The rhythmic, high-pitched beep of the heart monitor was the only sound keeping me anchored to reality. Lily lay in the hospital bed, swallowed whole by heavy thermal blankets. Her tiny fingers were wrapped in thick bandages, and her skin, though no longer a terrifying shade of ash-blue, remained ghostly pale.

I dropped the photo, grabbed a kitchen knife from the counter, and sprinted down the hallway into Lily’s bedroom.

"Lily! Get up!" I yelled, pulling her out of bed and shoving her behind my back.

I dropped to my knees, holding the knife out, and lifted the long pink dust ruffle beneath her twin bed.

My flashlight beam cut through the darkness under the mattress.

There was no person hiding there. But sitting dead-center on the carpet was a heavy, silver metallic briefcase. Attached to the top handle was a digital timer counting down from 00:04:59... 00:04:58...

"MARK! WHAT'S HAPPENING?!" Taylor screamed, running into the apartment after coming over to drop off Lily’s clothes.

"GET OUT OF THE HOUSE! NOW!" I screamed, grabbing Lily in one arm and dragging Taylor out the front door into the hallway just as the timer hit three minutes.

We ran into the parking lot. I threw Lily into the back of Taylor’s car, locking the doors.

"Call the bomb squad! Call Marcus!" I shouted, pulling my phone out with trembling fingers.

Fifteen minutes later, the bomb disposal unit had cleared the building. The lead investigator walked out carrying the silver briefcase. He walked over to me, taking off his heavy helmet.

"It wasn't an explosive device, Mr. Vance," the officer said, his face deadpan.

"What was it?"

"It’s a specialized medical-grade cellular freezer," he explained, opening the casing. Inside sat six glass vials filled with a murky blue liquid, sitting in liquid nitrogen vapor, along with a small tablet screen that was currently playing a pre-recorded video file.

The officer tapped the screen.

The face that appeared on the screen wasn't Evelyn.

It was a middle-aged man with sharp features, slicked-back hair, and a cold, clinical posture. He was wearing a surgical gown inside what appeared to be an underground laboratory.

"Hello, Mark," the man on the video said smoothly. "My name is Dr. Arthur Pendelton. Director of the Apex Cryo-Genetics Institute."

I stared at the screen, my blood turning to liquid ice.

"If you are watching this," Pendelton continued, "it means Evelyn’s primary phase has failed. Evelyn was not acting out of personal greed, Mark. She was funding our foundation. For forty years, Evelyn Vance has been the lead private investor in our off-grid human endurance and therapeutic hypothermia research."

The camera panned across the laboratory background. Rows upon rows of glass-walled cryogenic chambers filled the frame. Inside several of the chambers were human silhouettes.

"Julian’s death in 1984 was not an accident, nor was it a simple murder," Pendelton said with a terrifying, calm smile. "Julian was Patient Zero. And sweet little Lily... she possesses the rare heterozygous genetic marker inherited from Julian that allows her cellular walls to resist ice crystallization during deep freezing. She is the key to our entire biological breakthrough."

Taylor gasped, covering her mouth as she fell back against the car tire.

"Evelyn went to prison to keep you distracted," Dr. Pendelton’s recording concluded. "The silver vials in that case contain the synthetic stabilization agent necessary to complete Lily’s preservation. You have forty-eight hours to deliver Lily to the coordinates pre-set on this tablet. If you do not... the secondary contact we have placed inside your immediate circle will administer the final dose to her directly."

A SECONDARY CONTACT.

The video went black.

I turned around slowly, looking at the small circle of people standing in the parking lot: the police officers, the paramedics... and Marcus, who had just pulled up in his car to 'help me'.

Marcus walked up to us, looking worried. "Mark! I saw the police radio dispatch! Is Lily okay?!"

I looked at my best friend—the man who had helped me track the server logs, the man who had access to my house, the man who knew every single move I made before I made it.