by KJ Kalis
As soon as they got to the next landing, Jess stopped for a second, staring at Chase. She mouthed the words, “Are you okay?”
Chase closed his eyes for a second, and then nodded, using the sleeve of his shirt to wipe the sweat off his brow. His cheeks were red islands in the middle of pale skin. Jess turned and moved forward. The higher they got in the building, the more tense she felt, like someone was crushing her intestines with a trash compactor. The adrenaline rush and her body sent a buzz to her ears and left her feeling lightheaded. Keep it together, Jess, she thought. You’re almost there.
On the landing that spanned midway between the third and fourth floors, Jess stopped, leaning against the wall. “Do you know which lab it is? We're almost there.”
“I think so. Like I said, I haven’t been in this building in a long time. Not since before they secured it.”
“Want to give me an idea what we’re looking at before we barge our way into someplace we shouldn’t be?”
Chase nodded, “It’s the same layout as my building. You know, doors running along the hallway.”
“Are they flush to the wall or are they inset?” The answer could make all the difference in terms of whether they had any place to hide, or not.
“Flush to the wall. All the doors open inward.”
Not good news. There would be nowhere to duck into if security came down the hallway. They’d be spotted immediately. Jess sighed. “Okay, lead the way.”
Jess stood behind Chase as he pushed on the metal bar, easing the door open. As she looked down the hallway, she realized Chase was right — the layout was exactly the same as in Chase’s own lab building — the same polished white floors, white walls and matching white doors on each lab. Each one seemed to have a keypad. As Jess stared down the hallway waiting for Chase to move, she heard a click. In front of her, about halfway down the hallway on the right-hand side, a woman left one of the labs, quickly turning the other direction. Jess and Chase darted back inside of the stairwell, staying away from the window. The woman didn’t look their direction, staring down at her phone, the edges of her white lab coat swishing around the back of her calves. Her shoes made a quiet clicking noise on the tile as she disappeared around a corner.
A minute passed by. Jess glanced through the window of the fire door again. There was no movement down the hallway, no security guards and no lab personnel anywhere to be seen. Chase pushed the door open again, this time letting Jess out and quietly closing it behind her. “The lab the woman came out of is the one we need to get into, I think.”
“You think?”
“I told you, I haven’t been in this building very much,” Chase hissed, his eyes narrowed.
Jess followed Chase down the hallway. They’d gotten to the fourth floor without any trouble, but if they’d come this entire way and they were unable to get into the lab or the ABG wasn’t there, that presented a whole new set of problems. Jess gritted her teeth together, silently praying the security teams would be busy doing something else, even taking a coffee break, rather than patrolling the fourth-floor labs. She followed Chase down the hallway, walking as quickly as possible and trying to make no noise at all.
When they got to the lab door, Chase put his hand on the handle, giving it a twist and then a little nudge inward. Jess glanced around the door, noticing there was a keypad, but everything was green on the panel. Next to the keypad was a small optic display. Jess frowned for a second and then realized it was a retinal scanner. She hadn’t seen one of those at Chase’s lab. If what they were protecting was so valuable, why was the system disarmed? The more she was learning about Trident Labs, the less it made any sense at all.
She didn’t have time to follow up on her suspicions. That would be for another day, that was, if they made it through the next few hours. Jess followed Chase inside. “Stay here,” he whispered. “Let me know if anyone is coming, okay? I’m gonna look for the ABG.”
Jess positioned herself just inside the doorway, where she could see through the glass window. After watching for a second, she turned and glanced around the lab, trying to figure out where Chase had gone.
The lab itself was significantly larger than the space Chase occupied, probably at least three times, she realized. There were stainless steel tables positioned around the perimeter of the room as well as two lines of them positioned down the center. The lab, though it was bigger than Chase’s, still had the same buzzing noise of machines working in the background, the whirr of lab equipment beeping and processing materials. Although Jess had taken a lot of science classes in high school, she had no idea what the equipment was that Trident was using. It was stuff she’d never seen before.
Jess glanced back at the doorway, watching to see if anyone was coming. She leaned forward a little bit and thought she saw a shadow of black moving down the hallway. The guards. Her heart pounding, she ran around the corner to her left, trying to find Chase. He was standing at a bank of refrigerated units, bent over, the door open, clearly searching for the ABG. Jess tried to get his attention by waving at him, but he was looking so intently inside the unit, he didn’t see her. Finally, she snapped her fingers. He glanced her way and she motioned for him to get down. Jess ducked between two stainless steel tables, squeezing herself in between the legs and the lower shelving units. She saw Chase do the same, using the stainless-steel table across from the refrigerated unit as cover. Jess held her breath, the blood pounding in her head. They waited, but there was no noise from the door. As she unwedged herself from between the stainless-steel worktables, she frowned, motioning to Chase to hurry it up, not that he needed any encouragement to do so. Jess slid back towards the lab door and glanced down the hallway. She saw the backs of the guards walking past the lab. They were looking inside each of them, but not entering. That was good news, at least for the moment.
