Chapter 26: Exit Strategy
[Abandoned Factory - 10:10 PM]
The red numbers on the laptop screen were a death sentence, counting down the last five minutes of their lives.
**[04:57]**
**[04:56]**
For a single, frozen moment, Alex and Evelyn stared at the screen.
The sheer, cold-blooded ruthlessness of Deckard's move sucked the air out of the room like a vacuum.
He hadn't just evaded their trap.
He had turned their own carefully chosen stage into their tomb.
Then, instinct and training kicked in, overriding shock with desperate action.
"We have to go. Now!" Alex snapped, his body already in motion.
He slammed the laptop shut, grabbing the precious recording.
Shoving it into his backpack alongside the Chronos core with frantic efficiency.
"The main stairs are our only way down!"
"No, wait!" Evelyn's voice was sharp, cutting through his adrenaline-fueled panic like a blade.
Her eyes were wide, but not with fear. With cold, strategic calculation.
"Think, Alex! The main exit is on the front side of this building."
"The moment that thing blows, this entire street is going to be lit up like the Fourth of July."
She was right. The fire would be a massive, brilliant beacon visible for miles.
"Deckard is a professional," she continued, her voice a low, intense whisper.
"He's not just driving away. He's pulling back to a secure observation point."
"He'll be watching. Waiting to see if any rats flee the burning trap."
"If we go out the front, we'll be perfectly silhouetted against the flames."
"We'll be dead before we hit the street."
------
She was three steps ahead, as always.
She wasn't just thinking about escaping the immediate fire.
She was thinking about surviving the man who had set it.
[Time Remaining: 03:30... 03:29...]
The ticking clock in his mind was a hammer, beating against his skull with mechanical precision.
"There's no other way out," he said, his eyes darting around their dark, dusty prison.
"There's always another way out," she countered with absolute certainty.
Alex closed his eyes, shutting out the distractions and panic.
He forced his mind to go quiet, reaching out with CrimeSync.
Not for data this time, but for structure. For the building's hidden secrets.
He pushed his enhanced senses into the building itself, feeling its old, tired bones.
Its forgotten layout. Its architectural history.
*
His eyes snapped open.
"There is," he said, a new urgency cutting through the fear.
"An old freight elevator shaft. On the back wall. It should run all the way down to the ground-floor loading bay."
Evelyn was already moving before he finished speaking.
"Can we get to it?"
Alex ran to the rear wall, his flashlight beam dancing across the crumbling brick.
He found the spot, a section where decades of moisture had turned mortar into little more than sand.
"The wall is rotted out here," he confirmed, pulling the crowbar from his pack.
"I can make an opening."
------
**[Abandoned Factory, Rear Wall - 10:13 PM]**
He slammed the sharpened end of the crowbar into a seam between the bricks.
The impact was a jarring shock that ran up his arm like electricity.
Mortar and brick dust rained down in choking clouds.
It was working.
**[Time Remaining: 01:59... 01:58...]**
The countdown was relentless, each second a lifetime stolen from them.
He worked with frantic, desperate energy.
The sounds of his demolition work echoed in the vast, silent factory.
CRUNCH. CRACK. POP.
Each impact was accompanied by the shower of debris and the groan of old masonry giving way.
Evelyn was right behind him, her handgun drawn.
Her body tense as she covered the main floor, watching for any other unpleasant surprises.
"Faster, Alex!" she urged, her voice tight with controlled panic.
He put his shoulder into it, leveraging a large section of weakened brick.
It gave way with a deep groan, revealing a black, cavernous space behind the wall.
The elevator shaft.
He smashed away the last of the loose bricks, creating a jagged, narrow hole.
Just big enough for them to squeeze through.
He shone his light into the abyss below.
It was a straight drop, forty feet to the bottom.
But running down the side of the shaft were thick, greasy service cables.
And a rusted, but apparently intact, emergency ladder.
"This is it!" he yelled over the sound of his own demolition work.
He was about to climb through the hole.
And then the world turned white.
------
**[Abandoned Factory - 10:15 PM]**
The detonation was not an explosion.
It was a birth. A creation. The violent emergence of something primal and hungry.
A deep, gut-wrenching WHOOMPH that was felt more than heard.
A pressure wave that slammed into their building and rattled the very foundations.
Alex was thrown forward, catching himself against the jagged edge of the hole.
His palms scraped against broken brick.
He looked back, through the shattered window of their former vantage point.
The night was gone.
Erased by something far more terrifying than darkness.
The windows of the book depository across the street had all blown outwards simultaneously.
A violent, synchronized explosion of glass and debris.
