Chapter 8 - The Confrontation
Mrs. Henderson looked nothing like the frustrated, exhausted school nurse I had argued with this afternoon.
Her hair was pulled back perfectly, and her eyes were cold, calculating, and entirely human.
"I really wish you had just taken your daughter home, Sarah," she said, keeping the pistol leveled perfectly at my heart.
"You are part of Apex Bio," I realized, staring at her expensive corporate suit.
She smiled thinly, casually leaning back against the massive server console.
"I am the lead data analyst for the behavioral modification trial," she corrected me smoothly.
"The school nurse position was just a convenient way to monitor the children's physical adaptation to the synthetic organisms."
I felt a surge of violent, uncontrollable anger burning through my veins.
"You poisoned innocent children in a cafeteria just to test your corporate weapons," I spat at her.
"Progress requires sacrifice, Sarah, and the military contracts for obedient, neural-linked soldiers are worth billions," she replied callously.
She moved her finger to the keyboard behind her, typing a quick command without looking away from me.
"I am currently uploading a purge sequence to the server," she explained calmly.
"Once it hits one hundred percent, every parasite in this town will forcibly sever the host's brain stem, erasing all the evidence."
I looked at the massive digital monitor above her head, watching the red progress bar hit seventy percent.
If that bar reached the end, Chloe and all the children upstairs would die instantly.
I knew I could not outrun a bullet, but I had absolutely nothing left to lose.
I noticed a large, pressurized canister of liquid nitrogen used to cool the servers sitting right next to my foot.
I kicked the heavy metal canister as hard as I could, sending it rolling rapidly across the floor toward her legs.
Mrs. Henderson instinctively looked down and fired her pistol at the moving object.
The bullet pierced the pressurized tank, causing it to violently explode in a massive cloud of freezing white vapor.
The blinding fog completely engulfed her, and she screamed as the freezing liquid burned her skin.
I lunged forward through the mist, tackling her to the ground with all the desperate strength of a terrified mother.
The pistol skittered across the floor, sliding completely out of reach under a server rack.
I did not stop to fight her.
I scrambled up and threw myself at the main control keyboard, frantically searching for the override command Mr. Davis had noted in the files.
I hit the abort button, canceling the purge sequence just as it reached ninety-five percent.
Mrs. Henderson dragged herself up from the floor, her face red and blistered from the nitrogen gas.
She pulled a remote detonator from her jacket pocket, her finger hovering over the red switch.
"If I can't purge the network, I will just bury it," she screamed furiously.
She pressed the button, and a series of massive explosions instantly ripped through the concrete ceiling above us.
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The entire underground facility began to collapse in a shower of sparks and falling debris.
"You are going to burn with me, Sarah!" she laughed maniacally as a heavy steel beam crashed down between us.
