Page 89 of The Atom Between Us

“Laundry detail,” I say. “They make you reimage the terminals every week. It’s all the same shit.”

He almost smiles.

I’m in. The directory is a mess—hundreds of folders, most named with Authority jargon, all meant to be indecipherable. But I spot what I’m looking for: “EXZONE-7,” top-level, last modified five minutes ago. I open it.

Inside are files, hundreds, each tagged with a unique subject code and experiment type. There are logs, videos, scanned reports. I feel a jolt of nausea as I read the headers: “Chemical Augmentation Trial.” “Behavioral Override Test.” “Amnestic Protocol—Results.”

I click on one at random. The screen fills with images: faces, some I recognize from the block, others not. Most are labeled “Terminated” in red. The log details every stage of the experiment, every side effect, every failure. In the margins are notes, in Petrov’s hand: “Increase dosage.” “Try combination with vector #132.”

That’s me. I’m the vector.

I keep digging, hands flying over the keys. Every new file is a fresh wound, but I can’t stop. I find a folder called “Special Projects.” I open it, and my stomach drops.

There’s a file: “Lance_Diana.” No other details. I click.

The air goes dead still.

The screen flickers, spits static, lines of corrupted text, half-formed images that dissolve before I can make them out.

Kang’s shadow falls over me. “What the fuck is this?” His hand slams the desk.

I set my palm over his, pressing down. “It doesn’t matter,” I say softly, though my chest aches with the truth—it does matter.

We hold each other’s eyes.

Then—boots in the hall. Dozens. The metallic clack of rifles being chambered. A voice barking, “On my mark—” Kang exhales once, slow and deliberate. “We’re out of time.”

The office blows open. One second I’m elbow-deep in a file labeled with my own goddamn name, the next I’m ducking a salvo of rubber bullets that turn the air to ricochet and ozone. The sound slaps off the walls, sharp as a whip crack, and the stink of burnt powder mixes with the sting of glass dust cutting into my lungs.

The first two guards come through the door low and silent, Authority-smooth, not even waiting for the smoke to clear. Behind them, a third with a face like gristle raises a riot shield and shouts something about “containment.” The glass panel by the desk explodes into a rain of shards, catching the light like frozen lightning before they bite into my skin. Kang and I are already moving.

He shoves me behind a stack of overturned chairs, presses the muzzle of his sidearm to my temple—not to threaten, just to steady his own hand. “Stay back,” he hisses, breath ragged, the heat of it cutting through the cold draft from the broken window. “You’re in no shape⁠—”

I cut him off. “Fuck that.”

My legs want to fold, but the rest of me is already launching forward. I see the med kit, mounted on the cinderblock with two strips of ancient adhesive. The sticker on the front says EMERGENCY USE ONLY, but I’m way past emergencies. I rip the plastic open, fingers working on muscle memory alone, and pop the cap off the red-labeled ampoule. The needle looks dull, but the stuff inside is pure Authority: adrafinil-amphetamine mix, bright as summer in a bottle.

Kang is shouting something—maybe at me, maybe at the guards—but all I hear is the white noise of my own pulse. I jab the needle into my thigh and squeeze. The burn hits first—acid in my veins—then the world comes into sudden, crystalline focus.

I pop back up and grab the nearest body. This one’s still warm, Authority-issue, bleeding from the scalp where Kang brained him with a corner of the desk. His sidearm is a compact Sig, still on safe. I flick it off, chamber a round, and scan the chaos.

Three more guards through the door now, using gristle-face and his shield as cover. Kang is a machine—no, he’s a goddamn training sim. Each shot from his sidearm is a lesson in economy: chest, head, reload, repeat. But there’s too many. They’re closing in, herding us toward the glass and the drop two stories down.

I take the opening: squeeze off two rounds center-mass at the closest, see the red blossom through the riot padding. I’m not sure if it kills him, but it slows him, and that’s all I need. I roll over the fallen shield, aim low at the next set of knees, and fire.

A baton grazes my ear and suddenly there’s a hand on my collar, hauling me up like I weigh nothing. Kang. He’s gritting his teeth so hard I hear the enamel grind.

“We’re moving,” he says, and then we are.

We barrel through the side door—bypassing the guard who thought he could cut us off—then into a corridor lined with blast-proof glass. The walls are mirrored, the floor a checkerboard of black-and-blood, the smell of copper thick enough to taste. The sound of our boots is swallowed by the hum of emergency power, broken only by the faint crackle of damaged wiring overhead.

We hit the next junction and Kang slams me up against the cinderblock, hard enough to bounce my teeth. He scans the hall, finger to his lips, then leans close. “Listen,” he whispers. “No alarms.”

He’s right. The halls are empty, the lights static. Even the ventilation hum is off, replaced by the weird, underwater hush of a building gone dead.

I lick the taste of blood from my lip and say, “So what?”

Kang’s face is unreadable. “Means Petrov didn’t want a panic. He’s just radioed the local patrols—no mass alert, no lockdown. We have a window, but it’s small.”