This one's a bit of a change of pace. :)
But first, please catch up to the first four chapters -
Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3 and Chapter 4.
Recap: W wakes up in a hotel room to find a pistol in her hand, aiming at a man. She is in a state of total retrograde amnesia - she can't remember anything that happened before that point. She tries to find out who she is, but her comprehensive efforts are met with failure. W is a good investigator - but before her amnesia, she was a masterly stealth artist. It's almost as if she did not exist. A ghost, a shadow, a master assassin. With no other choice left, she sets out to sequence her DNA. She infiltrates a research lab with a prototype rapid DNA sequencer, and disrupts power to the building.
Silence in Time - Chapter 5
The timer is triggered, and the sliding gate is frozen half open. There’s chaos inside the lab in response to the unusual power cut, and W fully utilizes this distraction to her advantage.
This timer starts counting down from 00:30.
W enters the lab through the half open door, and quickly hides away in a dark corner for a couple of seconds, mapping out the area. 00:24 on the watch.
She then swiftly and adeptly makes her way through the dark areas, dodges the patches of emergency light to avoid detection by CCTVs.
This requires her to slide across the floor, prone and crawl, through the short corridor.
She sees an employee running down the corridor. 00:11 left on the watch. She hides and holds her breath, tensely.
00:10. 00:09. 00:08. 00:07. The employee is out of sight.
Running out of time, she rushes and slides down the corridor.
Finally, with seconds left, she enters a room titled “Rapid DNA Sequencer - Prototype 3b”.
The timer ticks to 00:00 and the lights come back on. All of this - from the time of blackout - happens within only 30 seconds. Yet, W does not skip a beat.
Inside, she has hidden herself under and behind the CCTV camera. She attaches a lens to the room’s CCTV to freeze the image.
There is nothing in the room but a machine - a desktop computer, attached to an apparatus with a syringe.
She boots the machine - the display is a rudimentary command line interface. After typing in a couple of lines, she places her finger on the syringe, which draws in blood. The display switches to "Sequencing in Progress".
(to be continued)
Image courtesy: Sew Hungry