The Witness

For the first forty minutes, Harper kept her promise.

* Harper:* [Image attached: A long, decaying concrete hallway lined with rusted, heavy steel doors. The walls were weeping with dampness.] *It's like a crypt down here. The acoustics are insane.*
* Elias:* It looks like a tetanus breeding ground. Keep your mask on.
* Harper:* Yes, sir. Moving deeper into Sector 4. The old containment labs.

Elias sat at his computer terminal, entirely ignoring the spectrometry graphs on his screen. His eyes were glued to his phone.

Ten minutes passed. Then fifteen.

* Elias:* Harper. It's been fifteen minutes.
* Elias:* Harper, respond.

At twenty-two minutes, the phone buzzed wildly in his hand. It wasn't a photo. It was a frantic, erratic string of text.

* Harper:* Elias
* Harper:* Oh my god Elias
* Harper:* Im hiding. They shot him.

Elias’s blood ran completely cold. The breath vanished from his lungs. He snatched the phone up, his thumbs flying across the keyboard.

* Elias:* Who? Harper, where are you? Call 911!
* Harper:* Cant make noise. Two men. They brought a guy down here. A guy in a suit. They shot him in the head. They were yelling about stolen fentanyl shipments from Metro Gen.

Elias’s mind reeled. Metro General? Stolen narcotics? There had been an internal audit launched just days ago regarding missing Schedule II drugs from the main pharmacy.

* Elias:* Harper, you need to get out of there right now. I'm calling the police.
* Harper:* No! The signal is bouncing, the cops wont find the entrance in time. Im backing toward the emergency stairwell.
* Harper:* Oh god. I kicked a glass beaker. They heard me.
* Harper:* They have flashlights. They're coming down the hall.
* Elias:* RUN.

Elias stood up from his desk, knocking his chair backward. It clattered loudly against the floor of the lab. He didn't dial 911 yet; if the police sirens spooked the killers before Harper was out, they would hunt her down in the maze to eliminate the witness. He had to guide her out.

* Harper:* Im running. Im in the containment wing.
* Harper:* One of them is shooting!

A three-minute agonizing silence followed. Elias paced the length of the toxicology lab, his hand gripping his phone so hard the plastic case creaked. He was sweating, his heart hammering a frantic, sickening rhythm against his ribs. He felt entirely useless. The safe, clinical walls of the hospital felt like a prison.

The phone vibrated.

* Harper:* I lost them. Locked myself in an old sterilization chamber.
* Harper:* Elias, something happened.
* Harper:* When they shot at me, a bullet hit a pressurized cylinder against the wall. It ruptured. The air in the hallway filled with some kind of green aerosol.

Elias stopped pacing. The toxicologist in him violently overrode the panicked man.

* Elias:* Did you inhale it? Was your respirator on?
* Harper:* The filter is rated for particulate mold, not chemical gas. I breathed it before I got the door shut. It burned. It tasted like bitter almonds and sulfur.
* Elias:* Harper, listen to me very carefully. Are you experiencing any physical symptoms?

* Harper:* My vision is blurring.
* Harper:* My fingers are tingling. I can barely type this.
* Harper:* Elias, my chest feels incredibly tight. It's hard to breathe.