“Breathe, damn it, breathe!” Morgan tried to say, but it came out garbled. He could feel his own mouth slow down. He slapped Rogue’s face to wake him. His eyes opened slightly, and he mumbled something incomprehensible, delirious.
Morgan suddenly lost his balance and fell with his side against the wall. His legs seemed to be giving out. The effort of pulling up Rogue had left him winded. He seemed to be sliding down, lower, closer to the ground. Toward death, little by little. If only he could stay up a little longer . . . if only he could—Morgan blacked out.
He woke up with his face against the vinyl floor to the sound of Shepard’s voice in his ear saying, “Come in . . . Bishop, Cobra, Spartan, Diesel, Rogue. Come in, Zeta.” Slowly, Morgan caught his breath, and his mind cleared. Alive. He was alive. The others, Bishop, Spartan, and Rogue, were standing, but still not entirely aware. He heard footsteps coming from behind him. He stumbled to his feet, and saw that Diesel had come out of the mainframe room, his steps still shaky and uncertain. “Diesel here,” he said.
“Report in, Diesel,” said Bloch. “What’s happening””
“They’re here,” came Diesel’s groggy voice. “Cobra’s down, I don’t know, he’s—”
“I’m alive,” said Morgan, his voice husky and slow.
“We’re all alive,” said Bishop. His voice seemed to be clearer than the others’. He extended a hand to Morgan, and helped him to his feet. His legs felt wobbly and still a little numb, but Morgan found that he could stand on his own.
“I’m glad you all made it,” said Bloch, “but now you need to keep moving. You don’t have a lot of time.”
Morgan just wanted to curse at her, but he knew she was right. “Let’s get going. Shepard, what’ve we got? Are you getting that door open for us?”
“Okay, security systems online,” said Shepard. “Getting video feeds. Okay. Looks like they just reached level five. There are four of them. That includes Novokoff. God, they killed everyone in the entire facility. There’s bodies everywhere, I think—wait! It’s not everyone. There’s one still alive! Man in a lab coat. Can’t miss him.”
“Your priority is to get him out alive,” said Bloch. “Do you copy? We need him alive.”
“Do they know we’re here?” asked Bishop.
“Doesn’t look like it,” said Shepard. “They’re moving full steam ahead.”
“You heard Bloch,” said Bishop. “We’re going down. We get the scientist out alive.”
They went through the previously impassable door, which led them past several other doors, marked with different administrative functions, and finally to a stairwell as curved as the corridor they had traversed. They went down, their submachine guns at the ready. They had to walk over dead bodies of guards and scientists that had been mowed down by Novokoff and his men. The air got colder and colder as they went down, flight after flight. This stairwell apparently led all the way down. They passed a door on each level, labeled with a number, until they reached level five. This one was marked again with a biohazard symbol. The door opened for them as they approached.
“They’re all the way around the facility from where you are,” said Shepard. “If you split up here, you can come at them from both sides.”
Bishop signed for Morgan and Rogue to go down a corridor on their left. Then, he motioned for Diesel and Spartan to follow him on the right.
Morgan took the lead with Rogue behind him. “All right, Cobra and Rogue, go down the hall. It’ll be about three hundred yards.” They ran down the corridor, passing the dead body of a guard and at least a dozen staff as they went. To their left and right were doors with signs that said things like DNA LAB, X-RAY CRYSTALLOGRAPHY, and ELECTRON MICROSCOPY. They heard the echoes of their boots as they ran. They heard something else too—the unearthly screaming, much louder now. It wasn’t human, Morgan could tell, and it was several voices shrieking over each other. They were running toward the source of the sound.
They were three quarters of the way through the corridor when Morgan heard gunfire. “They’ve engaged the enemy!” said Shepard. “Cobra, Rogue, get behind them! You can flank them and cut off their retreat! Here, go right on this next door.”
The door was marked with a sign that read LIVE SPECIMEN LAB. “Let me open that for you,” said Shepard, and the door slid open. The screaming, which had been muffled and distant, suddenly grew sharp, loud, and close. This room was some kind of changing room for hazmat suits, with another door to their left. Beside it was a sign that read, in large, bold letters, HAZMAT SUITS ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT. The door led into an airlock, with a second door leading somewhere unseen. Both doors to the airlock opened simultaneously.