Elena Vargas POV's
The beam of my flashlight hit the polished toe of a boot, and the light immediately died.
Not because the batteries failed, but because a hand—small, quick, and calloused—slammed down on the lens, plunging the refrigeration room into total, suffocating darkness. I heard the scuff of movement, a quick intake of breath, and the unmistakable sound of metal scraping across the concrete floor.
"Miguel, behind me! Fire extinguisher ready!" I hissed, reaching into my handbag not for the small satellite phone, but for the scalpel case. My heart hammered against my ribs, an erratic tambor (drum) in the silence.
A voice, surprisingly young and female, whispered in Spanish, laced with the strong inflection of the Sierra Nevada mountains. "¿Quién está aquí? You shouldn't be here. The soldiers will come back."
"I am Dr. Elena Vargas. I'm a forensic pathologist," I responded, keeping my voice low and steady, relying on professional authority. "I am not with the military. I am running from them. I have evidence they manufactured this plague."
There was a long silence, broken only by the persistent, soft hum of the large industrial freezer unit. Then, the voice returned, this time closer, more hostile."Todos dicen eso. Everyone says that. Why are you in the maintenance tunnel? This is the safe route."
"I need the freezer," I stated simply, pressing the truth. "I have a sample of the toxin that created this. It needs extreme cold, now. If you are a survivor, you need to trust me. The cold might be our only defense."
My medical background kicked in. I didn't reach for a weapon or demand compliance. Instead, I reached into the breast pocket of my scrub top and pulled out my official identification card—a small, laminated rectangle. "Look closely at this," I said, flipping the card and aiming my dead flashlight at the door's steel frame, using the faint exterior light filtering through the small crack to illuminate my photo. "I look like hell, but this is me. If I were military, I would have killed you the second I found you."
The hand hesitated, then slowly, a sliver of light appeared as a small penlight clicked on. It was held by a slender young woman with intense, dark eyes and thick, braided hair—Sofía Márquez. She wore simple but sturdy clothes and carried a well-maintained rucksack and a small machete sheathed at her hip.
"Forensics," she murmured, her eyes scanning my face, then the scalpel case. "You cut up the dead."
"To find out why they are dead," I countered. "I just saw them eat Miguel's co-workers. I am trying to stop that from spreading."Sofía lowered the penlight, a small nod of reluctant acceptance.
"I'm Sofía. I know these tunnels. The soldiers use them to move sensitive cargo, but they don't patrol the maintenance lines. They think no one knows about the cold room."
Elena felt a surge of professional relief. Sofía was the perfect guide. "Perfect. I need to run tests. Now, can you help me prepare this freezer?"
Sofía moved toward the door, but she didn't just lock it. She crouched down, pulling a small pouch from her belt. She sprinkled a fine, dark powder across the threshold and near the ventilation grate.
"What is that?" Miguel whispered, his voice trembling.
"Carbón vegetal," Sofía explained without looking up. "Burnt wood and ground sage. The tunnel air is heavy; it carries scent for miles. If the cosas (things) come this way, they hunt by smell. This confuses the air. It makes us smell like dead earth, not fresh meat."
I watched her, impressed. While I was thinking in terms of chemical compounds and cellular vectors, she was surviving using the logic of the land—masking our biological signature. It was a different kind of science, one I hadn't learned at the university.
For the next half hour, the two women worked in frantic, silent collaboration. Sofía showed Elena the power breakers she had rigged to the main line, guaranteeing consistent power to the freezer without drawing attention. Elena carefully opened the metal box containing the tissue sample and the crystalline dust, placing it deep inside the industrial unit. She also tucked the military report into the freezer's innermost corner.
"We were safe. We were cold. The sample would survive."
But the safety came with a cost. As the industrial unit hummed to life, dropping the ambient temperature of the small room rapidly, my body reacted violently. My hands, usually so steady with a scalpel, began to shake from the sudden thermal shock.
It was the first time in hours I wasn't sweating, but the chill felt dangerous, brittle.
Miguel, huddled near the entrance, was visibly struggling, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. "This c-cold is almost as bad as the heat," he stammered, rubbing his arms furiously.
I watched him, my breath misting in the air. "If this temperature is punishing for a healthy man," I whispered to Sofía, "imagine what it does to a biological agent designed for the tropics. The cold isn't just preservation, Sofía. It's a weapon."
Sofía nodded, her eyes dark. "Then we freeze them."
Julian "El Capi" Herrera POV's
The coffee warehouse was a lie.
It didn't smell of roasted beans or rich, dark earth. It smelled of old dust, expensive cedar furniture, and the chemical sterility of high-grade plastic explosives.
Julián, having ditched the armored Captiva blocks away, slipped through the reinforced rear service door. His Glock was extended, his senses heightened, his mind running logistics scenarios like a cold, cruel machine. He was still the Capi, even if his empire was collapsing.
He found the Patrón's secret office—a bunker hidden behind a false wall—and forced the lock with a single, practiced kick. Inside, the walls were lined not with ledgers, but with military-grade communication equipment and high-definition screens displaying a live, real-time map of Medellín.
The map didn't show traffic jams; it showed infection spread.
The red dots were clustered thickest in the Comunas and near the morgue. Julián looked closer, his blood turning to ice. A red dot pulsed rapidly near the Metro maintenance tunnel entrance he had passed earlier.
He zoomed in on the interface. The dot wasn't marking a generic infection cluster. It was tagged with a specific military code: ASSET 01 - BIOHAZARD CONTAINER.
Julián realized with a jolt that the military wasn't just sealing the city blindly. They were tracking a specific container—likely the sample or the evidence—and it was currently stationary, deep underground near the San Javier line. Someone had taken the evidence, and the military knew exactly where they were.
He didn't know who was down there, but he knew they were about to be buried alive if he didn't intervene.
He found the safe—a large, heavy cube—and quickly punched in the code. Inside were stacks of US cash, two more Glock magazines, and the hard drives. As he snatched the drives, a small, laminated photo fell out—a picture of the Patrón shaking hands with a high-ranking Colombian general, both smiling broadly.
This wasn't just a cover-up. It was a partnership.
Suddenly, the encrypted satellite phone he had stolen started to buzz silently on the desk. He answered it, keeping his voice dangerously low.
"Capi," the familiar, gravelly voice of one of the Patrón's chief enforcers, El Diablo, whispered. "I know you have the drives. You are a dead man. The entire city will be bombed before we let you expose the Alfa product. Drop the package and we let your sister walk."
Julián's grip on the phone tightened until his knuckles cracked.
"She's in Bogotá, Diablo. You can't touch her," Julián hissed.
"She landed at Olaya Herrera thirty minutes ago. She came back for the funeral, Julián. Now she is waiting for you in the Mercado Central." El Diablo's laugh was sharp and cruel. "It's a trap, capitán. Come alone."
I'm Julián had the data, but his leverage was gone. His sister was a hostage in the city he had just sealed with a plague. He looked back at the live map, seeing the infected streaming toward the central market. It was a race against the dead, or a calculated suicide.
He ejected the empty magazine from his Glock, chambered a new round, and headed out into the contaminated, tightening net of Medellín.
——
Author's Note: El Capi has to save his sister from El Diablo and the plague. Does he try to sneak her out of the market, or create a huge, noisy distraction to draw the infected toward El Diablo's men? Vote 1=Sneak 2=Distraction. Results decide next episode.