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“You are amazing,” I said, staring down at the little gold bands that had seemed so impossible to escape from a moment ago.
“I’ll remember you said that.” Asher gave a half-hearted grin, but it slipped from his face as he went serious again. “We need to get to the security office and shut down whatever Danvers has done to the system. If we can reverse the polarity, maybe we can freeze her team in the building and free the scientists.”
I shook my head. “But what about Max and Zella? And the bomb?”
“We can’t do anything until we get to the security office and see what we’re up against. Are you up for a sprint?”
I rubbed at the throbbing pink skin on my wrists before nodding. We were running out of time. “Let’s do it.”
I eased open the door and peered out into the hallway. Shouts rang out in the distance, but otherwise, it seemed empty. Asher took my hand, and together we darted toward the end of the hall. Pressing me back with one arm, he peered around the corner, looking for more of Danvers’ commandos.
“All clear. Stairs or elevator?”
I chewed my bottom lip and tried to make my brain focus past my fear. The security office was just off the lobby. Elevator would be faster, but we’d have to press the button and wait for the car to arrive, and if the doors opened on a group of commandos, we’d be really screwed.
“We take the stairs.”
“Good call.” Asher checked the corridor again. “Let’s do this.”
We sprinted for the emergency door and started the descent to the lobby. Three floors. We could do it. Our footsteps thundered in the space, but I wasn’t worried about being quiet. We needed to stop Danvers before this place exploded with my friends and family inside. I’d take down anyone who got in our way.
I was panting by the time we reached the ground floor, my leg muscles aching at all the stairs.
Asher pushed open the door to peek into the lobby, then waved me through. The area was deserted except for Sam. He sat at his station, his features frozen in shock, his hands raised as if he’d been about to pull his gun from his holster. He looked like an unanimated robot. Creepy.
“Grab his scan card,” Asher ordered as he strode toward the security office door.
I tiptoed behind the desk and unclipped the key card from Sam’s belt. “Sorry, Sam. This is an emergency,” I whispered, patting his solid shoulder.
Two seconds later, we were inside, staring at the bank of monitors lining the wall. And the flashing red numbers on the screen at the end of the row.
“Eighteen minutes until system destruction,” said a computerized voice. The seconds flashed past: forty-eight, forty-seven, forty-six. My whole body flooded with ice, turning my insides to jelly. I had to tear my gaze from the numbers, or I’d stand there, frozen and unable to do anything.
But when I spotted my dad on one of the video monitors, I wished I hadn’t.
Fear crawled like spiders across my skin at the grainy image of the auditorium packed with immobile scientists. A whimper escaped me at the sight of my dad sitting in the front row. Mom sat beside him. Danvers hadn’t been lying.
My voice was barely a whisper as I clutched Asher’s arm. “We have to stop her.”
“I’m already on it.” He threw himself into one of the chairs and started tapping at the keyboard. Security schematics flashed on screen — DNA helixes, genome sequences, building plans, pod locations.
He frowned at the screen. “She’s reengineered everything. It must have taken weeks.” His voice was flat, no hint of his earlier certainty. “I’m never going to be able to do this.”
My mind rejected his words. I’d come to count on Asher and his crazy abilities. He could do anything. My gaze flashed back to my frozen parents and then down to the Division Seven monitor where Max and Zella were trapped with Dr. Danvers. If they had planted the device, they could probably still stop her.
I shook my head. It didn’t matter. We couldn’t take the risk of her escaping with the machine. Branston would have everything they needed to blackmail their way into the top levels of the government. We had to stop her for good.
I stared at my dad on the screen. He looked so small and weak, sitting in his wheelchair. I remembered our last conversation in the hospital, about Branston’s experiments, about my ability to make connections and see how things worked. It seemed so long ago, and yet it had been just a few days.
I let out a shaky sigh and watched the codes scrolling past on Asher’s screen. The numbers rolled over me like water and sank into my brain. And then I straightened. Watched the codes more closely.
Felt that familiar click.
“There,” I said, pointing. “That number chain repeats over and over. What is it doing?”
Asher hit pause on the scan, leaning closer to study the numbers. “Hang on…” He pulled up another window and another copy of the security protocols. “Lexie! It’s the code Danvers snuck in. It’s permeated through the system like a virus, but if I can strip it out and reverse it, I might be able to turn it around on them.”
“What can I do?” The red, flashing timer kept decreasing. Fifteen minutes. “We’re running out of time.”
Asher’s lips thinned, and he shook his head. “That’s a whole different problem. One thing at a time, okay?”
I nodded and tried not to watch the numbers ticking slowly down. I felt useless sitting there. But while I might be able to make freaky connections in my head, I had no idea where to even start disarming an explosive device.
Finally, Asher said, “I think I’ve got it.”
I rushed to the desk and stared at the screen. “What am I’m looking at?”
“I stripped the code from the system and used it to reverse the polarity of the device at its core. Danvers’ hack already primed the system to search for anyone with the inoculation to freeze them, so I just switched it to look for anyone without it. When I enter this last bit of code, anyone in the facility who doesn’t have the antibodies will be trapped in the stasis field and anyone with it will be released.”
“And what about us?”
He shrugged, but he wouldn’t meet my gaze. “I’m not exactly sure what’s going to happen. I don’t know why Danvers’ virus didn’t affect us, and I don’t know what will happen when I throw this switch. If we’re frozen in here like the commandos, we have to hope one of the scientists will be able to stop the bomb in time.”
