Chapter 16 - TOXIC WATER
BANG!
A shot echoed through the flooding corridor!
Victor gasped, dropping his pistol as a bullet punched through his shoulder. Behind him stood Ethan, bleeding from a graze on his forehead, his sidearm smoking.
Victor fell back against the rising water, dropping the encrypted drive into the flooded grating!
"ETHAN! THE BLAST DOOR IS STUCK!" I roared, bracing myself beneath the five-ton steel blast door.
Water was pouring from the ceiling now in high-pressure jets that cut like knives. The hydraulic winch above the door snapped with a violent explosion of sparks!
The massive steel blast door began to free-fall!
If it slammed down completely, Ethan would be trapped on the dying side of the dome! If it stopped halfway, the ocean pressure would destroy us all!
I didn't think. I stepped directly under the crushing weight of the descending door frame!
I reached up, wrapping both hands around the emergency steel lifting cable jammed inside the gear assembly.
The steel cable bit deeply into my hands, tearing through my tactical gloves, slicing straight into the old scar on my left forearm!
"AVERY! NO!" Arthur screamed.
Pain—searing, blinding pain—ripped through my arm as my muscles tore against the crushing weight of five tons of descending steel! I planted my boots into the submerged deck, screaming at the top of my lungs, using my own body and the raw cable to anchor the falling blast door three feet off the ground!
"ETHAN! MOVE!" I bellowed, blood dripping from my arm into the rushing sea water.
Ethan dove under the three-foot gap, rolling across the flooded floor just as I threw my weight back and released the cable!
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BOOM!
The massive blast door slammed down onto the steel deck, sealing off the collapsing dome completely!
