Page 140 of The Atom Between Us

The third guard at the far wall notices the gap in his formation, starts to key his radio, but I’m already moving, sprinting the ten meters with the barrel of my gun pointed at his eye. He starts to yell, but I put a gloved hand over his mouth and drive the butt of the weapon into his temple. He slumps, and Rosie drags him back into the blind spot.

The last guard is still in the booth. He’s younger, maybe barely out of training, face pale under the blue lights. He doesn’t see me coming until I’m at the glass, and even then he just stares, mouth working, unable to process that the enemy is inside.

I motion for Markus and Rosie to hold the hall, then circle the booth. The guard watches, eyes huge, hand hovering over the panic button but never daring to press. I key the intercom.

“Open the door,” I say, Authority voice at full volume.

He does.

Inside, the air is cold and dry, recycled a dozen times over. The guard blinks at me, shakes his head.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” he whispers.

“Neither are you,” I say, and drive the edge of my hand into his neck. He gasps, collapses. I drag him out, hands shaking.

We lock down the booth, seal it behind us. Rosie checks the cameras—most are still working, but a few are on loop, cycling the same image every sixty seconds. Markus takes over the monitors, scanning for any sign of Diana. I wipe my face, taste blood, and realize my jaw is clamped so tight I can’t unclench it.

There’s a trail. Not a literal one—not yet. But I can see her logic, the way she’d route through the node: never double back, always take the path of least resistance, always one step ahead.

I follow the echo, leading us down the left corridor. The walls here are lined with glass, backlit with blue LEDs, the kind Diana hated because they made her feel like she was under a microscope. There’s a chill, and the lights buzz at a frequency that makes my teeth ache.

Halfway down, Markus holds up a fist. We freeze.

There’s a dead guard in the middle of the corridor, sprawled on his back, arms out like he was crucified by the impact. Rosie checks him, then waves me over.

The wound is precise, a single puncture through the notch under the jaw, straight up into the brain. I know the knife—it’s one of Diana’s.

I pull it free, wipe it on my sleeve, and hand it to Rosie. “She’s close.”

We push on, faster now. The corridor twists, then opens into a wide chamber lined with humming servers and auxiliary generator banks. There’s a catwalk above, grated steel, and a maintenance ladder running up the side. I spot another two-man patrol circling the perimeter, but they haven’t seen us yet.

I signal Markus: up the ladder, take the high. Rosie and I move along the ground, sticking to the shadow under the main bank.

The next hallucination hits me as we pass the generator room. This time it’s not her voice, but her shadow—long and lean, darting from server to server, always just out of sight. I blink hard, trying to focus, but the vision blurs and doubles, and for a second I lose track of which direction is forward.

Rosie grabs my elbow, steadies me. “Stay with me, captain”

I nod, swallow the nausea, and keep going.

We take the first guard by surprise—Rosie moves in behind, yanks the helmet back, and I come in with the knife, clean through the gap at the collar. The body slumps, and we drag it into the alcove behind a support pillar.

The second guard is harder. He’s Authority, all the way down: never hesitates, never blinks. He catches a glint off Rosie’s blade and opens fire, shotgun blasts echoing off the metal walls. I hit the deck, rolling behind a bank of servers as plastic and steel shards explode around me. Rosie ducks, but takes a pellet in the arm, hissing but not slowing.

Markus comes through, drops off the catwalk and lands behind the guard. Two shots, quick and dirty, and the man goes down, helmet rolling free and bouncing off the concrete with a hollow knock.

The echoes of the gunfire fade, replaced by the whine of alarm as the server room’s security system goes live. Every red light in the place starts to flash, and a voice—Authority, female, pre-recorded—starts intoning, “Security breach. Security breach. All personnel to critical stations.”

We’re out of time.

Rosie rips a strip from her sleeve, binds her arm, and grins at me through teeth slick with blood. “Go,” she says. “We’ll cover the rear.”

I want to argue, but there’s no time. I motion to Markus, and we bolt for the far end of the server room.

Beyond is a stairwell, spiraling down into the dark. Markus hesitates, but I don’t. I take the stairs two, three at a time, boots slamming on the metal treads.

At the bottom, there’s another corridor, this one lined with exposed conduit and cable trays. The air is different—colder, but also sharp with the smell of burning insulation.

We run.