Brian’s panic is caused by Olly; he has fallen directly underneath the heavy, tilting assembly. Brian moves as fast as his suit will allow to grab Olly’s arm, which is closest to him, just as the assembly’s tilt gets faster and starts to go into freefall. Brian pushes back with all the strength he has in his legs, pulling Olly’s arm as hard as he can, dragging him as far from the point of impact as possible.
The deafening crash as the assembly hits the floor is immense and reverberates around the room, but probably more chilling is the sound of smashing glass. The front of the assembly has a glass door, smashed for sure, but Molly is more worried about the glass vials contained inside, if even one of those has broken, she thinks, frozen to the spot.
Re-gathering herself, her training kicking in; she turns around and hits her hand onto the large red button that is on the wall behind her with EMERGENCY also in red, printed above it. Immediately, a shrieking alarm sounds and red lights start to flash around the perimeter of the room. She also knows the airtight entrance door will now be locked, alarms will be sounding throughout the rest of the building and automatic text messages will have been sent to all key people associated with this facility. An image flashes through her head of Major Rees scrambling from behind his desk two floors up.
Flat on his back, still gripping Olly’s hand and panting heavily into the transparent Perspex of his suit helmet in front of his face, Brian tries to remember if he heard the assembly hitting the floor. Then all at once, he registers red lights flashing on the wall above him and the alarm sound accosting his ears. Brian releases Olly’s hand and somewhat gingerly gets to his feet, almost afraid to look over to Olly; did he manage to pull him out from beneath the impact or is Olly horribly crushed under the heavy assembly?
Forcing himself, Brian looks down at Olly and a wave of relief passes over him as he sees Olly flat on his back, head and body intact; his gaze moves down to his two legs as the relief grows stronger.
Brian then notices three orange-clad men jostling hurriedly around the assembly as if they are trying to lift it and Molly rushing over to join them. He can’t understand what they are trying to do, and he is about to tell them to stop, that they will never lift it and that precautions need to be taken before they try and move it when he sees the reason for the urgency.
For a second, Brian foolishly thinks he is looking at tomato sauce spilt on the painted blue floor, but it is blood pooling around the edge of the assembly and around Olly’s right arm, which has been crushed, like a tomato, from halfway down his lower left arm and right under the now immovable assembly. It is small consolation that Olly seems to have passed out, saving himself from the pain, at least for now!
Molly shouts at the men to stop trying to move the assembly, that they need to prepare and do it properly, but they don’t listen. She pulls on Mark’s arm, telling him to stop, but at first, he tries to brush her off. Eventually, he calms slightly and then surrenders and moves back. As he does so, the other two men also give up and move away. Molly quickly goes around to check on Olly. She sees straight away what has happened to his arm, which is shocking enough but she is far more concerned with the fact that his suit has been breached—and to make matters worse, so has his skin! She stands, her mind racing, calculating the best course of action; the protocol for this situation is to get everybody into decontamination immediately, but how can they if Olly’s arm is stuck? She knows she should still do that and leave Olly here, for now, get decontaminated, then reassess and consult with her colleagues. If she decides to do that, she seriously doubts whether the three contactors would just leave Olly here? She knows what she has to do.
Molly turns, “Mark?” At first, he doesn’t respond; he is probably in shock. “Mark,” she shouts, making sure she is heard over the alarm.
“Yes,” he finally replies through her earpiece.
“What tools do you have with you, I need a knife or a saw?”
“We have both with us.” As he says it, Molly sees in his eyes that he knows what she is planning to do.
“You’re not cutting his arm off, no fucking way,” Mark says, sounding like he might be sick at any moment.
“It is too dangerous to move that,” she says pointing at the assembly, “it is face down and possibly still contained, we have to get to decontamination now and get Olly medical attention. So yes, I am cutting his ‘fucking’ arm off. Get me the knife now!” As Molly finishes, Olly’s body jerks violently, briefly convulsing, and they all see it. “NOW, MARK.”
Mark turns and runs towards the contractor’s kit.
“Brian, seal the inner curtain on the loading bay,” Molly orders.
Brian immediately moves towards the curtains; as he approaches them, he can see silhouettes moving on the other side of the opaque plastic. He trusts that the soldiers outside will follow their orders and not unseal the outer barrier to see what the emergency is, even if they think they can help.
Molly bends
