The Butcher of Oakhaven

Breach at Sector Seven

The glare of the spotlight washed out the rain-streaked glass, turning the interior of the sedan into a cage of harsh white light. Gideon Pratt froze, his hands locked onto the steering wheel as the guard’s voice boomed again from the watchtower loudspeaker.

"Driver, turn off the engine and step out. Now."

"We are done," Pratt muttered, his jaw shaking. "They have the perimeter covered. We cannot outrun two security transports in a rotted sedan."

"Drive forward," I said.

Pratt stared at me through the glare. "Are you out of your mind? They have military rifles pointed right at our windshield."

"They have rifles, but they do not have orders to shoot on sight," I said, leaning back into the darkness of the passenger seat. "If Sterling wanted you shot at the gate, they would have fired already. They want to know who is in the car."

I reached across the console, grabbed Pratt’s right wrist, and pressed his hand firmly against the horn. The low horn blast blared out into the night, echoing off the iron rails and the concrete perimeter wall.

"Keep driving," I said. "Slow. Like you belong here."

Pratt swallowed hard, put his foot on the gas, and let the sedan roll forward through the sea of mud toward the main gate. The spotlight stayed locked on us, but the heavy steel barrier gate remained down.

Three guards moved out from the shelter of the booth. The two holding rifles kept their barrels lowered at forty five degrees, their faces hidden behind dark helmet visors. The third man, carrying a heavy tactical clipboard and a hand held scanner, stepped directly into the path of the car, waving his hand for us to halt.

Pratt stopped the sedan two feet from the guard's knees. He rolled down his window an inch, the cold rain spraying inside.

"Identify yourselves," the lead guard shouted over the downpour. "This sector is under level two lockdown by order of Foundation Security."

Pratt cleared his throat, trying to force his voice down into a calm register. "I am Gideon Pratt. Senior Dock Boss. I have a scheduled inspection for the cold storage vault in building three."

The guard raised his scanner, pointing the lens at Pratt’s face. A red grid of light flashed across Pratt’s features, turning his wet skin bright pink for two seconds before the unit beeped green.

"Pratt checks out," the guard said, checking his clipboard. Then he shifted his stance, bringing the red grid of the scanner over to the passenger side window. "Who is in the back?"

I did not hide my face. I sat upright, letting the red light sweep across my jaw and forehead.

My retinas throbbed. I forced my eyes to stay clear, holding back the static overlay. I needed the system to read my face as a dead profile, not as an active combat threat. If the digital ledger had been purged after my six years in Blackwood Pen, the scanner would register an unregistered visitor flag. If Sterling had kept my file active, it would trigger a precinct priority alert.

The scanner hummed. The red light flickered across my cheekbones, paused on the scar above my left eye, and turned yellow.

A steady, low beep emitted from the handheld unit.

The guard frowned, tapping the side of the casing. "System mismatch. Profile flagged under archival file nine zero seven. Stand by."

He stepped back toward the guard booth, reaching for the tactical radio mounted on his shoulder strap. "Gate three to Command. We have a biometric match on an archived file at the north rail entry. Requesting authorization to hold."

"Now," I said to Pratt.

Pratt did not hesitate this time. Fear took over. He slammed his foot to the floorboards.

The sedan's rear tires spun in the mud, spraying dark slush over the guard booth, before finding traction on the asphalt. The heavy iron bumper hit the wooden barrier gate, snapping the pine beam in two with a sound like a rifle shot.

"Stop the car!" the lead guard shouted, drawing his sidearm as the two riflemen raised their weapons.

Bullets hit the trunk lid with heavy metallic thuds. The rear glass shattered into a thousand frosted cubes, showering the back seat in sharp fragments.

Pratt leaned low over the wheel, screaming as he swung the sedan around the corner of the first storage shed. The vehicle skidded across the wet oil slick on the tarmac, its side panel slamming against a row of steel shipping containers with a deafening screech before straightening out into the main lane of Building Three.

"Where is the vault entry?" I asked, looking through the ruined rear window.

Behind us, the red emergency strobes on the watchtower began to rotate, casting blood colored light across the concrete yards. A siren began to wail, its high pitch rising and falling over the storm.

"End of the lane!" Pratt yelled, his knuckles white against the wheel. "The lower level bay! But the doors are heavy steel! We cannot ram them!"

"We are not ramming them," I said. "Pull up to the loading ramp."

Pratt slammed on the brakes fifty yards down the lane. The sedan skidded to a halt beside a concrete ramp that led down to a set of heavy, double width reinforced doors stamped with the blue Sterling Medical Foundation logo.

A high security digital terminal sat mounted on an iron post beside the ramp, its green standby light blinking in the dark.

I threw open the passenger door, grabbed the stolen leather ledger from under my coat, and pulled Pratt out of the driver seat by his collar.

"The card," I said.

Pratt pulled the blue digital keycard from his pocket with fingers that could barely hold the plastic. He swiped it through the terminal slot.

The light on the panel turned from green to solid yellow. A digital voice spoke from a small speaker grill: "Secondary clearance required. Enter authority pin."

"Type it," I said, checking the lane behind us.

Fifty yards away, the headlights of two security transport vans turned into the narrow alley between the storage sheds, their high beams cutting through the rain toward our position.

Pratt tapped a four digit sequence into the keypad. "Four, nine, one, seven."

The yellow light flickered, then turned bright red.

"Access denied," the metallic voice announced. "Security override engaged. Facility lockdown in fifteen seconds."

Pratt stared at the red keypad, his face collapsing in absolute terror. "What? No. That is the code! I used it yesterday!"

"Sterling changed the sequence when he issued the hit order on Miller," I said, grabbing the keycard back from his hand. "He knew you would come here."

"We are trapped," Pratt stammered, backing away from the concrete ramp as the engine roars of the approaching security vans grew louder. "We have nowhere to go."

I turned my back on the approaching headlights and looked directly at the thick junction box mounted behind the digital terminal.

I let the heat build behind my eyes, ignoring the sharp spike of pain that shot down my optic nerve. The grey, translucent overlay snapped into place over my vision. Through the steel casing of the terminal box, I saw the complex network of copper wiring, the main power relay, and the secondary solenoid trigger that held the vault door locked.

The solenoid was powered by a single red conductor running through the lower conduit.

"Hand me the forceps," I told Pratt.

"What?"

"The medical forceps in my coat pocket! Hand them to me!"

Pratt reached into my coat, pulled out the heavy steel tool I had used on Miller in Warehouse Four, and shoved it into my hand.

I did not try to guess the new code. I jammed the thin steel tips of the medical forceps directly into the seam between the terminal casing and the concrete post, driving the metal deep into the wiring bundle behind the panel.

Blue sparks exploded from the box with a loud crack.

The short circuit surged through the low voltage relay. The red light on the terminal died instantly, followed by the heavy, mechanical clunk of four internal deadbolts retracting deep inside the frame of the vault door.

The heavy steel doors cracked open three inches, releasing a cloud of freezing white vapor into the damp night air.

"Inside," I said, shoving Pratt through the gap just as the first security van skidded to a stop at the top of the concrete ramp.

I slipped inside behind him and pulled the heavy steel door shut, dropping the manual security bar into place from the inside just as a hail of bullets slammed against the outer steel plate.