Chapter 2

The relentless pounding on the blast door had stopped. I didn't even notice when.

I sat on the freezing concrete floor of the bunker, carefully using the water I had just gathered to moisten Leo’s cracked lips, drop by precious drop.

I knew they were about to make their move.

Sure enough, the red hazard light on the wall flickered to life.

A second later, a piercing screech of microphone feedback erupted from the emergency intercom mounted next to the heavy door.

Kzzzt… bzzt…

In a bunker that had been dead silent for a solid year, the sudden electronic burst was jarring.

Had this happened half an hour ago, my heart would have been pounding out of my chest. Now, however, I just sat calmly on the edge of the cot, staring at the dusty speaker.

"Hello... Dr. Adrian Hale.... do you copy?"

Soon, a man’s voice crackled through the intercom.

If my guess was right, the man standing on the other side of that door holding the radio was none other than my "loyal" Head of Security, Victor.

I didn't press the TALK button immediately. I let him continue his little performance.

"Doctor, this is the US Military Joint Biochemical Response Unit..." Victor was panting heavily into the mic, his tone steeped in manufactured panic. "We found the encrypted coordinates and private frequency your wife, Sarah, left in the ruins. The infected out here are swarming! We’ve got heavy firepower, but we can't hold them off for much longer!"

I stood up, walked over to the intercom, and took a deep breath. When I spoke, I forced my voice to tremble with an Oscar-worthy mix of sheer ecstasy and disbelief.

"The... the rescue team? You're finally here?!" I yelled into the receiver, making sure to let a desperate sob break through my words.

"Doctor, thank God you're still alive!" I had to admit, Victor’s acting was pretty damn good. "Listen, we know your son is in there. We brought top-tier antipyretics and broad-spectrum antibiotics. We can administer them to the boy immediately, but time is critical. We need to open this blast door right now!"

"Then open it! Open the damn door!" I slammed my hands against the titanium plates, faking the tone of a man pushed past the breaking point. "The exterior keypad still works! I'm begging you, please come in! Leo is dying..."

"Doctor, calm down and listen to me!" Victor barked over the radio. "Command gave us strict orders. We cannot breach that door until we secure the facility's data. The outside world is completely gone. The higher-ups need the root data from your 'Genesis' servers. It's our only hope of synthesizing a global cure."

He paused, shifting his tone to sound gravely serious, even a little heroic.

"Doctor, I need you to dictate the master override codes for the servers right now. Once we verify the data, we'll blast through this layer of infected and get you both out. Please cooperate."

If I were the man I was yesterday, hearing the word "cure" would have been enough for me to rip my own heart out and hand it over.

Staring at the thick steel door, I let out a silent, bitter chuckle.

"The codes... okay... I'll give you the codes..." I choked out a few convincing sobs, pressed my lips close to the mesh mic, and began dictating.

"Capital A... lowercase l... 7, 9, 2... hyphen... capital G... lowercase s... 0, 4, 4..."

I read it out agonizingly slowly. Once I hit the last character, I gripped the intercom casing tight and pleaded in the most pathetic, gut-wrenching voice I could muster: "That's everything... I swear. Please... just give the medicine to my son. Open the door..."

The line went dead for about a minute.

They were using a portable terminal outside to log in and verify the payload.

Sixty seconds later, Victor returned to the mic. This time, there was an unmistakable lilt of smug, arrogant triumph in his voice.

"Codes verified, Doctor."

"Then hurry up and open the door!" I continued to yell.

"Hold your horses, Doctor. The data uplink drew more of them in; they're piling up. We need time to clear the sector, otherwise you two will be ripped to shreds the second this door opens." Victor’s tone was entirely dismissive now. "Hold your position. Don't do anything stupid, and wait for rescue. Over and out."

"Hello?! Hello! How long is that going to take?! Hey!"

I screamed a few more times for good measure. No response. Just the static hum of dead air.

I took my thumb off the button. Instantly, all trace of panic vanished from my face, washing away into icy indifference. I didn't pound on the door anymore. I didn't make another sound.

The hallway outside fell silent.

I didn't need to guess where he was going. He was already rushing upstairs to pop the champagne.

I turned on my heel and walked briskly back to the cot.

I was on a clock now.

Pulling a bedsheet out from under the tarp, I grabbed the edges and tore into it with everything I had. Riiip. The thick cotton split into long strips. I knotted them together, end to end, quickly fashioning a crude but sturdy sling.

"Leo, wake up, buddy," I whispered, gently tapping my son’s cheek.

He managed to open his eyes just a sliver. His breath was terribly shallow. "Dad... are we saved?"

