Just as he was about to reach into his pocket for something, he felt the hairs on his neck rise in panic. He bent his body, barely dodging the stab to the neck—but his throat still ended up being slit open from behind. He immediately pressed his hand on it to lessen the bleeding, though it wasn't helping much.
The man turned around and stepped back, currently looking at what appeared to be a teenager in one of their lab coats. "Shit." He quickly used his other hand and tried to press a distress button in his own lab coat, but Alrick could already tell what he was trying to do and tackled him to the ground before he could.
"Get off me, you vermin! How are you still alive?!", The man managed to scream out despite his throat having been slashed, but Alrick wouldn't budge.
"How do we get out of here?!" Alrick asked while he plunged the scalpel into the hand reaching for the distress button again. The man screamed but refused to say anything. Alrick proceeded to try to stab him again, but was interrupted by a kick to the head from behind, his eyes rolling back in pain.
"The- How is he still alive?" It was someone apart from the two men that entered first. He was supposed to have been with them from the beginning but was called away by a superior and had opted to join them later. He continued kicking Alrick mercilessly and proceeded to bring out what looked like a gun.
"I'll make this quick before the superiors notice our blunder." He was about to pull the trigger, but was stopped as a scalpel penetrated his nape over and over until he fell to the ground. Eleanor stood there panting, blood all over her face, the bloody scalpel in her hands, her eyes dazed.
She soon regained her senses as the weapon fell from her shaking hands. She saw the blood all over her skin and ended up throwing up whatever remained in her stomach. "My God... Did I just…."
Alrick slowly got off the floor. He was still disoriented, but could bear it. He finished off the one he had cut earlier and walked over to Eleanor. "Get a grip, Ellie. It was either them or us. It's not your fault." His words weren't doing much, but they had better things to do than fret.
He proceeded to search the bodies and came across their access cards, a tube filled with some kind of yellow pills that looked a lot like the ones from the ice cream, their IDs, and things that looked like guns—the same kind the third man had tried to kill him with.
After stripping one of the men of his clothes and putting them on, he turned to Eleanor, who was still dazed. He sighed and walked over to her, pulling her up to her feet, but she staggered a bit.
"Can you walk?" he asked her, but she shook her head—she couldn't. The shock was too much to bear. He sighed in empathy. He was feeling the same way, if not worse, but he was focused on getting them out of here alive.
He helped her onto his back and was about to leave when he heard a faint beeping sound. He turned toward it and saw that it came from the second man he had killed. He moved closer and noticed a red blinking light through his lab coat.
"Shit." Alrick immediately started running toward one of the keycard readers on the wall. He realized that the beeping device was a distress signal of some sort, and if they stayed there any longer, the place would be swarmed in no time.
He quickly scanned the black access card, praying that whoever was coming wouldn't use this entrance. Once it opened enough, he ran out of there with Eleanor on his back.
++++
"Report", Tracy sat in a high back office chair in a large room filled with different kinds of devices that seemed to have been stolen from the future, right behind her were large monitors that displayed different kinds of experiments and scientific knowledge....technology so advanced it could make global superpowers feel obsolete.
Tracy was no longer in the beautiful dress from earlier but instead was in a pure white two piece uniform that resembled what Majors would wear in the army but had a scientist feel to it.
Some men in lab coats stood before her, one of them stepping forward and dropping a small circular device to the floor. It didn't reach the floor and remained floating a few centimeters off the ground, it flashed a light blue color and then a holographic screen appeared above it.
It showed various pictures of a scene in the Morgue section of the bio chemical chamber.
"Three of our men were found dead and three capsules empty, one of its occupants was found in the operating room. The remaining two are nowhere to be found.", As he said that, more screens branched out of the main one showing pictures of the operating room, the empty capsules and data pages of the escapees.
"The suspects were pronounced dead, no?", Tracy's face showed no emotions, her eyes trained on the data pages of Eleanor and Alrick. The men in lab coats became nervous and didn't dare look up at her.
"Yes they were, we scanned everybody before sending them to the Morgue. They were all dead", the leading man answered quickly, changing one of the screens to show a report of the scan. It indeed showed they were dead.
"...Then why are they up and about, killing my men?", Her question was bone chilling and they knew a wrong answer could be detrimental but there was no right answer either. They gave none.
Tracy could only sigh, "Bring up the records of activities the suspects both did before they were proclaimed dead then play me the surveillance video of the morgue", her words were met without delay. The first information was pulled up in a matter of seconds, her eyes scanned through them ever so quickly.
"Ahh I see... Analyze the leftover ice cream from that night a few days ago, I need the results as soon as possible. Play me the surveillance tape, tell the assault team to get those kids alive.", she was about to wave them off then remembered something, "Oh and freely revive all our deceased men starting now till I say so". They saluted and quickly left after playing her the surveillance footage.
She watched the video with keen interest, her eyes trained on every one of Alrick's actions prior to their escape, "No doubt about it, he needs to participate in the challenge."
++++
He never liked giving Eleanor piggy back rides and this had to be the worst one ever, he had been running none stop. Using his acute hearing to avoid most of the people they came across and those they couldn't were quickly dealt with by the tech gun in his hands.
It was either he was extremely lucky, or the people he dealt with where worse than cannon fodder.
He would always grab the necessary things like the tube of yellow pills and more weapons he could learn to operate, he also had to get more access cards because it seemed that every killed person that was discovered got their access cards blocked. Matt's card from earlier was no longer working.
He was really low on energy but the adrenaline seemed to be working him through it, his legs didn't stop no matter how much his brain tried to talk sense into them. Eleanor held on tight and was still fairly traumatized from earlier, the running and killing Alrick had to do was not really helping her case.
He wished she would snap out of it but he didn't have the time or strength to give her the wake up call she needed. He continued running not knowing how many bends and turns he had made, the lost count of the number of doors he had opened.
The footsteps following up behind only seemed to be increasing instead of decreasing like he hoped, the more turns he took the narrower his escape routes. It reached a point where he could only run straight, no path was safe again according to what he could hear, it seems they were able to track him now.