Page 1 of Rescuing Ally: Part 1
Chapter 1
I waketo the screams of alarms and the stench of burning metal. The air is wrong—thick, acrid, too warm, like an electric charge buzzing against my skin. Red warning lights pulse against the metallic walls, strobing in time with the alarms, painting my quarters in frantic, bloody flashes.
Malfor’s Kazakhstan compound—half laboratory, half prison—has been my reluctant home for months now. The sterile white corridors, reinforced security doors, and guards with red phoenix emblems have become a familiar nightmare. Every day here strips away another piece of my soul, my research twisted into something I never intended.
My bare feet slap the icy floor as the door to my dormitory slams open. Guards storm in, rifles up, faces set. They shove me toward the hallway.
“Wait!” I lunge for my desk, fingers scrambling for the small thumb drive tucked beneath my notes.
Everything is on that drive—all my research, thesis work, and years of quantum entanglement calculations. If I lose it, the past few years of my life are wasted. Worse—Malfor wins. This isn’t just data; it’s the only evidence of what they’ve forced us to do here.
I can’t leave it.
“No time!” A guard grabs my arm, but I twist away, desperation sharpening my movements.
My fingers close around the cool metal, its weight insignificant yet somehow containing my entire academic future—and perhaps the key to stopping what Malfor has set in motion. I shove the USB deep into my pocket, tucking it as far as it will go. I’ll die before leaving this behind.
“Out! Everyone out, now!” The guards’ shouts echo over the alarms.
They shove me into the corridor, but not before I snatch my shoes. The bitter stench of burning electronics slams into me, making my stomach lurch.
Someone shouts down the hall. Another guard ushers the Chens and their teenage son, Kevin, from their quarters. Kevin’s face is pale, his knuckles white where he clutches his mother’s hand. The Williams family is next, stumbling out of their room in a huddled group.
It’s a domino effect—doors opening, frightened faces emerging, voices overlapping, panic rising.
We’re funneled into the main hallway, disoriented. I spot Dr. Whittman, my thesis advisor, mentor, almost a father to me, ahead of us, his thin frame hunched forward as he clutches Maria’s arm—Rodriguez’s daughter, the youngest hostage here. The twelve-year-old stumbles, but Whittman keeps her upright, murmuring something urgent.
“Malikai!” Malia shouts for her brother.
He looks half-dead. His skin is ghostly white, his steps uncertain. Each movement costs him, but survival keeps him upright as he catches himself against the railing with trembling arms.
“Stay together!” A guard barks the order, his rifle slung low as his eyes dart between us and the shadows.
I don’t know if the command is for us or them. I grab Whittman’s sleeve, steadying him before he trips.
Adrenaline pounds through me, my heart banging uselesslyagainst my ribs.
Is it a fire? An attack? Something else? Is this Malfor’s way of telling us we’ve run out of time?
As we’re forced toward the emergency exits, my hand instinctively presses against my pocket. The drive’s there.
My work was supposed to revolutionize secure communications and unbreakable encryption, but Malfor twisted it into something entirely different. The equations revealed patterns I never anticipated—strange energy signatures that suggested capabilities beyond what should be possible. Even if I don’t make it out, the world needs this data.
Whittman mutters something under his breath, but I only catch the word “containment.”
I want to scream at him to stop. Stop trying to process, stop trying to think—isn’t that what got us here in the first place?
The stifling heat of the facility breaks as we’re shoved outside. The night air slams into me—icy, brutal, burning my lungs clean. The facility spits us onto the open steppe, its floodlights carving the darkness into patches of blinding white and bottomless shadow.
It’s unbearably open, wide, flat, and endless. The barren landscape stretches forever in every direction. There’s nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run.
Escape is impossible.
Behind me, Kevin stumbles on the icy dirt, his knee hitting the ground. Mrs. Chen grabs his arm, helping him regain his footing as he struggles to keep pace. The Williams family huddles close. Whittman’s arms lock tight around Maria, her small frame shaking in the cold. Malikai lags a step behind, his exhaustion tugging him down even as Malia tries to keep him upright.
The first explosion tears through the night. The ground bucks beneath me, a violent shock that sends a startled scream ripping from my throat. The facility’s floodlights flicker once … twice … and die.
Everything plunges into shadow and darkness.
