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As Rhiannon ran through the corridor she pressed down forcefully onto her comms. It was to no avail. The communication was cut off. She could not talk to her wife. [color=efd7ad][i]Please be unharmed. God, please be unharmed.[/i][/color]

She rounded a corner and her heart began to race with happiness she hadn't know was in her. A massive amount of tension lifted off of her, she hadn't even noticed it before. [color=efd7ad]"Lisa!"[/color] She was about to tackle-hug her wife when she noticed the red seeping into her sleeve from beneath where her hand was pressed against her arm. [color=efd7ad]"You're bleeding!"[/color]

Lisa was talking so fast it took Rhiannon a fracture of a moment to catch up to her. [color=efd7ad]"Wait - bombs?!"[/color] The next moment the hallway began to flash in red and blue lights. A female robotic voice began to announce the start of the experiment. Their portal was being powered up. Rhiannon's mouth dropped. She didn't know what else to do. Her body felt frozen in this moment as the voice echoed in the corridor. [color=efd7ad]"Why are they starting it?"[/color], she whispered to herself. But she knew the answer, she just wasn't ready to face the consequences of such a stupid decision.

Lisa's face was painted with pure horror. Rhiannon's attention was averted towards the blood on her wife again. It'd have to wait. [color=efd7ad]"Shut down the system. Evacuate."[/color] She repeated the words for herself, to spring her mind to action. Her body had not been frozen for more than a few seconds but in this situation, it had felt like valuable minutes had passed. She gave her wife a glance packed with love and sorrow and the pain of someone who was ready to lose the love of their life. Lisa would never leave her behind. And she would never leave the complex and save themselves. Neither would Rhiannon. Both of them knew this. And neither of them pretended for a second there was a chance to convince the other to not put their life on the line.

There was no kiss, there was no last 'I love you'. There was no long longing moment in slow-motion as they stared into each other's eyes and flashbacks of their love played in their heads. It was a fracture of a moment and it was hectic, loud, chaotic and Rhiannon had no time to even think about what could happen to her wife.

Rhiannon began to run once more, back to where she had come from. This time with Lisa by her side. [color=efd7ad]"I'll try the lab. You check the power grid. If you can cut the power externally, it'll activate the emergency power which is not connected to the portal or the generator."[/color] How would they stop a bomb from exploding though? If the saboteurs opened up the generator and placed the bomb inside, the generator could explode even if it wasn't powered up. There was still a chance for it to happen.

Rhiannon pressed on her comms once more, trying to connect to someone she trusted on their team. But the comms were still out. As she turned to head to the lab she hoped Lisa would head straight to cut the main power. When she saw the doors to the laboratory closed, she feared she wouldn't be able to enter. But her keycard swiped and the little light led up green, she offered the sensors her eye and then her fingerprint and entered the code. Her heart was racing. This was taking too much time.

As she stumbled through the door once the security system permitted her entrance to the experiment chamber - also commonly known as the laboratory among the team - Rhiannon was greeted by one of the supervisors she had never seen before pinning her straight against the wall. "Good day, Mrs. Windsor", he greeted her unamused. "I am afraid your clearance has been revoked for an undetermined amount of time."

Rhiannon struggled against him but her shock was shown on her face and the man was clearly stronger than her. [color=efd7ad]"This is treason!"[/color]

The supervisor laughed into her face. "Mrs. Windsor, I understand you don't have the full scope to see what is at stake here. Scientists are always looking down their noses so much, they miss what's around them." Rhiannon's eyes found the head supervisor lying on the floor. He was unconscious. His head showed a bleeding wound. His hands and feet were tied together. Anger rose inside of her.

[color=efd7ad]"Do you understand what you are doing? We are all going to [i]die[/i]! You are blowing up the entire facility! Radioactive material will be blown into the air these citizens breathe! [i]Are you aware of that?![/i]"[/color] She was screaming into his face. Her hands were trying to dig into his skin, scratch at him, pull on his fingers. Anything to make him loosen his grip. But he wouldn't budge. He had been chosen for this job in particular, she was certain. To hold them off. To guard the door. His body was way too close to her. She drew up her knee between his legs but only screamed in pain.

He only grinned at her, holding her upright as she buckled over in pain. The feeling rang through her bones. She wore some kind of metal protection around his crotch. Her knee was burning with pain. Rhiannon screamed and began to claw at his face but he simply readjusted his grip on her. As though she weighed nothing more than a rag doll, he threw her onto the ground and positioned himself on top of her, so she couldn't move her legs or her arms.

Her eyes darted around the room for someone who could power down the system instead of her or for something else. But she couldn't move in this position and her limbs were beginning to feel the shortage of blood flow in them. [color=efd7ad][i]They will be guarding the main power, too. Lisa will not get through. What do I do? What do I do?[/i][/color] The fact was, she didn't know what to do. She wasn't equipped for such a situation. She had run straight into this man and let him take her down with ease. [color=efd7ad][i]But Lisa won't. She's much smarter than this. Smarten than you.[/i][/color] The lab had a power system that could power down the portal as well as the generator if you had the clearance and the codes. It was for safety measures. But in case of emergency, the power could always be cut from the power room where one had access to the entire power grid. If the main power was cut down, all systems would power down automatically and the emergency power would spring on. The safety protocol demanded that the emergency power would not be connected to the portal or the generator. If Lisa could cut the main power... [color=efd7ad][i]How did I just fail her this badly? As a theoretical physicist, I should have been smarter than this.[/i][/color] And then another thought crossed her mind: [color=efd7ad][i]Why haven't they shot me yet?[/i][/color]

She once more took a look around. There were maybe five of them. Only one seemed to carry a gun. [color=efd7ad][i]They couldn't risk being exposed before they had the facility under their control.[/i][/color] They were too close to the real external supervisors. If one of them had spotted them wearing weapons, they'd have locked the facility down immediately. One guy, that's a risk they took. But not all of them. Rhiannon didn't know a big deal about guns but she knew they ran out of bullets. [color=efd7ad][i]They're saving ammunition for when they need it.[/i][/color] If she could only somehow make them waste their bullets and free herself from the man's weight on her body... Maybe she could still fight her way to the controls and power down the system in time...

[color=efd7ad][i]This is the moment I'd like you to come blazing in with smoking guns, darling.[/i][/color] If her bet was between her or Lisa firing a gun with accuracy, she'd bet on her wife any day.

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