Jess peered around the room. For a moment, all she saw was Chase’s hand and then his forearm as he pulled himself out from under the table where he’d been hiding. Moving as quietly as she could, she walked over to him as he reopened the refrigerated unit, “Did you find it yet?” she whispered.
He shook his head no, “I don’t know where they put it. They have like a thousand samples in here.” He glanced back at the door. “Give me another minute or two. Go check the entrance, will you?”
Jess nodded and moved as quietly as she could back towards the door, nearly bumping into the corner of one of the worktables, catching herself before she rattled all of the equipment on it. Peering out the rectangular glass window in the door, she didn’t see anything. Maybe the fact they were doing this on a Saturday was a good thing, she thought. Trying to get into the lab during the workweek would be impossible without alerting someone with all of the regular staff in the building. At least on the weekend, it was a skeleton crew, or it appeared to be.
Another minute went by and Jess glanced back at Chase. He was reaching into one of the refrigerator units like he was grabbing something. Jess couldn’t see his face, but she hoped he’d found what he was looking for. Leaning toward the window, she took another look out the door, the tension in her back nearly cramping her muscles out of nervousness. She moved back around to where Chase was standing, watching him move test tubes out of a tray. “Is that it?”
Chase pressed his lips together, “Yes, but there’s only five samples here. I sent twelve. We need all of them to get Abby back.”
“Are you sure there are only five in there?”
Chase nodded. “I don’t know what they did with the rest of them. They were supposed to take all twelve of them, test them for compatibility with different blood types, specifically antigens, and then return them to me. What are we going to do, Jess? There aren’t enough for the trade.”
Jess pulled her phone out of her back pocket. They only had about five minutes left before the doors would automatically lock on the two buildings. They had to move, and they had to move now. “Let’s take what you can get. We gotta get outta here. The fire doors Bo
bby and Sully opened for us are going to relock in like five minutes. We don’t want to have to parade out the front door of either of these buildings right now.”
Chase nodded. “Here, take a few of these samples. My hands are so shaky I’m afraid I’m gonna drop them.”
“What am I supposed to do with them?”
“I don’t know. Hide them on your body someplace. It’s not like we can walk out of the building carrying them.”
Jess grabbed three of the test tubes, nearly dropping one. She bent over, pulling up her pant leg, pushing the test tubes down into her socks. The vials were cold against her skin, but she didn’t care. She knew she’d have to walk carefully so as not to jostle them and be careful not to break them if she bumped into anything, but it was the only place she could hide them. Someone would see them in her pockets, and she couldn’t very well just hold them in her hands. “Let’s go,” she said, staring at Chase, who was still busy adjusting his own pant legs.
Darting back to the lab door, Jess tried to look outside. With the way the door was positioned, they only had a very small arc where they could see what was going on. Remembering the woman that had left the lab just a few minutes before, Jess cracked the door open, looking for any signs of guards or the lab technician. There was no one. It was a straight shot back to the stairwell. She waved Chase forward and gently pushed the door open. She half expected there to be some beeping or screeching of an alarm, as though someone had been watching them the entire time they were in the lab, but none came. It still surprised her that the doors weren’t secured, but she didn’t have time to think about it. Jess slipped out the door and started moving down the hallway, sticking close to the side wall, making her way for the stairwell. She could feel Chase behind her, the sound of his shoes on the floor, the heat of his body close behind on her back. As they got to the door, Jess heard voices. The guards. She could hear the rumble of their low voices bouncing off the empty hallways. Her eyes got wide, and she motioned for Chase to hurry up. He slipped through the stairwell door just ahead of her and they closed it, both of them smashing their bodies up against the walls on either side of the door so they wouldn’t be seen if the guards decided to look through.
Jess’s heart was beating loud enough she was sure they would either hear it or she was going to have a heart attack. Her mouth was dry. She felt like she’d spent the last hour chewing on sawdust, the graininess of the inside of her mouth not giving her any comfort. All she wanted to do was run down the stairs as fast as possible, hit the hallway on the first floor at a full run and get out into the sunshine, into the open air where she could breathe again. But she couldn’t. She had vials of ABG stuffed in her socks, as ridiculous as it sounded, and was trying to avoid guards that looked like twins of the people that had kidnapped Abby just that morning.
Taking a deep breath, Jess leaned forward and peered through the window that led back out under the fourth-floor hallway. The guards were gone, the sound of their low conversation having passed by her and Chase. She waved to her brother, who seemed frozen in time. “We’ve gotta go. There’s only three minutes left.” He nodded.
The exertion of just going down the steps in Building B left her breath ragged, the adrenaline pushing her body to its limits. On each floor, they stopped near the door with a glass window to check. Passing the third floor was fine. They paused again at the second floor, their backs plastered up against the wall as a small group of white coated technicians walked by. Jess counted in her head. Other than the little group they’d just passed, they’d only seen one lab tech the entire time they were in the building. Sure, it was a Saturday, but it did seem a little strange there were so few people working in a situation where things were locked down doing such important research.
