Chapter 7 - The Extraction Protocol
The decontamination cell grew freezing cold as the facility's emergency ventilation system kicked into overdrive, venting the air through HEPA filters to prevent any airborne spores from escaping into the atmosphere.
Agent Vance clicked his pen shut, tucking the manila folder back under his arm.
“What happens to him now?” I asked, my voice dropping to a hollow, broken whisper. I turned away from the glass, looking at Vivian, who still sat rocking on her cot, completely catatonic. “Can you cure him? Can you take them out?”
Vance hesitated for a fraction of a second—just long enough for me to know the answer before he spoke it.
“The colony has already reached the primary neurological nexus in the shoulder girdle,” Vance said carefully. “If we attempt surgical excision, the shock to his central nervous system will cause immediate cardiac arrest. The organisms are keeping him alive right now. Without them, his arm—and the tissue surrounding it—would simply necroticize within minutes.”
“So you’re going to let him turn into one of them?” I roared, lunging forward and slamming my palms against the glass. “You’re just going to lock him in a cage and watch him mutate?!”
“No, Mr. Miller,” Vance replied, his tone remaining infuriatingly calm. “We aren't going to watch him mutate. We are going to initiate Containment Protocol Delta at 02:00 hours.”
The words hung in the sterile air like a death sentence.
“What is Protocol Delta?” I asked, my heart freezing in my chest.
“Total somatic incineration,” Vance said plainly. “We cannot allow the hive matrix to reach full maturation. If a single specimen escapes this facility, the local ecosystem will be compromised within weeks. We are putting your son down, Mr. Miller. And we are burning the specimen down to ash.”
For a second, the universe seemed to stop spinning. The hum of the ventilation fans faded into a dull, distant roar.
Put him down.
My ten-year-old boy—who loved comic books, built clumsy Lego spaceships on the living room floor, and begged us for extra marshmallows in his hot chocolate—was going to be burned alive in a federal biohazard incinerator because of a stupid playground accident.
“You’re not touching him,” I whispered.
Vance frowned slightly. “Mr. Miller, you don't have a choice. This facility is locked down by federal national security mandate. There is no way out.”
“We’ll see about that,” I said.
As Vance turned around to signal the guards outside the heavy steel door, my eyes locked on the emergency fire suppression control panel mounted on the wall beside our cot. A heavy red manual release lever, protected by a thin glass pane, sat less than three feet away.
I didn't think. I didn't plan. I just moved.
With a brutal, primal roar, I drove my elbow straight through the glass pane, shattering the plastic housing and yanking the red lever all the way down with both hands.
WHOOOOOOSH!
The entire quarantine ward erupted into blinding, deafening chaos.
High-pressure chemical fire-suppression foam blasted from nozzles in the ceiling, instantly filling the room with a thick, blinding white blizzard of suffocating retardant. Sirens wailed, flashing strobe lights cut through the foam, and the electronic locking mechanism on our cell door clicked open with a sharp, mechanical release.
Agent Vance shouted a curse as he was blinded by the foam, stumbling backward against the glass partition.
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I didn't wait. I grabbed Vivian by the arm, hauling her off the cot before she even realized what was happening.
“Run!” I yelled over the screaming sirens. “Run, Vivian!”
