he Laundry Facility became a tomb. The only light came from the emergency strobes above the door, casting the room in a rhythmic, hellish red flash.
Thomas sat on a crate of fabric softener, his head in his hands. He was a soldier. He was used to chaos. But this was different. In war, you knew who the enemy was. You knew the rules of engagement. Here, the enemy was wearing the face of the woman you had seen at the bar. The enemy didn't die when you shot the center of mass.
"We're trapped," Sterling said, pacing the floor. "We're sitting ducks. I have to get to my jet. It's twenty miles north. If we can get a bus..."
"You want to go out there?" Maggie asked. "Did you see them? They're... they're animals."
"They are not animals," Dr. Aris said. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, writing equations on a piece of cardboard with a marker he'd found. "Animals have instinct. Fear. Self-preservation. These things... they have a directive. 'Consume.' That is all."
Lucas walked over to the doctor. "What are you writing?"
"Neural pathways," Aris muttered. "Trying to understand the latency. The virus moves faster than the signal can travel. It overclocks the brain stem. It bypasses the hypothalamus. It turns off the 'off' switch."
"Can we turn it back on?" Lucas asked.
Aris looked up, his eyes haunted. "You can't reboot a hard drive that's melting, kid."
A loud THUD echoed from the door they had just barricaded.
Then another. THUD.
Everyone froze.
"They found us," Jengo whispered, tightening his grip on his axe.