Neither she nor Chase said a word as they descended down the steps, only using hand signals to say whether to stop or go. In her mind, Jess knew the most dangerous part of the trip was yet to come. Bobby wouldn’t be at the exit waiting for them and she couldn’t tell whether the door was locked or not. If it was and they opened it, all the fire alarms in the building would go off, sending everyone who was in the building scurrying out. It would definitely alert the guards to their presence given how few people were in the building.
As they made it to the turn between the second and first floors, Jess picked up the pace a little bit. They were still trying to be quiet, not making any noise by talking, moving as gently as possible to not make noises on the concrete steps. Jess peered out the glass door that led into the hallway. There wasn’t much she could see. Just a little section of the wall on either side of the hallway. Luckily, the door pulled inward, so at least they had that as an advantage. She reached down and checked to make sure the ABG test tubes were still in her socks. They were.
Taking a deep breath, like she was diving underwater, Jess pulled the door open. There was no one there. She motioned to Chase to follow her. As she glanced at him, she saw how pale he was, as if all of the color had been drained out of his face, leaving him gray, his face showing barely any life at all. She just had to get him to the next building. Then everything would be okay. Her instincts as a sister kicked in. They had to protect each other.
Knowing the ABG was safely tucked in her pant legs, Jess opened the door. As she and Chase started moving down the hallway they pressed forward when they heard a voice, “Hey! That door is secured. You can’t go out that way.”
Jess wheeled around to see two guards standing behind her and Chase, about halfway down the hallway. Her mind raced. Where did they come from? “Oh, sorry,” she called back. “I thought this door was unlocked.”
“That’s a fire door,” the other guard said, narrowing his eyes. “Do you guys have your ID badges? I haven’t seen the two of you around here before.”
Frozen in place, Jess stared at the guards. One of them was a little taller than the other, with close cropped sandy colored hair. The other one was about three inches shorter with a huskier build and black hair. Neither of them looked like they’d shaved in a day or two, the shadow of beards forming around their jawline. They were both wearing the same identical black outfits — black cargo pants and work boots topped off by a long sleeve black shirt and a tactical vest. Each of the guards had a pistol on his hip and a rifle strapped to his chest, a crisp white ID badge clipped to the front pocket.
Jess glanced at Chase, barely able to breathe, not sure what to say. He only blinked and looked to be frozen in time. She noticed his arms and hands were limp, like he’d been doused with a cold bucket of water. She cleared her throat, “I left mine in the car.” She glanced at Chase, “I think we both did. I’d be happy to go out and get it for you if you’d like.”
For second, Jess wasn’t sure what would happen. She held her breath. The guards glanced at each other and then the shorter one narrowed his eyes again, “Somehow, I don’t think that’s the truth. I think you know you’re in a secured building and that you’re not supposed to be here. So, the question becomes, why are you here?” As the words came out of his mouth, Jess saw him tighten his grip on his rifle. He didn’t aim it at her, but his grip was enough that Jess knew he was serious. “No, that’s the truth. My card’s right out front.”
“Well, while we figure out what’s in your car and what’s not in your car, I think the two of you should come with us,” the taller guard said, taking a couple steps toward them. “Come on, the security office is this way. “And, let me just tell you that if you weren’t supposed to be in this building, then you may have just earned yourself a one-way trip to Leavenworth.”
Leavenworth.
Leavenworth was a maximum-security prison in Kansas, the toughest of its kind. The idea of small cells with sliding doors trapping her inside for the rest of her life flashed past Jess’s eyes. But there was nothing else she could do. Jess looked at Chase and started walking toward the guards. They couldn’t be taken to the security office. They didn’t have that much time if they wanted to save Abby. It was as if e
verything stopped. Jess realized her hands were sweaty. She wiped them on the side of her pant legs and balled her hands into tight fists. If the guards took them into custody, there would be no way they’d ever get Abby back. If the kidnappers were watching the building, they would somehow find out that Jess and Chase had run into the security there, or the police would be called. Either way, Abby, and likely Piper, would be dead.
As Jess took a couple steps closer to the guards, she spotted something on the wall. A small red box. An idea flashed through her mind. Lunging, she reached for the wall, pulling the small handle for the fire alarm down. A second later, lights started blinking all over the building, a siren wailing. “What did you do?” one of the guards groaned. He reached for the back of her arm, gripping it tightly. “If we didn’t think you were guilty before, you are definitely guilty now.”
The guards started pushing Chase and Jess down towards the main hallway. As they walked through the lobby, she saw Bobby at the door, waving people out. There were just a handful of them. For a second, Jess thought that maybe Bobby recognized she and Chase as they walked with the guards. She was sure he did, but he didn’t say anything and didn’t try to help. Not that his word would have meant anything at all. He’d probably get fired for letting them in. Jess thought that maybe the guards would take them outside with the fire alarm blaring. That was her hope at least, but they didn’t. Pushing them forward, they passed the entrance to the main lobby and headed down a separate side hallway, one that was dark.
