Containment Breached, Evidence Moving

Night settles over Lamont Technologies Headquarters when Lindsey’s Flair Phone flashes with an emergency call from Margery. The connection carries a hollow alarm and hurried footsteps.

A metallic impact sounds through the phone. Margery’s breathing breaks into static, then the call continues from somewhere farther away.

The line cuts out. On Lindsey’s phone, the final signal trace pulses once toward the industrial district before vanishing completely.

The headquarters hums around her, secure and brightly lit, while the unanswered call icon remains on-screen. Margery is gone, and the next move belongs to Lindsey.

The Flair Phone’s dead call icon flickers back to life. Lindsey’s engineering software isolates the last handshake, then pulls a second, weaker echo from the industrial district.

Three signal points lock onto the headquarters map. Their overlap marks a shuttered Lamont Technologies research facility, the old company lab Margery mentioned.

A final data burst supplies a floor-level estimate before fading: underground, beneath the lab’s eastern loading bay. The route appears on the phone in bright red.

The location is not a vague district lead anymore. Margery’s phone has given Lindsey a specific destination and a narrow search area below it.

Beyond the headquarters windows, the industrial skyline blinks beneath low clouds. The old lab waits somewhere in that darkness, holding the answer to Margery’s disappearance.

Lindsey bolts through the headquarters, her boots striking the polished corridor as the Flair Phone’s red route glows against her goggles. Security doors unlock ahead of her.

She reaches the stairwell and takes the steps two at a time, one hand skimming the rail while the building’s nighttime systems murmur behind sealed office doors.

The rooftop access door opens onto cold wind and low clouds. Lindsey emerges in her red shirt, black jacket, goggles, and mechanical gauntlet, the city glittering below.

She crosses to the roof’s clear edge and checks the Hell Heels’ indicators. Their compact rocket housings cycle from amber to green beneath her sensibly heeled boots.

The launch wash scatters loose gravel across the rooftop. Lindsey lifts into the night, stabilizers correcting against the wind as the phone keeps the underground lab marked ahead.

Headquarters falls behind her. Industrial rooftops slide beneath the flight path, and the old facility’s eastern loading bay grows from a dark shape into a reachable destination.

The words leave Lindsey louder than intended, carried into the cold rooftop wind. Her voice catches at the end, and for one exposed second her composure falters before the urgency steadies her grip on the Flair Phone.

Lindsey drives the Hell Heels hard. Their rockets flare beneath her boots, lifting her over the industrial rooftops as the stabilizers fight the crosswind and the red route races across her goggles.

She reaches the shuttered facility in a fast, descending arc and brakes above the eastern loading bay. Dust and loose scraps skitter outward as the Hell Heels set her down beside the sealed doors.

The Flair Phone confirms the signal source below her feet. The underground lab is no longer a distant mark on a map. Lindsey is at Margery's destination, wind tugging her jacket as the rockets cool.

The loading bay door is not locked. It hangs open by several inches, its access panel smashed and its warning light pulsing red across the concrete.

Then the facility lurches awake. Interior shutters begin descending behind the opening, while a harsh klaxon rolls through the empty loading bay and the Flair Phone loses Margery's signal.

A thin white vapor spills from the gap beneath the inner shutters, crawling over the floor toward Lindsey's boots. The phone flashes a new warning: SUBLEVEL CONTAINMENT ACTIVE.

Her voice breaks through the alarm from somewhere below, then cuts into static. The descending shutters are already halfway down, leaving only a narrowing passage into the facility.

The vapor thickens around the threshold as the red warning light accelerates. Margery's route is still underground, but the easy entrance is vanishing fast.

Lindsey pivots toward the loading bay roof access, but the Hell Heels answer first. Their rockets flare, lifting her in a sharp arc above the descending shutters.

She clears the roofline, banks hard, and drives the boots at full thrust across the facility's short span. Wind tears at her jacket while the red warning light pulses below.

The flight lasts only seconds. Lindsey drops toward the loading-bay opening, aligning herself with the shrinking gap as the inner shutters grind downward.

The Hell Heels vector their thrust sideways. Lindsey folds into the dive and slips beneath the closing shutters, landing hard on the inner concrete as the metal barrier slams behind her.

The alarm becomes muffled beyond the sealed door. White vapor curls around Lindsey's boots, and the Flair Phone reacquires Margery's signal somewhere deeper in the sublevel.

The white vapor clings low to the concrete, sliding around Lindsey’s boots instead of dispersing. Her Flair Phone flashes a stark warning: AIRBORNE HAZARD DETECTED.

A chemical analysis window opens beneath the warning, identifying the vapor as hazardous and advising against unprotected exposure. The sealed corridor offers no clean-air route back to the loading bay.

Margery’s voice crackles through the Flair Phone from deeper underground, thin with distance and alarm. Somewhere beyond the sealed corridor, machinery cycles with a steady mechanical thrum.

