Breaking Danger Read Online Free Page A

they came for her. Men in black, in the night. Just like in a holomovie, only for real.
    When they came, she had managed to get a call to Elle to warn her. She hacked into the computer of the head of Arka Pharmaceuticals, Dr. Charles Lee, and read, with horror, about a virus he had been bioengineering—a virus designed to enhance warriors. Only he was having trouble keeping the enhanced soldiers on this side of sane. Then he’d taken some of the test subjects from the study on psychic phenomena, injected them with the virus, and harvested their brains. From the notes Sophie had read, he liked what he’d seen, so he upped the dosage.
    There had been some animal tests with bonobos, a peaceable breed of primate. The virus turned them into killing machines. She knew then that she had to get her hands on the virus. When they came for her and locked her up in the underground test labs, she looked for an opening, any opening at all, to escape, to get her hands on the virus. But by that time, the virus—rendered insanely virulent—had escaped from Arka’s control and spread to the employees in the Arka skyscraper.
    It turned out she didn’t need for one of the men in black to glance in the other direction, or let down his guard. Turned out that two lab techs, Carla Stiller and Robert Krotow, two of the gentlest, smartest people she knew, had become infected. They basically ate the two men in black. Arka’s security guards, who she’d read had been recruited exclusively from U.S. Special Forces, didn’t stand a chance.
    Sophie hid in a supply closet until the carnage outside was over, opening the door only when she saw the two blood-stained lab rats lope down the hall for other victims, leaving behind two men in black in six distinct pieces.
    The concept of door handles proving too much for the infected to conceptualize, they’d forgotten all about her. It was now or never. Sophie took the elevator to the twenty-first floor of the Arka offices, where the big boss himself, Dr. Charles Lee, resided. It had been the slimmest of chances, and her heart had pounded every second while her body was screaming at her to get out.
    But something told her she needed to have samples of the viruses and the vaccine that had been in Dr. Lee’s notes. She’d gone up to the administrative offices floor, hoping her Arka pass would let her through.
    Her Arka pass didn’t made any difference at all. All doors were open, there were four dead bodies in the corridor, the fire alarm was booming, smoke was in the air. The door to Dr. Lee’s sumptuous office was open, a big Halliburton case on the floor. She snatched that and the 360 terabyte flash drive on Dr. Lee’s desk and ran for the stairwell, reaching the bottom winded and desperate.
    Chaos reigned. Several buildings had their fire alarms booming, up and down Market people were fighting, screaming, dying. Sophie had leaned with her back against the wall of the Arka building until she saw a taxi driver slow down. Without thinking, she wrenched open the door, threw in the case then herself after it.
    â€œBeach Street,” she gasped.
    The taxi driver turned a terrified dark face to her. “Hey, lady, I’m not in service! I’m getting the hell out of here. Whatever’s happening here, I don’t want no part of it.”
    â€œGet out of town. Fast. The Bay Bridge is closed.” She’d seen that on Google news. “The Golden Gate will be open for a few hours more. Let me off at Beach Street and I’ll give you a hundred dollars.”
    The taxi driver’s jaw worked. Something really awful was going down. But . . . a hundred dollars.
    He stepped on the accelerator and they shot up Market. The further away they got, the less chaos there was. Sophie planned to get her car in her building’s underground garage and head out. At Beach and Jones she had the driver stop a second, threw a hundred-dollar bill