The Containment Team Read Online Free

ball of yarn with the main difference that the colors were constantly changing.
    A long tendril shot out from it and tried to latch onto my arm. I jumped back. The slow rolling around the room had been deceptive. It had moved as fast as a pouncing cat.
    Pete hung up his phone. “No answer.”
    A chill crept up my back. “Has the whole facility been taken over?”
    “Probably not.” He looked at his watch. “It’s almost midnight. There’s just the one guard outside and another inside. He’s probably in the bathroom or walking the corridors.”
    “Two guards to protect some crazy thing like this?”
    “We do research. We’re not building nukes.”
    “Call somebody else.”
    “I don’t have any other numbers.”
    “You’ve been working there for a year and don’t—” I paused to collect my thoughts. “Okay, send them an email.”
    “It’s not that simple, it's a secure facility. We can’t access email outside of it.”
    “So the only choice we have is to go to your lab.”
    “Only I can get in, but yes, that’s the only option we have at this point.”
    “Screw it,” I pulled out my phone. “We’re calling the police. You can sort this out with them.”
    Pete made a move for me and I stepped back.
    “Buckshot, I need you to trust me.”
    “You’re not giving me answers and people have died. What else should I do?”
    Pete nodded. “A fair point. My job is also at risk here.”
    “Your job? People are dead.” I looked at the closet where the pounding was continuing unabated. “Or at least they would be if they stopped moving. Life trumps everything, Slammer.”
    A sudden thought occurred to me on how to know if Pete was telling the truth. Veronica had a rose tattoo on her ankle. During the fight, I’d been too busy to notice. I wasn’t about to open the door to check on it now, though.  
    “Okay give them a call. You know that they’re going to take everything.” He motioned to my shotgun. “That’s evidence.” He frowned as if something had just occurred to him. “Are you sure you’re allowed to have those on campus? I know this is Texas, but...” He didn’t finish the sentence.
    I gripped my phone thinking of everything I had in here that was prohibited. He was right, of course. I wasn’t supposed to have anything like kerosene or my weapon collection in our room. I had never worried about it because we lived in a midsized town in Texas. People tended to be a little bit more relaxed about things like this. It was part of the reason why I’d come here for school over someplace else in California like my mom had wanted. 
    “Give me an hour. If they break out again before that, you call the cops.” 
    There had been a pause in the pounding coming from the closet but it started up again, this time, stronger than it had been before.
    “How do I put them down if they get free?” The thought of Veronica’s toothy smile came to mind and I pushed it away. Whatever was in that closet wasn’t her. I’d blown off its head and it had still kept coming. I knew that, logically I did, but Pete’s words had shaken me to my core.
    “With wounds like that, they’ll die on their own, just like the ball.” A look of guilt swept across Pete’s face. That was the most sorrow he’d shown since he got here.
    Did I even know my friend at all? In a normal situation, I would have given him the benefit of the doubt. I wasn’t so sure now if that was a good thing to do.
    Any decent person would feel terrible about what had happened to Jen and Veronica. I hoped he did as well. Hopefully, the guilt I’d seen was a latent manifestation of that, not him feeling bad about telling me too much about his secret work project.
    “How long before that happens? Ten minutes? A week?”
    “You know, I’ve talked too much.” Pete chewed on his lip for a long minute. “I want you to swear an oath before I tell you anything more. Consider it a precursor to the non-disclosure that the Containment Team