And a special thanks to Zero_Tempest_9159 for the power stone
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The door opened and Annette stepped through.
Claire stepped forward before anyone else moved. "We found her in the orphanage. Irons had her. We don't know how long — she wasn't like this when we got separated, it happened fast."
Annette looked at her for exactly one second. Then walked past her to Sherry.
She stopped in front of her daughter and just — looked. Not clinical. Not reading symptoms. Just looking at her face the way you look at something you were afraid you wouldn't see again.
Then her hand came up and tilted Sherry's face toward the light.
The yellow eye. The veins climbing past the elbow.
"How long," she said. Quiet.
"Mom, I'm —"
"How long, Sherry."
"I don't know. It started — I don't know when it started."
Annette's hand didn't move. She was still looking at her daughter's face, but something behind her eyes had shifted — recalculating, going somewhere fast that she wasn't showing.
"That's not enough time," she said. More to herself than anyone.
"What does that mean," Claire said.
Annette didn't answer.
"Hey —"
"Who did this." Annette asked it quietly, still looking at Sherry.
Sherry looked at the floor.
"Dad."
Just the word. She wasn't looking at either of them.
A beat.
"I know," Annette said.
Sherry's head came up.
"I've seen him on the cameras." Annette's hand was still on her face. "He's still in the building."
Sherry didn't say anything.
Annette let her hand stay one more second. Then she straightened. Turned toward the door.
"Bring her."
The corridor, narrow and flickering. Annette moved fast. Claire matched her.
"Can you help her."
"Yes."
"How."
"Not here."
"Then where —"
"I'm getting to that."
"You're walking and not saying anything, so clearly you're —"
"I need equipment I don't have in this section." Flat. "So I need to get to the section that does. That's what I'm doing."
Claire let three steps pass. "Is she going to make it."
Annette said nothing.
"Hey —"
"I don't know yet." Not cold. Just honest, and clearly hating that it was.
Behind them — "Dr. Birkin."
She kept walking.
"Dr. Birkin." Louder.
She stopped.
Kendo was already in front of her. Moved up fast, Emma against his chest, put himself directly in her path.
"Look at her."
Annette looked at Emma.
"Same thing as Sherry?"
"No."
"Then you can fix it."
"It's not the same —"
"You just said Sherry can be treated. Emma's different, so —"
"Kendo —" Claire started.
"So treat her differently." His voice was rising. "You're a researcher, you built half of whatever's in this place, so look at my daughter and tell me what you're going to do about it —"
"I can't."
"— because she came this far and she's still breathing and I need you to —"
"I can't treat T-virus." Annette said it over him. "There's no treatment. There's no cure. There's nothing I can do for what she has."
Silence.
Kendo stared at her.
"What."
"G-virus — Sherry — that's mine, I know it, I can work with it. T-virus is different, it's not my work, I don't have —"
"So she's just —" His voice cracked on the last word. He pulled it back hard. "You're telling me she's just —"
"Dad."
Emma. Barely audible. Her eyes half open, looking up at him.
Kendo stopped.
She hadn't called him that in three years. Not since her mother left. He looked down at her and whatever was on his face he couldn't keep off it.
"Hey." His voice dropped to almost nothing. "Hey, I'm here. I've got you."
Emma's eyes closed again.
Kendo stood there. Not moving. The rage still in his shoulders, nowhere to go.
Myrel had pressed herself against the corridor wall, both arms wrapped around herself, watching him with wide eyes. Not crying. Too scared to cry.
He saw her.
Something went out of him.
"Okay," he said. Quiet. To no one. Just getting himself back. "Okay."
Annette hadn't moved. When she spoke again her voice was careful. "There may be a suppressant. The main lab — the deeper section. It won't reverse it but it could — it could slow it. Buy time." She paused. "It's not nothing."
Kendo didn't look at her. He was adjusting Emma's weight, getting her settled against his chest.
"Then stop standing here," he said.
The security room. Half the monitors were dead — black glass, or static crawling sideways and not resolving. Some screens were still alive. Not many.
Annette went to the main bank.
Most of what was live was interior — corridors, a stairwell, a parking structure with three abandoned cars and nothing moving between them. The rest were dark or pure static.
She started working through them anyway.
"This is what backup gives me," she said. Not really to anyone.
Claire moved to the bank, scanning. Ben drifted in behind her.
Annette didn't turn. "You were outside the precinct," she said. "Three weeks ago. You wanted a statement."
Ben blinked. "You remember that."
"You were persistent." She tried a feed that wouldn't load, moved to the next. "You know about the G-virus."
"I know enough."
"Then you know more than you should." Click. "Wong. She came in with your group."
"She said FBI —"
"She's not." Flat. "She's here for the sample. She came in with nothing and she's been working toward it since the outbreak started."
"How do you know she was with —"
"I tried to stop her. Earlier." Annette's hand didn't pause. "I had a shot. The cop got between us."
Claire went still. "What cop."
"The one who came in with her."
"He's not — they weren't together —" Claire stopped. "You shot him."
"I was shooting at Wong." She looked up. "He stepped in front of her. His choice. He was alive when I left. I checked."
"You checked."
"Yes."
The room held that for a moment.
Annette went back to the feeds. "Half of this is gone. I can't see Wong. Can't see —"
She didn't finish.
Claire was already at her shoulder. Bridge feed, two monitors over — live.
A figure on the bridge.
"That's Leon."
Ben leaned in. "From the station?"
"Yeah."
Something hit the frame's edge — too big to see fully. Leon gave ground. One step. Then another.
The bridge tore under the weight. Metal went. The section collapsed.
Leon went with it —
and caught.
He hung there.
"Come on," Claire said. Quiet.
He pulled himself up. Slow. One arm doing the work.
The door above him was bent inward.
He hit it once. Nothing.
Again.
It gave.
He disappeared inside.
The feed held on the broken frame.
Annette exhaled.
Not relief. Decision.
She turned from the bank.
"This isn't enough." Flat. "I need full system. The generator's two levels down."
"You're going alone?" Claire said.
"No. We move together. I'm not leaving her" — Sherry — "and I'm not leaving any of you in a room with half a feed and a door that won't lock."
"How long."
"Longer than I'd like."
Kendo adjusted Emma's weight without a word.
Ben took one more look at the bank — at the empty broken frame on the bridge feed — and didn't say anything.
Claire got her arm around Sherry.
"And him," she said. To Annette. Not to the room.
"If he made it through that door, he's still alive. The corridors past it won't open without the generator." Annette was at the door. "Same problem we have. Same solution."
"We move now."
They didn't argue.
They moved.