No Time To Bleed

Cece applied to the chapstick to her lips before sneaking us down to the basement.

Rows upon rows of stacks of luggage surrounded us. We squatted to avoid camera movement which Cece said was rare down here.

“Now remember, the cellar door leads down to an underground hall. The hall stretches of to three different areas of the airport and three different bunkers. At the end of the hall is the main power switch for the entire airport.” She paraphrased.

I nodded, glad that she was recapping me on everything. Our plan for tonight was to see how we could successfully break into the power control room when Brett Wiggins came. That would be our perfect distraction for breaking into the later phase of our plan: to break out everyone and get the information we needed on Lexicon.”

It was taking us a while to maneuver past all the cameras with the coverage of the suitcases.

“So, how exactly are we going to get in the information we need from Lexicon?” I asked.

We edged closely between a cement wall and yet another stack of suitcases.

“I have a hunch that one of the three bunkers will be our shot. I was studying the maps and found something weird. I saw that there was a tunnel running under the airport with the initials B.L.W. I never understood what it meant until recently.”

Now we’d arrived to an area where cabinets of luggage surrounded us completely. A heavy steel plated door rested against the ground and I was suddenly glad we’d changed for this endeavor.

“What did it mean?” I asked her.

Cece leaned down against the door and unlatched the large bolt that held its place closed. The bolt popped out of place with a resounding thud and the same sense of danger was rushing through me.

“It means-“ Cece grunted as we both reached for a handle of the door and began to yank the structure open. “that the initials of Brett Lexico Wiggins were placed on the map of this airport for a reason. I think this airport is the base point of where the virus started.”

Shivers went up down and my spine and my muscles strained to pull open the door.

“I think that the owners of Lexicon are all connected somehow, maybe in the same family which is why they’re so loyal.”

I had to say I was absolutely impressed with Cece for figuring out things so well.

We managed to pull open the steel plated doors after a few minutes of creaky tugging.

“Alright, here’s the code sheet for the electronic lock on there.”

99. 22. 45. 64. 94. 85.14. 36. 76. 83.

The door came open with a metallic hiss and a bit of smoke. We each grabbed flashlights that had been strapped onto our wastes. Down past the doors was chilling darkness and we shot our flashlights down there. The small orbs of light only gave nothing to the imagination.

“You ready for this?” she asked me, pulling on her gloves.

My bat was held steadily in my hand and something about bringing a weapon I’d once been able to hide in my room without need for over the last week or so didn’t sit right with me.

“As ready as I’ll ever be.”

Our sneakers only made minimal thuds as we went down the stairwell. My fingers gripped against the rough walls. We walked and walked the stairs for a while, too scared to do anything, but remain silent until we reached the bottom after a good few minutes.

Once our feet stopped off the stairs, a loud whine of electricity sounded. Something that sounded like things turning on hissed through the ceilings went off. Lights sparked on all over the place and we covered our eyes to shield from the darkness.

“Weird. They have motion detectors to turn on the lights I guess or pressure sensitive tiling.”

I tried to reason with Cece’s explanation, but the floor was cement and nothing could be seen on the walls. At all.

After a few seconds of metallic dots moving through our vision, we were finally able to take a good look at the tunnel ahead of us. It was long and stretching, a door at its end and from what I could make of my peripheral vision on each side was three hallways.

“Wow, this is so cool.” Cece muttered before glancing back then taking my arm as we moved forward. “Come on, let’s move just in case someone walks in behind us.”

My jaw dropped as I jogged forward with her. “Behind us? I thought you said this place would be empty.”

Cece rolled eyes. “Empty is a technical term! They have people that come down to these type of places to check regularly, but I don’t think that matters.”

We kept on walking the long stretch to the end of the hall. At the end was a metal door with a small glass plate, Cece peeked through.

“Okay, I see a bunch of control panels and stuff so we definitely have the right place. So with our code, we’ll definitely be able to get down here when Brett comes.”

I nodded, looking to our right to see a small crook in the wall that held cleaning supplies and such. Out of the blinding light, it actually took on a dark shadow, barely showing the brooms and other cleaning supplies there.

“So, can we get out of here now?”

Cece punched in to 10 digit code we’d used to get down here and cursed. “Dammit! Why would the code only open that door?!” She kicked the wall and I hissed at her.

“Calm down! We’ll figure it out! We need to get out of-“

A loud thud echoed through all the halls and my heart lurched. I dug my fingers into Cece’s arm and dragged her to the dark area that held the cleaning supplies. My hand snapped over Cece’s mouth as the voices could be heard louder.

“Did you see all those hot girls out there for the dance?” One of the men exclaimed.

“I have a wife at home, Gus. Don’t have any time to be looking at other women.”

Gus cackled. “Right?! That’s why you played around with that girl before? What was her name? Had an A in it?”

My jaw dropped. Antoinette.

“That girl was a handful. She had be taken care of.” The man’s voice came back cold. “Don’t mention it again?”

Gus whistled testily. “Okay, man. It won’t matter much anyway. Everything’s going to be done soon anyway. We won’t have to worry about being fried anymore.”

Fried? What the hell?

The voices were closer, almost ringing out eardrums.

“Don’t talk about that either. We’re supposed to keep quiet about that stuff. Red Black 1400 isn’t anything to joke about.”

The bodies came to just outside of our little crook and a bead of sweat dripped down my temple. The men were still busy talking, just inches from us.

“Alright, you’re always just a hardass. It’s unbelievable. How does your wife stand you?” Gus complained.

“At least I have a wife. You’re still young enough to be able to royally ruin your life.” The man punched in the code without even looking.

They both walked into the control room without another word and my hand left Cece’s mouth.

“Did you see them punch in the code?”

Cece’s eyes starred ahead blankly. “What’s Red Black 1400? What do they mean everything’s going to be done soon?”

I looked to Cece more directly this time. “Did you see what the code for the room was?!”

She shook her head. “No. But, something’s wrong… We need to get back now.”

Cece grabbed my hand and we went running back down the hall and out of the underground tunnel. My sneakers touched the engraved initials in the ground as we ran up the stairs.

B.L.W.

Even with Cece’s trembling hands in mine, I knew we had to pull this off. Everything depended on it.