Icy water cascaded down, a belated funeral shroud. Mercury from shattered tanks pooled into a silvery flood, solidifying instantly on contact with the air into a mosaic of mirror shards, each reflecting our stunned faces.
The countdown hammered on—00:00:14.
I grabbed Alex's collar. "The choices are traps! Option D!"
Confusion flickered in his eyes, then understanding. D for Destroy. D for Dive. Our only escape was down. I pointed to the chamber's lowest level—a disused coolant outflow pipe, one meter wide, boring straight through the ice to the open sea.
00:00:10.
We sprinted across the frozen mercury mirror, boots crunching glassy shards. Overhead, the tanks' discharges wove a crackling net of blue lightning, like caged auroras. Alex slid into the pipe first. I followed, smashing the retaining grate with the Glock's butt. Metal clanged into the abyss below.
00:00:05.
Ice coated the pipe's interior. We plummeted like runaway marbles. Temperature plunged to minus forty. The arctic gear stiffened instantly; breath frosted inside my helmet visor. A muffled explosion boomed behind us—tanks rupturing in sequence. A fog of liquid nitrogen surged into the pipe, Death's breath on our heels.
00:00:00.
Light bloomed ahead—the fissure into the polar night. The outflow current hurled us through the ice wall, into the Arctic Ocean. The sea stabbed like a million needles. My heart battered my ribs. I seized Alex's arm, yanked the cord on a flare. Crimson light slashed the darkness, a distress scar.
Above, the ice shelf groaned, fracturing. The entire base sank like a bathtub unplugged—mercury, fire, glass, and steel swallowed whole. The aurora borealis writhed overhead, crowning the self-destruction with poisonous green fire.
A Norwegian research vessel's spotlight speared the night, hauling us onto the deck. I collapsed into meltwater puddles, teeth chattering uncontrollably. Alex held the thumb drive aloft, like a star wrested from the abyss.
"REVERSAL.exe is intact," he gasped, ice crusting his lashes. "Shaw's Absolute Zero Judgment failed."
I looked towards the horizon. The ice shelf was knitting itself shut, sealing like the cover of a burned-out calendar.
"No," I murmured, the cold biting deeper than the sea. "She just turned the page."