"Yeah, buddy. Dad's getting you out of here right now."

I scooped up his tiny, fragile frame, stepped onto the metal storage crate, and hoisted him toward the vent. Leo was small enough to fit easily into the ductwork, but with zero strength left in his body, he couldn't move on his own. I had to crawl behind him, slowly inching him forward.

Fifteen feet. Twenty-five feet. Thirty.

The faint glow of moonlight crept over us again.

With one final push, I maneuvered Leo out of the subterranean shaft.

Three hundred and sixty-five days of absolute darkness was finally over.

I knelt on the impeccably manicured lawn, drinking in giant lungfuls of fresh air. In the distance, I could hear the faint crashing of ocean waves against the cliffs, and past the garden stood the massive, brightly lit mansion.

I had drawn the blueprints for that house myself. I built it to give my wife, Sarah, the ultimate vacation paradise.

Leo’s head slumped sideways; he was drifting out of consciousness again. I tucked him gently against the boundary wall, perfectly concealed behind a thick hedge, and patted his cheek. "Leo, Dad has to step away for just a little bit. Only a minute. You stay right here, don't move, and wait for me, okay?"

Leo gave a weak tilt of his head.

Crouching low, I used the tall landscaping as cover and moved silently toward the villa.

I knew the exact blind spot of every single security camera on this property.

This was my island. My estate.

Peering through the windows, I saw the grand foyer flooded with light. Down there, the hired actors were already throwing a wrap party.

I bypassed them, taking the open-air staircase up the western wing, gliding like a ghost toward the second-floor terrace.

This balcony wrapped tightly around the master suite and the upstairs lounge. Through the floor-to-ceiling double-paned soundproof glass, I couldn't hear a thing, but I had a front-row seat to the show inside.

A woman in a sheer silk slip was standing by the liquor cabinet, twirling a crystal flute in her hand. Even after a year, I could never mistake her silhouette. It was my wife, Sarah.

Her hair dropped in elegant, styled waves. Her skin was flawless and glowing.

Victor was slouching on the sofa, dressed in a high-end tailored shirt unbuttoned at the collar, his boots propped up on my Italian marble coffee table. He was holding a tablet—undoubtedly the one they just used to verify my codes—and his face was practically radiating greed.

"Did it work?" Sarah turned around, handing Victor an expensive pour of champagne, her expression laced with eager anticipation.

"Like a charm." Victor took the glass and waved the tablet at her. "The second the idiot heard we were 'saving' his kid, his voice cracked like a bitch's. All codes verified, root protocols unlocked. By tomorrow morning, this island, those multi-billion-dollar accounts, and every single 'Genesis' patent will belong completely to us."

Sarah walked over and tapped her glass against his with a sharp clink.

Throwing an arm around her waist, Victor pulled her down onto his lap. "Now that we have the passcodes, he's useless. I'll send a couple of guys down there later to put a bullet in his head. Tie up the loose ends."

"A quick bullet? That's way too merciful." Sarah snagged the tablet from him, her eyes darting over the digital zeros in the bank statements.

Victor smirked. "Fair enough. He genuinely thought the world had ended out here for a whole year. You should have heard him begging me over the comms—he sounded worse than a whipped dog. Watching his kid die slowly while he rots away drowning in his guilt over you... yeah, starving him out is definitely more entertaining than shooting him."

He took a sip of his champagne, then paused. "But what if he gets desperate for water? If he realizes the banging stopped, figures it out, and just walks out that door?"

"Walks out?"

Sarah threw her head back and laughed.

"You give my nerd of a husband way too much credit. Even if we swung those steel doors wide open, he wouldn't dare take a single step out of that bunker. And even if, by some absolute miracle, he lost his mind and ran out... his funds, his identity, his entire life have already been legally transferred to us. This island is crawling with your mercenaries. What is he going to do? Fight us?"

"You're right. Let him rot in the dark. To our brand-new life. Cheers."

They clinked their glasses directly under the crystal chandelier and laughed.

Standing in the shadows of the balcony, I clenched my fists so tight my nails dug into my palms. I forced myself not to shatter the glass and charge in. She was right about one thing: the island was packed with their guns. But they had made one catastrophic miscalculation.

They thought the most valuable things on this island were the billions sitting in Swiss bank accounts and a stack of filed patents.

They had absolutely no idea what "Project Genesis" actually was. Nor did they have a damn clue what I had really built beneath the bedrock of this island.

I took one last look at the two lovers cuddling on the sofa.

Then, without a sound, I turned around, gripped the drainpipe on the exterior wall, and vanished into the darkness—heading straight for the isolated subterranean control room at the rear of the estate.