Shrieking alarms tore through the air, shattering Anna’s concentration. She paused for a moment, the medi-pack in her hand forgotten as she raised her eyes to the flashing strobe light pulsing in time with the alarm system. Blue light washed over the bag she was re-packing. As the sound reverberated painfully through her skull, she threw the last few things she needed into her backpack, or bug-out bag, as Julia insisted on calling it. Medical supplies, foil packs of long-life survival biscuits, spare clothes, and a triple-sealed external hard drive containing their combined research over the last four years. Time was running out, and they had been slowly putting these escape bags together over the past week.

Julia had gone to find Blake, her backpack already rammed full with supplies and more copies of their research. Anna checked her watch. It was after six. Julia had been gone for over forty minutes. Where the hell was she?

Anna muttered obscenities under her breath as she shouldered her heavy pack. Her muscles protested after the exertion of yesterday but eased just as quickly as adrenalin spiked through her system.

In the last six months, the alarm had never tripped. There was only one explanation. Chittrix or Scutters were in the building.

The armoury.

She needed to secure the body armour. She grabbed her pulse rifle. The brief moment of reassurance it gave her dissolved as the alarm continued, making her ears ring.

Cracking the door open slowly, she scanned the corridor for any sign of intruders. Azure light continued to cycle across the smooth floor, but otherwise, it was empty. Her hands were damp on the door frame as she stepped out and turned left, heading deeper into the building, down the access corridor for the labs. Gripping the banister so that her feet barely touched the floor, she flew down the stairs two at a time. She skidded to a halt on the basement landing, four floors under the building, heart thudding in her chest. Grey light filtered down weakly from above.

Without warning, the alarm went dead, and silence consumed the air. Blue lights continued to strobe above her head, running off the auxiliary power systems. She waited, listening to the building to tell her what was going on.

Nothing.

The access door was ajar. Cautiously, she pushed open the heavy door and stepped through, fighting to keep her breathing under control for fear of alerting anyone or anything to her presence.

Ahead of her, the passageway stretched out long and straight, the only illumination coming from the strobing blue light behind her. She held the door open, letting as much light as possible into the space ahead. There were four doors: three weapons labs where Julia spent most of her time working on the pulse lasers and acoustic weapons, and the armoury where Anna worked on her biological armour.

Anna walked slowly, holding the pulse rifle in front of her with both hands. The backpack dug uncomfortably into her shoulders, but she ignored the pressure, concentrating instead on keeping the nose of her rifle steady. Creeping past the weapons labs, she confirmed the doors were still sealed, the air locks blinking a rhythmic red in the gloom, just as they should. The small access windows of all three rooms were dark. Julia and Blake were not down here.

Where the hell are they? What if I can’t find them?

Her heart skittered a panicky rhythm in her chest at the thought of leaving without her two remaining colleagues. They had survived the last six hellish months together. She had to find them.

She stopped.

The Armoury.

The access panel hung off the wall in a spaghetti of multi-coloured wires. Even in the half-light, it was evident that the wires had been stripped of their plastic coating and twisted together to short-circuit the lock. When she turned the handle, the door opened, the security air lock already disengaged.

Breathe Anna.

She stepped into the small air lock and touched the second inner door, which also swung open with only gentle pressure from her hand. She paused on the threshold of the lab, hesitating. Someone was here. Someone capable of hacking the highest level of security without breaking a sweat.

The lab was vast, split into eight different engineering rooms, each with their own access codes and security requirements, but the only one Anna was interested in was at the far end, where her final armour prototypes were stored. Walking forward, she hugged the wall, her backside tracing the line of desks and silent computer equipment.

Then she spotted him.

He was standing in front of her armoury access lock, clearly intent on hacking the security. His back was to her, but he was tall with short dark hair, black cargo trousers, a blue t-shirt straining over impressive biceps, and some kind of military jerkin covered with bulging pockets.

Anna thrust herself back against the wall and held her breath, closing her eyes for a second to concentrate.

When she opened them again, he had paused in his work, perhaps sensing her watching him. She held her breath and pressed herself even harder against the wall, willing herself to disappear. Slow seconds ticked by. One, two, three, and then his head dipped, and he was intent on his work again. He hadn’t seen her.

Good. He was going to pay for coming in here and touching all her tech.

She bent and shrugged off the restrictive heavy pack behind a desk, then laid her pulse rifle across it and checked the SIG Sauer she kept holstered at her waist. Full round. Anna peeked over the top of the desk. He was still working. She ducked down and began to crawl forward behind the line of office equipment that ran parallel to the wall, acutely aware of the sound of her own breathing and the sweat running down her back.

However, when she stood and placed the nose of the SIG in the small of his back, her breathing was calm again, and she barely noticed the thrum of her heart against her rib cage. The armour was hers. It was the culmination of years of research and no one, no one, was going to just waltz in here and take it from her.

“Don’t move,” she said softly. “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”

His hands froze in their work, but he shifted his hips, preparing to react. She pressed harder with the nose of the SIG, forcing him to shift forwards.

She kept her voice low, impressing herself at how moderate and level she sounded. “You can try messing with me, but I’ve had plenty of practice kicking the crap out of Chittrix in the last six months, so I wouldn’t bother unless you like the thought of being beaten by a girl. Now move away from the control panel, slowly.”