The Butcher of Oakhaven

The Sub Basement Lab

The steel access hatch opened with a silent three inch gap. Warm, sterile air rushed down into the damp vertical shaft, smelling heavily of isopropyl alcohol and hot circuit boards.

I held my position on the upper rung of the iron ladder, letting my eyes adjust to the bright white fluorescent light above. The high pitched chime of automated fluid dispensers filled the space, accompanied by the steady clink of glass ampoules moving along a stainless steel conveyor.

Through the crack, I saw the guard on the left. He wore a gray Foundation tactical vest, standing four feet from the hatch frame with a short submachine gun slung over his shoulder. His back was turned to me as he watched the conveyor belt.

The second guard sat on a plastic folding chair near the freight elevator doors twenty yards away, checking his wrist watch.

The man in the lab coat stood at the central workstation, filling a glass syringe from a pressurized metal canister stamped with the Foundation logo.

I pushed the hatch open all the way, hooked my left foot over the top rung, and launched myself into the room.

My boots hit the concrete floor right behind the first guard. Before he could turn his head, I drove the butt of my nine millimeter handgun into the base of his skull. His legs gave out instantly, and he pitched forward into a plastic laundry hamper filled with soiled lab gowns.

"What the..." the second guard yelled, reaching for his holster as he stood up from the folding chair.

I did not aim for his chest. I fired once at the overhead junction box directly above his head.

The bullet struck the galvanized iron casing, sending a shower of hot sparks and flying copper wire into his face. He flinched, covering his eyes with both hands as the heavy steel conduit housing broke loose from the ceiling, swinging down like a hammer to knock him flat against the elevator doors.

The chemist at the workbench dropped the glass syringe. It shattered on the floor tiles, spilling a pool of clear liquid that hissed as it hit the sealant.

"Do not move," I said, stepping over the fallen guard and pointing the pistol at his chest.

The chemist backed up until his spine hit the stainless steel table, his hands raised high. He was a thin man in his late forty's, wearing gold rimmed spectacles and a white coat bearing a Sterling Medical Foundation ID badge.

"I am just a technician," he stammered, his voice shaking. "I do not know anything about security."

"You are filling field doses of Compound B," I said, walking up to the bench. "Where are the keycards for the executive elevators?"

The technician swallowed hard, pointing a trembling finger toward a leather tray beside the computer monitor. A silver card with a red Foundation crest lay next to a stack of printed laboratory manifests.

I snatched the silver card, slipping it into my pocket alongside Pratt's brass keys, the two stolen vials, and the leather ledger.

"How many field units are ready for distribution?" I asked.

"Two hundred," the technician whispered, looking down at the moving conveyor belt. "They are being loaded into the catering carts right now. For the breakfast keynote upstairs."

My blood ran cold. Sterling was not just demonstrating a product. He was planning to poison the entire room of city officials and journalists, then introduce his Foundation stabilization cure before the morning was over.

"Where is Nia Vance?" I demanded, leaning over the table.

"The journalist?" The chemist blinked behind his spectacles. "She... she is in the VIP green room on the third floor. Dr. Sterling is having private photos taken with her before the press conference."

I lowered the gun two inches. "Two seconds," I said.

"What?"

I brought the heavy steel frame of the pistol across his jawline, striking the nerve bundle behind his ear. The chemist went limp, sliding down the front of the stainless steel table onto the tile floor.

I turned to the automated conveyor system, pulled the heavy fire extinguisher from the wall mount, and slammed it repeatedly into the glass reservoir tank above the filling line.

The tempered glass shattered. Two hundred gallons of raw chemical compound flooded across the workbench, destroying the fluid pump and shorting out the electrical control panel in a cloud of grey smoke.

The main alarm on the basement wall began to pulse, its red light spinning silently against the ceiling.

I ran to the freight elevator, swiped the silver keycard through the digital reader, and stepped inside as the heavy steel doors slid shut.

The elevator began to ascend, the digital display ticking upward from B2 to B1, then to the Ground Floor.

I checked the nine millimeter. Two rounds left.

The display reached Floor Three and slowed to a stop.

Outside the elevator doors, a loud commotion echoed down the carpeted hallway of the hotel suite, followed by a sharp, terrified shout in a voice I knew better than my own.

"Get your hands off me!" Nia shouted. "Where are you taking my camera?"