turns back to the vials of samples and other things that are still on the table. “Do you think we can safely transport these?” He picks the tray with the vials up, taking a closer look.
“Are they open or closed?” I go over to him, trying to raise my voice over the alarm without actually yelling.
“Closed.” He looks under the table. “Do they have something to transport them with?”
I open a nearby cabinet, finding more stuff for experiments. But nothing to transport any vials with safely.
“Can you get a move on?” Timothy’s voice has taken on an edge of impatience. “We can hold the guards off, but getting you out there before we have to would be better.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mathew answers him, as he keeps looking around.
“Don’t ‘yeah, yeah’ me.” Timothy seems even less amused now. “Get what you need and get your asses out of there.”
After opening two more cabinets, I give up. “Can you stuff them into the bag?”
Mathew looks at the rack with vials, lifting it up again and turning it slightly. “If they don’t leak, that should be doable, I guess.”
