Mildred nodded and swabbed her arm. She plunged the syringe into her vein and depressed the plunger, waiting for the sensations to wash over her. As the bile rose in her throat, she ground her teeth together to stop herself from vomiting as she leaned into Doc. The old man enfolded her with his arms, feeling the muscular contractions run through her, and knowing every step of the way how she felt.
He continued to hold her as the sensations subsided, and Mildred was able to think of something other than the fire in her blood and the sweat that made the Illuminated uniform stick to her back. Within a short time she was able to right herself and stand apart from Doc.
“We shall continue?” he asked.
“First thing is to load up on the antidote. Get as many of the vials in that cupboard as possible in your pockets, and the syringes,” she said as they carried out her words. “Then we need to fire the virus where it sits—wipe it out. But leave that table,” she added, indicating the lab bench that housed the antidote cultures. “If we can get rid of the Illuminated Ones, I want that there so that I can come back and work on more antidote.”
“Very well,” Doc commented as he filled his pockets. “How do we destroy the virus?”
Mildred looked across at the benches. The atmosphere within the glass cabinets was maintained by a mixture of gases that were fed from mains pipes. At a guess, Mildred figured that the mix would have a high percentage of oxygen. Plastic hosing carried the gases from the outlets and into the airtight chambers housing the petri dishes.
“Leave it to me, Doc. It’ll be a pleasure,” she commented.
Doc’s expression needed no explanation. “I shall leave it to you. I shall just check out the room where the computer leads come from…”
As Doc disappeared, Mildred checked the pipes and how they ran into the glassed chambers. On the benches were dials that showed the mix of gases within the chambers. Her observations of the dials showed that she had been correct in her assumption about the mix. To fire the cultures should be simple.
“Goodbye,” Mildred muttered simply as she fired a short laser blast at the hoses feeding the gases into the chamber. The plastic melted under the bolt of light, and the heat ignited the oxygen, the flame from the plastic and oxygen spreading into the chamber, washing over the cultures and eradicating them. The sudden ignition caused an explosion within the chamber, shattering the glass covering.
Mildred swore and turned away, sheltering herself as well as possible from the sudden shower of glass, throwing herself to the floor in order to try to take cover. She felt some of the smaller splinters pluck at her clothes and skin as she hit the floor.
When the shower had subsided, she rose quickly to her feet. The noise could attract some unwelcome attention, and she had no idea whether the Gate had been freed as of yet. The last thing she wanted was for Doc and herself to face a force of Illuminated Ones that outnumbered them. So she would have to act quickly.
Turning her attention to the other two chambers, she fired two quick blasts at the pipes on the other culture chambers, and dived for cover as the chambers exploded in glass and flame.
“Shit, why does it have to be so loud,” she muttered tersely, pulling herself to her feet. She listened for any indication of oncoming sec, but there was nothing. There was only the sound of Doc, in a distant room.
“Lord save us from this abomination,” he said, faint in the distance.
Mildred furrowed her brow. What the hell had Doc discovered? She raced through the lab until she was on the threshold of the room in which Doc stood. She could see him through the open sec door, stopping from his imprecations only to vomit in disgust.
She sped through the doorway and was brought up short by the obscenity that confronted her. The wires and leads led into a tank filled with nutrient fluids, and were attached to a human being that was curled into a fetal state, despite the fact that it seemed to be fully grown.