The Girl Who Dared to Think 7: The Girl Who Dared to Fight

All my thoughts evaporated at the hissing sound of the valve suddenly opening up. Quess moved to the other side of it, stepping awkwardly over the portal, and then gestured for me to jump in.

But I was already moving, knowing that if we didn’t get through this in three minutes, the alarms would go off, and Sage would find us before we were ready for him to. Of course, we’d be dead at that point—killed by the liquid nitrogen—so we wouldn’t really care. But I resolved to not let that happen.





38





I dropped into the hole, and immediately noticed the extreme shift in temperature when my breath crystallized in the frigid air. The entire tube was lined in frost, and the chill that the liquid nitrogen had left seemed to seep in through the gaps of my uniform. I hesitated, the knowledge that the chemical could instantly freeze any organic matter that came in contact with it making me worry about my ungloved hands, and then quickly touched a pinky to the wall for a second, knowing it was faster than just asking. It was cold, but there was no sign of crystallization, and the skin was still pliable. I immediately hunkered down and began to crawl.

The pipe was only three feet in circumference on the outside, but it was even tighter on the inside, making it difficult to go forward in any way other than a belly crawl, which was intolerably slow. The tunnel stretched on, the darkness inside only pushed back by my light, and I felt each second keenly as I continued to shove myself forward, ever conscious of the time. Quess had said three minutes, and it already felt like I had been in here for an hour.

I used that feeling, funneling some of the frantic energy to my motions and redoubling my efforts. Inches turned to feet, which turned into more as I pressed forward, keeping my mind on the goal.

I paused when my light cut across a panel in the top of the pipe, the glittering lights of it hidden under some of the melting frost. I crawled toward it, and the light on my arm revealed a seam. It was one of the pressure valves—but not our exit. Quess had said the third one.

“Time?” I called behind me, hoping that someone would hear me. I knew that Tony could tell me, but I wanted to communicate with my team, so that we were all aware of how much time we had left. The confines of the pipe made it difficult for sounds to carry past where our bodies were stuffed in.

At first there was no answer, and I worried no one had heard me. But then I heard a muffled, “Two minutes,” from behind me, in Eric’s voice.

I wasn’t sure if making it to the first pressure valve in only a minute was a good or bad sign, but knowing we only had two minutes left added additional fire to my movements. I pulled forward, hyperaware of every scrape my uniform made on the inside of the pipe, the sound of my own breathing, and the thundering of my heart.

In order to cope with the tight confines, I began to focus on what would happen next: climbing out of the pipe, sealing it behind us so as not to raise the alarm, then sneaking into the integration room where Sage was hiding. All I had to do was shoot him, trigger the New Day protocol in Leo, and rescue Grey, and it would be over.

I knew it wouldn’t be that simple, but at the very least, it gave me something to preoccupy myself with during the crawl. When we got to the second glowing panel and exit, I felt confident that it had taken less time than it took for us to reach the first one.

“Time?” I asked, hope curling my voice upward.

There was another long pause behind me, and then Eric replied with, “One minute, fifteen seconds. Quess says it’s the next hatch. All you have to do is press the green button and it will open.”

“Excellent,” I breathed, my entire attention focused on the pipe ahead and the final remaining crawl, my eyes searching for the glowing lights that would mean our escape. My hands were burning from the cold, and while I could still move all ten digits, they were hurting and beginning to lose sensation.

Time marched past us while we continued to move forward, the seconds bleeding away with each heartbeat, and I began to count them, growing concerned when thirty had gone by without any sign of the glowing lights. At forty, panic began to set in. Had I missed it? Was the frost over it making it impossible to see? If we were trapped down here when the liquid nitrogen turned back on, we were going to die, so I couldn’t afford to make a single mistake.

I trusted that the others would’ve signaled if I had passed it, and continued to scan the ceiling. A few seconds later, I was rewarded when my light caught another panel and seam, just a few feet ahead.

I raced for it, as best as I was able, knowing that three more people were behind me and needed to get out. As soon as I was within arm’s length of it, I reached up, scraped off the frost, and hit the green button. The door overhead emitted a sharp hiss, then rose up, letting in the light from the room outside.

I didn’t need a second invitation and rolled to my back so I could grab the edges of the opening and pull myself up until I was standing in the pipe, my head and shoulders inside a small room with a catwalk leading from the hatch to another catwalk pressed between what looked like two tanks—storage areas for the liquid nitrogen, according to their markings.

I quickly looked around and found a wall in one direction, and a metal platform in the other. I climbed hastily to the platform to let Eric out. My boots hit the metal floor, and the structure rattled under my weight. Not enough to be overly concerning, but loudly enough to attract attention. I peered down the steep steps leading down from the platform to a walkway. Massive fans in the floor and ceiling spun lazily on either side of it, while the walkway turned into a hall after it ran between the two silver canisters marked as liquid nitrogen. There was no sign of movement anywhere in the room, or the passageway beyond, but that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be.

I looked over my shoulder to check on Eric, saw that he was helping Maddox out, and quickly took a few steps down the stairs to make room for them. Then I returned my attention to the passageway, searching for any sign of movement. But there was nothing.

I took several more steps down, keeping my light on the metal catwalk, then paused when I heard Quess’s sharp curse, instantly on guard.

“Quess?” I called, turning back toward the pipe and where Eric and Maddox were hovering over the hole to help him out. “You didn’t get stuck, did you?”

“Hardee har har,” Quess said from inside the pipe. “With a physique like this? Perish the thought.”

I frowned at his quip, noting how forced it was, and immediately started back, knowing something wasn’t right. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing,” he replied in the same tone. “Just… the panel in here got smashed is all. Nothing to worry about, except if I can’t fix it, the door won’t close, causing an alarm to go off, and liquid nitrogen will spray everywhere. But I got it. Really. Nothing to worry about.”

That wasn’t good. He was repeating himself. That meant there was something to worry about. “Quess, get out,” I ordered. “We’ll force it closed from this side.”

“In thirty-nine seconds? I don’t think so. The force it would take is far more than all of us could generate together. Besides, I’ve almost got it. Just a few more seconds.”

He was lying. I could tell. My heart skipped a beat as I mounted the steps, and I almost stumbled.

“Quess,” Maddox said, her voice nervous. “I really think you should get out now.”

“Dammit, babe, I can’t. If I do, the valve won’t close, and Sage will know someone is back here. I’ve seen the blueprints, and that room is a deathtrap. And c’mon, it’s me. I’m amazing at everything I do.”

I reached the top of the steps and stepped between Maddox and Eric. “Quess, give me your hand. We’ll worry about the—”