The first explosion took out the main entrance to the warehouse. The second one blew a hole in the north wall big enough to drive a truck through. By the time the third one hit, Sarah was already moving toward what looked like a service elevator hidden behind a false wall.
"How many exits do you have?" Victoria shouted over the noise of automatic weapons fire.
"Seven. But they've probably found most of them by now." Sarah was typing commands into a control panel next to the elevator. "The good news is, I've had eight months to prepare for this. The bad news is, they've had five years to prepare for me."
Scarlett was at the window, watching black-clad figures pour through the holes in the warehouse walls. Military gear, night vision, coordinated movement patterns. These weren't regular FBI agents or local police. These were the kind of people who made problems disappear permanently.
"Special Operations Division," she said. "Marcus called in the heavy artillery."
The elevator doors opened, revealing a shaft that went down instead of up. Sarah rolled her wheelchair onto the platform and gestured for them to follow.
"Underground tunnel system. Connects to the old subway maintenance routes. If we're lucky, we can get to the other side of the city before they figure out where we went."
As the elevator descended, Scarlett could hear the tactical team searching the warehouse above them. Shouted commands, the crash of equipment being overturned, the systematic sweep of professionals who knew how to clear a building.
"They're not trying to capture us," Victoria said. "They're trying to kill us."
"Of course they are. We know too much, and we're too dangerous to keep alive." Sarah was checking her weapons, making sure everything was loaded and ready. "The original Blood Queen program was supposed to create controllable assets. We're proof that the program failed."
The elevator stopped, and they emerged into a tunnel that looked like it hadn't been used in decades. Old subway tiles, rusted rails, the smell of stagnant water and decay. But there were also signs that someone had been down here recently. Battery-powered lights strung along the walls, fresh footprints in the dirt, supply caches hidden behind loose bricks.
"You've been living down here?" Scarlett asked.
"Living, planning, preparing. After they blew up my car, I spent three months in a government medical facility while they studied my resurrection. I learned a lot about their operation during those three months." Sarah's wheelchair was surprisingly quiet on the tunnel floor. "Did you know they have a kill switch built into every Blood Queen system?"
Victoria stopped walking. "What kind of kill switch?"
"The kind that can shut down all our enhanced abilities and leave us as vulnerable as normal humans. Or the kind that can stop our hearts remotely if they decide we're too much trouble." Sarah pointed to a scar behind her right ear that Scarlett hadn't noticed before. "I had to perform surgery on myself to remove the control chip. Very unpleasant experience. I don't recommend it."
They walked in silence for several minutes, following the tunnel as it curved away from the warehouse district. Behind them, Scarlett could hear the faint sound of explosions as the tactical team probably discovered Sarah's hidden weapons caches.
"There's something I need to tell you both," Sarah said finally. "About the baby that Number Twelve is carrying."
"More bad news?" Victoria asked.
"Complicated news. The genetic material they used to create Subject Omega didn't just come from the twelve Blood Queens. They also used DNA from the original source."
Scarlett's system immediately started pulling up new files, but the information was heavily encrypted.
"What original source?"
"The reason the Blood Queen program exists in the first place. The reason some women have genetic markers that make resurrection possible." Sarah stopped her wheelchair and turned to face them. "In 1953, the government recovered a crash site in Nevada. Not Roswell, somewhere else. Somewhere they've kept secret for seventy years."
The tunnel seemed to get colder as Sarah continued talking.
"Whatever crashed there wasn't entirely destroyed. They found biological samples, genetic material that was unlike anything on Earth. When they analyzed it, they discovered it had properties that could enhance human capabilities and, under the right conditions, reverse death."
Victoria was staring at Sarah like she'd lost her mind. "You're talking about aliens."
"I'm talking about the source of our abilities. The thing that makes Blood Queens possible. And they used that genetic material in Subject Omega." Sarah started moving again, faster now. "That baby isn't just the next generation of the program. It's a hybrid. Part human, part something else."
*Warning: Classified information detected. Continued exposure may result in memory modification.*
All three of their systems were showing the same warning message. Whatever Sarah was telling them, the government really didn't want them to know it.
"They're going to wipe our memories," Scarlett said.
"They're going to try. But the memory modification only works if they can get us back to a medical facility. As long as we stay mobile, as long as we keep moving, the remote systems can't establish a strong enough connection."
They reached a junction where the tunnel split into three directions. Sarah consulted a hand-drawn map and chose the middle path.
"How much further?" Victoria asked.
"Another mile to the emergency exit. From there, we can get to a safe house I've prepared." Sarah looked back at them. "But first, we need to make a stop. There's someone else who needs to know what's happening."
"Who?"
"Number Twelve. The woman you think is Sarah Morrison. She went into labor three hours ago."
Scarlett felt her blood turn to ice. "She's having the baby now?"
"At Chicago General Hospital. Same place where Victoria works. Same place where they have a fully equipped Blood Queen monitoring station hidden in the basement." Sarah's scarred face was grim. "Marcus is there with her. So is a full medical team from the program. They're planning to take the baby the moment it's born."
*New objective received: Prevent Subject Omega extraction. Time remaining: 4 hours, 23 minutes.*
Victoria was already moving toward the exit. "I know that hospital better than anyone. I know how to get in without being detected."
"This is a trap," Scarlett said. "They want us to come. They're using the baby as bait."
"Of course it's a trap. But it's also our only chance to save that child and break Number Twelve's programming." Sarah's wheelchair was keeping pace with them easily now, probably equipped with some kind of electric motor. "Besides, I have something they don't know about."
She reached into a bag attached to her chair and pulled out what looked like a small silver device about the size of a cell phone.
"What is it?"
"A system override key. Something I built while I was hiding in these tunnels. It can break the programming on any Blood Queen system, but only if you're within physical contact range."
They reached the tunnel exit, a rusted metal door that opened onto an alley behind a closed restaurant. Dawn was starting to break over Chicago, and the city was waking up to what was about to become a very dangerous day.
"One chance," Sarah said. "We get in, we save the baby, we free Number Twelve, and we get out before they can activate the kill switches."
"And if we fail?"
"Then Subject Omega becomes the first of a new generation of weapons, and the twelve Blood Queens become a footnote in a classified file that nobody will ever read."
*Warning: Multiple hostile signatures detected. Target location under heavy surveillance.*
Scarlett looked at Victoria and Sarah. Three dead women about to break into a hospital to save a baby that might not be entirely human from people who had created them to be killers.
"Let's go steal ourselves a miracle," she said.