And from within, a massive, silent, rolling fireball was being born.
It billowed out into the street like a living thing.
A monstrous, hungry creature of white and orange flame.
So bright it burned his retinas even from this distance.
It turned the night into a hellish, artificial midday.
The heat wave hit their building like a physical blow.
Cracking the remaining glass and blasting superheated, dusty air through the factory.
The sound followed a second later.
A deafening, continuous roar, like a jet engine at full throttle.
The incendiary charge consumed everything it touched, turning paper and wood and decades of history into pure, raw energy.
------
"Go! Now!" Evelyn screamed over the incredible noise, shoving him towards the hole.
Alex didn't hesitate. He scrambled into the dark, dusty elevator shaft.
His hands finding a desperate grip on the cold, rusted rungs of the emergency ladder.
Evelyn followed right behind him, her movements fast and sure despite the chaos.
They began their descent, a frantic climb down into darkness.
Away from the roaring inferno that raged above them.
The sounds of destruction were a terrifying symphony.
The roar of flames consuming everything in their path.
The shriek of twisting metal as the building's structure began to fail.
The deep, groaning collapse of the depository's roof caving in on itself.
They were halfway down when their own building shuddered violently.
The shockwave of a secondary explosion shook the entire structure.
Alex's foot slipped on the greasy ladder rung.
He fell, his body plummeting through the darkness.
Saved only by Evelyn's iron grip on his backpack.
The sudden stop slammed him hard against the ladder, driving the air from his lungs.
"I got you!" she yelled over the din.
He found his footing again, gasping for breath.
They continued down, the roar of the fire slowly receding above them.
Finally reaching the bottom, dropping the last few feet onto a pile of debris.
They were alive.
They were clear of the immediate fire.
They had the evidence safely secured.
They had made it out.
------
Alex leaned against the concrete wall, his injured side screaming in agony.
His lungs burning from the smoke and exertion, trying to catch his breath.
Evelyn moved to the large, roll-up loading bay door.
Finding the manual release chain hanging from the mechanism.
With a grunt of effort, she pulled, and the door began to rise slowly.
Revealing a dark, trash-strewn back alley that promised escape.
Their exit. Their salvation.
A wave of relief, so powerful it was almost dizzying, washed over Alex.
They were safe.
They had beaten the professional killer at his own game.
And then the alley was flooded with brilliant, blinding light.
A pair of headlights pinned them in place like startled deer.
Two animals caught in a predator's glare.
A familiar, non-descript black sedan was blocking their exit completely.
The engine was off. It was utterly, ominously silent.
It had been waiting for them.
Alex and Evelyn froze, their hearts sinking with cold, heavy dread.
------
The driver's side door of the sedan opened with a soft, expensive click.
A tall, silhouetted figure emerged, stepping calmly into the glare of his own headlights.
He was a ghost made of darkness and light.
A nightmare given physical form.
Alex didn't need CrimeSync to identify the figure.
The precise movements, the controlled posture, the aura of lethal competence.
It was Elias Deckard.
He hadn't been watching from a safe distance.
He hadn't been fooled by their desperate escape.
He had anticipated their every move, predicted their only viable exit strategy.
The professional killer had been three moves ahead from the very beginning.
They had escaped the fire, only to land directly in the hands of the monster himself.
The hunter had finally cornered his prey.
And there was nowhere left to run.
------
**DETECTIVE'S LOG: ALEX STONE**
**CASE FILE: 002 - The Clockmaker (Unofficial)**
**STATUS:** MISSION COMPROMISED. WE ARE BLOWN.
**KEY EVIDENCE (CRIMESYNC DATA):**
* Emergency Evacuation: Successfully escaped the incendiary device detonation at the dead drop via alternate exit route through building's freight elevator shaft.
* Critical Tactical Failure: The target, Elias Deckard, anticipated our escape strategy. He was not observing from a distance as predicted.
* Current Situation: Cornered in back alley with no alternate egress. Target is blocking our only exit route. We are unarmed, injured, and trapped.
* Enemy Advantage: Deckard has controlled this encounter from the beginning. Confrontation is now unavoidable and entirely on his terms.
**CURRENT OBJECTIVE:** SURVIVE THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES.
**PERSONAL NOTE:** We thought we were hunting the ghost. Turns out the ghost was hunting us. Julian died because he got too close to the truth. I'm about to find out if the same fate is waiting for me. At least we have the evidence. If we don't make it out, maybe someone else can finish what we started.
End of Chapter 26
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"The prey never sees the trap until it snaps shut."
To be continued...