novelraw Chapter 383: The Containment Facility
Chapter 383: The Containment Facility
The CDC soldier’s didn’t lower the rifles. In fact, they tightened their grip, making sure that none of the guys in the Hummer could move.
"Contain them."
The leader of the CDC soldiers gave the order like it was no big deal. He didn’t shout, he didn’t panic, he simply lifted his hand and expected it to be obeyed.
His men closed in a half step, not enough to crowd, just enough to make it clear that from this point on, direction came from the men in ash-white armor, not from the people who had just crossed thought the wasteland of Country M.
"Forward," the lead soldier continued when he was sure that Zubair wasn’t going to try anything.
Of course, Zubair started walking first, making sure that his hands were visible at all times.
He made sure that his shoulders stayed loose, and that every line of his body said, ’I am not here to start a war but I am perfectly capable of finishing one’. Lachlan fell in beside him, his mouth tight and his eyes sharp.
Alexei took the rear of their group, which meant Elias was somewhere in the middle.
But Sera lingered just a fraction of a second behind everyone else.
It was so small a pause that no human eye should have assigned meaning to it.
She glanced back over her shoulder at the Hummer sitting in the dust—sun glinting off the windshield, tires still faintly ticking with heat—and then she lifted her hand.
Just a flick of her wrist.
Like she was brushing hair from her face.
The Hummer was there.
And then it wasn’t.
Where the Hummer had once been, dust settled back into place as if the vehicle had never existed.
The soldiers didn’t react. They hadn’t been looking so they hadn’t seen anything. The man in front was watching Zubair, the ones on the flanks were watching Alexei’s hands, the ones farther back were scanning for movement on the ridgeline.
But Luci saw.
The wolf’s ears tipped back and then forward again, a single blink of acknowledgment. He padded after Sera, his claws silent on the packed dust.
Elias saw too.
He didn’t say anything. Commenting on Sera’s space never went well. Besides—if the CDC wanted to reverse-engineer whatever dimension that was, they’d have to dissect Sera first.
He felt oddly... possessive of the data and the knowledge that it even existed in the first place.
You could share it, the creature murmured. You like to share, don’t you. You shared your knowledge with everyone. Look how that turned out.
"I didn’t cause the fall of civilization," Elias muttered under his breath as the soldier beside him pushed him forward.
But you didn’t stop it either.
The soldiers herded them toward the shimmer.
Up close, it was worse: what had seemed like heat at a distance was a proper barrier here, a thin, vertical plane where the air bent and thickened. A low fence of welded metal guided them toward a gap.
Two more soldiers waited there, rifles down but ready.
"Through the decon," one of them announced, not bothering to look at the five prisoners.
"It’s already deconning," Elias said before he could stop himself. "You’re running a broad-spectrum field—"
"Through the decon," the soldier repeated, not interested in discussion.
Elias closed his mouth.
Zubair stepped through first. The air clung to him for a second, light rippling over his shoulders, and then he was on the other side, inside Region T.
Sera went next. Light ran over her like water. It didn’t like her. Elias could tell. The field thickened around her outline, as if trying to hold her shape longer. Whatever algorithm was embedded in the barrier couldn’t get a proper reading.
She smiled at it.
Of course she did.
Lachlan laughed under his breath and walked through after her. Alexei followed, expression unchanged.
Elias was last.
The moment he crossed the boundary, his ears popped. Pressure shifted.
The smell changed—gone was the burnt-rubber desert air. Inside, the atmosphere was filtered, drier, edged in ozone and disinfectant. A cooler current flowed from somewhere deeper in, carrying the murmur of generators and distant voices.
Better, the creature smiled, like a critic finally seeing a painting hung straight. This is the cage you wanted to live in. This is the cage you would have built for yourself if you had the ability.
"I wanted order," Elias said through his teeth.
Prisons are very orderly.
Elias straightened, blinking as his eyes adjusted.
The inner side of the wall was no gleaming facility. It was layered improvisation: freight containers welded together to form corridors, reinforced tents with hard plastic doors, tall privacy panels jammed into the ground to create lanes of movement.
Every surface was painted the same dull off-white, but the paint was scratched, scuffed, peeling in places to reveal the shipping logos beneath.
CDC banners hung where company logos used to be. The symbol was the same as on the soldiers’ armor—red, stamped, flaking.
They had made permanence out of temporary things.
It was almost admirable.
Almost.
"Line A, with me," the lead soldier said, gesturing to Sera, Zubair, and Lachlan. "Line B, with Tech Two. No sudden movements. You are under medical review."
"Medical review," Lachlan echoed under his breath. "That’s cute."
"Shut up," Elias said. "Don’t antagonize the people with antibiotics."
"I thought we were off antibiotics," Lachlan said. "You said we were past the need for human meds."
"I never said that," Elias corrected. "I simply said that I didn’t know what would be effective for you, since your healing speed had increased."
You like control, the creature continued and Elias could feel it looking out his eyes. That is all. Pills are just a level of control that you approve of.
Elias followed the second soldier—shorter, armor older, but just as precise—down a narrow lane between two stacked containers.
Overhead, small drones floated on almost-silent rotors. These were different from the ones outside. They had no weapons, just cameras and sampling arms. One drifted down near Sera’s hair as she walked.
It’s admiring her, the creature purred, amused. Even the machines seem to like her.