The vapor reaches the edge of Lindsey’s shadow and gathers there in pale ribbons. The phone’s hazard display shifts from yellow to red, confirming the threat is active rather than a stale residue.

Beyond the haze, emergency arrows blink along the corridor toward the sublevel interior. Margery’s signal pulses in that direction, while the hazardous vapor continues spreading behind Lindsey.

Lindsey turns from the spreading vapor and scans the corridor through her goggles. Emergency arrows point deeper underground, but a recessed service alcove holds a dark workstation beneath a flickering security camera.

She crosses the corridor in a quick burst, keeping her face above the pale vapor. The terminal wakes beneath her gauntlet's proximity scan, displaying a locked security dashboard and several offline camera feeds.

The Flair Phone links with the terminal, highlighting a manual override beneath the security controls. The override is protected by a physical key switch, while the corridor lights begin failing one row at a time.

A camera feed briefly resolves into a grainy view of the lower rooms. Margery is not visible, but an open maintenance door waits at the far end, its red light blinking through the haze.

Lindsey fits the gauntlet’s oversized fingers around the recessed key switch. The terminal flashes a final warning as the corridor lights fail behind her, leaving the vapor silver beneath the emergency lamps.

She twists the override. Deep inside the walls, valves clunk open in sequence, and the ventilation system reverses with a rising mechanical roar.

The white vapor thins rapidly, drawn toward ceiling grilles instead of the lower rooms. A green status light replaces the hazard warning on the terminal.

Far ahead, the red maintenance door rolls upward. Margery’s signal steadies beyond it, while the security dashboard repopulates with camera feeds and a new alert: unauthorized access detected.

The terminal marks Margery’s position in green, then highlights a second moving signal approaching her from below. The cleared corridor now offers Lindsey a direct route forward.

Lindsey leaves the terminal and hurries through the cleared corridor, following Margery’s steady signal. The maintenance door stands fully open beneath its green status light.

Lindsey reaches the lower lab entrance. Margery, a young adult woman with a slim build, dark curly hair, and a rumpled teal coat, stands beneath the emergency lights, gripping her phone.

Margery steps toward Lindsey as the ventilation fans settle into a clean, steady rhythm. The green route marker on the Flair Phone now overlaps both of them.

Margery reaches for Lindsey's arm, but the lab entrance unlocks with a heavy click. She lets go and slips through first, drawn toward a bank of glowing monitors just beyond the threshold.

The attempt to keep Margery close falls short as she moves several steps ahead, stopping beside the consoles. Her discovery opens a usable alternative: the emergency route could reach the active lab without crossing the main floor.

Margery remains within sight but not at Lindsey’s side, one hand hovering over the emergency controls. Beyond her, the lab glows with cold instrument light and rows of silent equipment.

Margery leans over the console and selects the emergency shutdown route. The monitors brighten, mapping the active lab systems in branching red lines around her.

The shutdown command reaches ninety-two percent, then freezes. A security prompt replaces the controls, reporting that the emergency route requires authorization from the primary lab network.

The red shutdown map collapses into a single highlighted access point deeper in the lab. The console now offers only a route to the primary network, while the active equipment continues humming beyond the entrance.

Lindsey keeps one eye on the lab entrance while sliding beside Margery at the console. Beyond the doorway, a service light flickers twice, then steadies.

Lindsey connects the Flair Phone to the console and brings up its diagnostic layer. The security system folds into a dense lattice of permissions, decoys, and sealed network branches.

Her gauntlet taps through the authentication handshake while the lab equipment continues its low mechanical hum. A motion alert blooms at the edge of the display, identifying movement near the lower entrance.

The final security layer cracks. Primary network access opens, revealing shutdown controls and a live camera feed aimed at the lower entrance. The feed shows an empty corridor, but its access door is slowly opening.

Lindsey selects the emergency shutdown sequence. Across the lab, warning lights shift from red to amber as the active systems begin powering down, while the opening door continues to widen behind them.

The shutdown advances through the lab network, amber lights replacing the red warnings one bank at a time. Lindsey keeps the live feed enlarged beside the control panel.

The feed resolves into a tall middle-aged man in a charcoal suit and security vest, his narrow face lit by the corridor’s amber strips. He pauses beneath the camera and looks directly into it.

The feed splits, revealing a second camera aimed at the lab entrance. The man is still outside, but the access door behind Margery unlocks with a heavy mechanical clunk.

The primary network reports ninety-eight percent shutdown. Beyond the entrance, the first interior lock releases, and the board member’s silhouette appears through the widening gap.

Lindsey raises the Flair Gun toward the widening doorway, keeping its muzzle steady on the board member. The shutdown reaches one hundred percent, and every lab machine falls silent.

The middle-aged man freezes beneath the amber lights, then slowly lifts both hands away from his sides. The access door remains open, but he does not cross the threshold.

The console confirms the containment systems are offline and the hazardous ventilation remains reversed. Margery stays beside Lindsey, watching the motionless board member across the lab entrance.

Learn what the board member knows about the experiments