I try not to panic. After all, my death doesn't really matter. It wouldn't particularly affect anyone. Mira and Bucky are fine together in New York, and I was never going back anyway. Everyone under me in Madripoor will be fine. Goliath or Roller will just step up and take care of everything.
I think this situation annoys me more than anything else, that this is how I die. Kind of my own fault. If I hadn't gone off the rails, crazy-chucking these guys around, this place probably wouldn't have gone into lockdown.
Wait?! How did this place go into lockdown? No one triggered an alarm, I would've heard them set it off if they had. No alarm blared. My eyes dart around the dome of metal above.
"There you are," I whisper.
Hidden in the pillars of metal is a peephole for a camera. I can see the small lens peeking through it. Whoever's in charge of this program locked it down, meaning the people here were expendable to them. I know Hydra has been shut down, and I've been careful to keep an ear out for anyone even talking about it. But this seems a lot like something they would do.
The only thing that makes me think it's not them is that none of them killed themselves. Hydra agents were trained to do that from day one if caught. That, and they said they wanted to make a hero like the Avengers.
"Hey, girl. Who's running this place?" I question, turning my attention to the balled-up, trembling mess she's become.
"I don't know. Dr. Ramirez hired me. I never met anyone else above him," she stammers out, pointing to the old dude with a hole in his, now dead on the ground.
In retrospect, I probably should've left one of the adults alive for information instead of her. Then again, I didn't really leave her alive for that, I just did it because she reminded me of Sierra.
I check my phone to see if I can call Echo to hack this shithole and get me out. Sadly, no reception. Must be too far underground for it. With no time to panic, and certainly not to punch my way out of here, I frantically search through the notes in the lab. I don't know chemistry, but maybe I can find some half-finished serum and give myself a little strength boost to get out of here.
Unfortunately, all of it is a foreign language to me, a jumbled mess of letters, numbers, and doodles I can't make sense of. "Can you read any of this shit?" I yell over to her.
She finally gets to her trembling feet and walks over to the lab. "Some, but not enough to do anything with it."
"That's fine. Just see if you can figure out if he had any prototypes of that serum you guys were talking about," I say, tossing a few of his journals at her.
"Um, all the subjects died though. So, it won't really do us any good."
"I'll be fine. I'm not like your other subjects. Just find a prototype."
She hurriedly combs through the lab. Time ticks by quickly, forty minutes already gone, and I'm feeling the effects of the thinning air. At this rate, we really will die down here.
"I'm sorry," she gasps out, sitting on the ground of the lab. "I can't find any. The closest he had was the source for the next round of serum."
"What?!" I snap, flipping to her. "Where's the source? It's better than nothing."
"Based on the notes, it was that stuff you pulled from the heater. But it says all the subjects who were given even a small amount of it died within an hour, boiled from the inside out."
I grab the black case, flipping the lid open to reveal the two heated vials. "Which one?"
"Huh?"
"Which one is the source that I need to take? I'll be fine."
The air has thinned so much that neither of us can speak clearly. We're both panting for air that isn't there.
Sitting on the cold lab floor, she hurriedly flips through one of the journals, landing on a page and reading quickly. "Dark red is the diluted version. Black is clearly stated not to be opened or used for testing."
With those words, I yank out the dark red vial, the heat scorching my palm. I remove the cap. The smell wafts out, and I quickly realize what I'm about to consume. Blood, a smell I know too well. She said it was diluted, so whatever the black stuff is, it was given to someone, and they must've survived if they're using their blood for further testing.
I chug the vial without another thought. It doesn't go down like liquid, it feels more like a congealed mess, burning all the way down. Within seconds, my heart races. Somehow, I become aware of every vein in my body. I can hear them pumping as they ignite into burning fire.
It feels like when I first took the serum, maybe even worse.