****
An almighty explosion rocketed the side of the compound, sending sheets of metal and debris soaring through the air. Workers milled out of every building to converge on the explosion, only to be faced with smaller explosions dotted around the hangars. Malcolm, now shirtless and shielded by Rayne in her yellow suit, sprinted to the access door that led to the hospital wing.
They watched several staff run from the room before they barged through the doorway and into a pristine white space filled with gadgets and machinery. All the remaining guests were hooked up to a bevy of monitors and pumps. At the end stood a doctor reading charts.
“Oh, what a surprise--another one! We have just one left out there now: a female. I wonder if she’s the reason behind that kerfuffle outside.” The doctor picked up one of the strange ear thermometers and crammed it into Malcolm’s ear. When it failed to go off, he recalibrated and tried again. This time when it didn’t go off, Malcolm stuck him with the taser and let him spasm to the ground.
Rayne ran back to the entry door and hauled some heavy gas cans into the room before bolting all the doorways.
“It’s too late,” the doctor slurred from his collapsed position. “Doesn’t matter what you do, these hosts will be sent back into circulation tomorrow to beckon the beginning of a new world order.”
“Hosts? Is that what you’re calling these people? What have you done to them?” Malcolm had leapt to a monitor and was feverishly tapping keys.
The doctor was unable to control his limbs and continued to tremble on the floor, “Done? You mean improved. Ha, one by one, the elite will find their lofty heights crumbling to ruin, never realizing it came from within.”
Around the ward were shimmering tanks. At first glance, they looked like decorative screens, but seen up close, the tanks were filled with millions of tiny clear and silvery bits. Rayne held her hand up to the glass of one tank and a cluster of silver converged on the spot, mimicking the shape. She gasped and stood back. “What is this?”
“It’s new nanotechnology--my nano-bites.” The doctor had pulled himself up to sit, slumping against a bedpost. “These critters do amazing things when they’re inside the human brain. They love patterns, you see. You’ve already felt the effects of these nano-bites, but you two were highly resistant.”
Rayne looked up at the doctor. Malcolm paused as he typed frantically. “What do you mean?” he ventured.
“Remember that night with the loud music? You were all fed large amounts of nano-bites in your cocktails. The bass-driven music was chosen to allow the nano-bites to activate your most basic survival needs. We ended up with twenty-nine people having intercourse uncontrollably--all in the name of cross contamination.” He had pulled himself to his knees and was attempting to stand back up, but Rayne grabbed her paddle and smacked him hard against the ribs, sending him back to the floor.
“Are these people still alive? Can these nano-bites be removed?” she snapped.
The doctor sputtered and laughed, “No, they’re as good as gone. The nano-bites will have destroyed enough of the brain during the replication process. They’re on life support until the nano-bites reprogram themselves.”
“And what about us?”
The doctor motioned to the ear thermometers. “Find out for yourselves. They’ll beep if they make contact with nano-bites; your friend over there with the taser doesn’t have them.”
Rayne grabbed a thermometer and crammed it into her ear. There was a painful, long wait and a quiet click. Nothing.
“Rayne, we have to go,” Malcolm said, grabbing his flash drive.
Rayne grabbed a gas can and started to shake its contents out over the floor and the machines. Once the doctor got a whiff of the gasoline, he started to panic and yell. Malcolm slammed a foot into the doctor’s side and hurled an open gas can across the room, smashing it into a tank of nano-bites and sending them splashing onto the ground in a gloppy mess.
“Quick, get out! I have the suit on!” Rayne yelled.
Malcolm threw her the taser and ran to the doorway, pausing at the threshold. Using her paddle, Rayne knocked over the closest remaining tanks and upended her gas can. The doctor gave one final scramble and grabbed for Rayne’s leg. She reacted instinctively, plunging the taser into his back which set his gasoline-soaked lab coat ablaze. Rayne slipped and ran from the room, following Malcolm’s fleeing body across the compound and out into the forest. There were several audible cracks and final a whooshing sound that preceded an almighty explosion which rocked the ground and sent Rayne airborne, landing in a hollow.
Taking the opportunity as she lay out of sight, Rayne frantically kicked off the yellow suit and scrambled out of her hiding spot to follow the direction Malcolm had seemed to take. Hardly a few steps into her sprint, she was snatched from the ground by a pair of familiar arms—it was Malcolm.
“To the beach?” he gasped; Rayne nodded and they took off into the growing darkness.