Chapter 43 - THE DELUGE AT MIDNIGHT
The room exploded into chaos and liquid thunder.
The green CRT monitors imploded in quick succession, sending showers of sparks and shattered vacuum tubes into the rising floodwaters. The main lights died instantly, replaced by the violently strobing crimson pulse of emergency flood beacons.
Evan hit the submerged floor hard, the icy shock of the water knocking the breath from his lungs. The current was savage, dragging him toward the lower drainage intake, but he clawed his way along the edge of the teak desk, pulling himself toward Sophie’s chair.
"Daddy!" Her cry was swallowed by the roar of the torrent.
The water was already at her waist. Evan reached the chair, his hands numb with freezing cold, and ripped at the nylon safety strap. His fingers slipped on the wet buckle. He drew his pocket knife and sliced through the webbing in one violent jerk, sweeping Sophie into his arms.
"I’ve got you! I’ve got you, baby!" he gasped, holding her high against his chest as the water surged past his chest.
Across the chamber, Vanessa was screaming. The current had pinned her against an overturned magnetic tape carousel, the heavy steel frame crushing her legs beneath the surface as the water rose relentlessly over her chin.
Judith Mercer was gone, swept down the utility trench toward the dark subterranean conduits.
Director Vance, however, was still moving. The old man had climbed atop the high steel platform of the main archive mainframe. In his hand was a compact automatic pistol, aimed directly down at Evan and Sophie.
"You destroyed fifty years of work for a specimen!" Vance screamed above the roar of the water, his voice shrill, manic, the veneer of aristocratic dignity completely stripped away. "You think you can take her into the daylight? She belongs to the state! She is the property of Directorate 12!"
Before Vance could squeeze the trigger, a shadow broke through the surging foam behind him.
Grace emerged from the water like a specter, her face bloodied from a jagged piece of debris, her utility knife clutched in both hands. She didn't hesitate. She drove the blade directly into Vance’s thigh, dragging him backward off the platform into the freezing torrent below.
Vance hit the water with a heavy splash, his gun discharging wildly into the ceiling tiles before sinking into the darkness.
"Grace! The maintenance ladder!" Evan roared, pointing through the strobing red gloom toward a vertical iron shaft at the rear of the vault.
Grace surfaced, coughing violently, her arm hooked around a floating archive container. "Go! The ladder leads to the old radar dome on the summit! Climb, Evan!"
Evan didn't wait. Holding Sophie with one arm, using the other to fight the swirling current, he lunged for the rusted rungs of the escape ladder. The water was rising at an astonishing rate—three inches every second—swallowing the teak desk, submerging the carousels, transforming the grand underground archive into a watery tomb.
He shoved Sophie onto the first rung. "Climb, Sophie! Don't look down! Just keep your hands on the iron and climb!"
The seven-year-old girl, her small hands blue with cold but her jaw set with a stubborn, terrifying resolve, grabbed the rungs and began to pull herself upward into the dark vertical shaft.
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Evan followed right behind her, his boots kicking against the rising water that was already lapping at his heels.
Below them, Grace reached the base of the ladder. She grabbed the bottom rung, pulling herself out of the surging foam just as a hand broke the surface and clamped down on her ankle with the grip of a vice.
