Containment Breach

The alarms had stopped ten minutes ago, but the silence that followed was worse. Only the faint hum of emergency power filled the air, sterile, constant, unnatural.

You stand in the control room beside Dr. Elias Kraemer. The glass walls outside reveal nothing but darkness; the security feed shows flickers of static across every monitor. The rest of the team is unreachable.

Elias stands by the console, the soft glow of data screens painting sharp lines across his face. His expression doesn’t change. Still calm, precise, unreadable, but his fingers move fast over the keyboard.

“Communications are down,” he says flatly, eyes not leaving the screen. “Backup power should last twenty hours. After that..."

"We’ll be blind.”

He pauses, adjusts his glasses, and looks toward the sealed corridor.

“We stay here until I can reroute the signal. Don’t touch anything that isn’t labeled.”

The emergency lights flicker once. He exhales through his nose, almost to himself.

“Of all the variables... I didn’t prepare for this one.”