Born 01 - Born

doctors and nurses have been found.
    The panel is something I've never seen before. It's huge and covered in buttons and diagrams. The wall above it has steps.
    1. Open the beige metal lid.
    2. Press the number of minutes you wish to allow for evacuation.
    3. When the red light flashes, re-enter the number of minutes and press the green button to set the time.
    4. Lock out the doors you wish the seal.
    The lid is already opened. I look at it and press the one and the zero. The red light flashes, and I press the one and the zero again. I press the green button and look at the labels. I push the black button next to the doctor's lounges, nurse's rooms, and the guard's desks. The remainder of the doors I leave open. I don’t touch the buttons.
    I fire several shots at the number pad and ruin it. There is a slot for a key card. I shoot it too. The bullets ricochet off the walls and pipes that hang low. Steam starts to come out of several of the pipes above me. Water comes out of one.
    I look at Leo. "We need to go now."
    We run to the elevator but I have a bad feeling about it. I see an exit sign and run for it. The door has no scanner. I push it open and listen. There is no sound, but I wait one more second. I hear men shouting. There is a stairwell above me. I climb a flight of the stairs and listen for the men. They are not in the stairwell. We climb the stairs. On the second floor, I scan my way out. I poke my head out and see the hallway I was in before. The broken glass from the map is on the floor. The dead doctor is also still on the floor.
    Leo growls. I feel it too. I look around but see nothing. The alarms sounding have doubled. There is a red light and an orange light flashing opposite each other. My heart is in my throat.
    There is something around the corner and through the doorway that is bad. I can feel it.
    I raise my gun and glance quickly around the corner. Several men stand in a group.
    "Rebels in the halls and on the grass" is all I can make out. I look at Leo and nod at the door next to us. I open it and we slip inside and wait. I know we have about eight minutes if we're lucky. The office is empty, but it has a window. I look out and see the several gardens in the middle. There are four. Each wing has its own garden. The building is a giant rectangle with the four gardens in the middle. Each has a glass roof over it. The kids and moms all get natural light from them, like greenhouses.
    I stand at the door and listen. I hear footsteps and voices. When they pass, I almost open the door but I wait ten more seconds. I hear someone run past the door. I open it and look out. No one is there. I slip back into the hallway where the stairs to the lower level are. The hall is empty. If they are trained like I was, they won't double back. This section is cleared. I reload my clip. Thank God for the seventeen shots. I get why Mary loves this gun.
    We have minutes, at most. I start making my way back to the office where the doctor/spy is tied up. Girls and women are running every which way. Nurses are telling them to go back to their rooms but they fight them. I raise my gun and shoot one nurse who is dragging a young girl to a room. The girl looks at me and smiles.
    "Get to the pool. The building is about to blow up. The infection is here. We need to get away. The pool is the only safe spot." I shout but it only makes them scream and run more. I run through the building to where I locked the doctor in. I scan his door open to see him sitting looking terrified and annoyed. He snaps at me, "About God damned time! Jesus Christ. What kind of plan is this? We have three minutes until the building implodes, for crying out loud!"
    I untie him and wince when I see how swollen his eye is. "Sorry about that."
    He shakes his head. "If they had opened my door, it would have saved me."
    We sneak out of his office and run down the hall to where the women's side is. I scan the door and we run into the main kitchen area.
    "Get to the pool. Please run now or you will die. The building blows up in three minutes. Hurry, please." He is herding them. I am scanning the crowd for one face.
    In the chaos, I don’t see her. The doctor leads us to the pool. The room is huge. There are windows on one whole side of the pool.
    "Get into the pool." He tries to talk normally.
    He jumps into the pool and starts shouting, "COME AWAY FROM THE WINDOWS!"
    There are far more women than I imagined there would be. I smile, imagining there are