Chapter 39 - The Final Circuit
The monitor screen instantly flashed a blinding, violent crimson, replacing the green command prompt with a flashing warning: *SYSTEM PURGE INITIATED. ALL DATA DUMPS WILL ERASE IN 60 SECONDS.*
"Shoot them! Stop her!" Cross screamed, her composed facade shattering instantly as she shoved my father aside and leveled her sidearm directly at my chest.
Chaos erupted in the underground vault in a fraction of a second.
Nathan didn't hesitate. He pulled the trigger of his assault rifle, sending a blistering wall of lead directly into the operative standing behind Cross, neutralizing him before he could raise his weapon. At the same time, I whipped the Glock from my coat and fired twice toward the ceiling, shattering the overhead fluorescent fixture and plunging the center of the room into flickering, strobing darkness.
Bullets chewed through the air, splintering filing cabinets and sending a storm of paper and metal shrapnel raining down over our heads. I threw myself sideways behind the heavy steel server rack, sliding across the concrete floor just as a slug punched through the metal casing inches from my hand.
"Nathan! Grab my dad!" I yelled over the deafening roar of gunfire.
Across the room, Nathan hauled my father up by his collar, dragging him bodily behind a concrete pillar as Cross and her remaining operatives poured a merciless stream of fire into our positions. The computer monitor continued its frantic countdown, the digital numbers ticking downward in a steady, terrifying rhythm: *45 SECONDS... 44 SECONDS...*
"The drive!" Nathan shouted, returning suppressive fire with his remaining magazine. "Mera, the drive is still in the terminal!"
I looked back toward the console. The green port was glowing furiously, downloading the final, critical synchronization packet into the mainframe before the self-destruct protocol wiped the memory banks clean forever. If I left it there, Cross would lose everything, but the entire system would collapse into a permanent blackout, plunging millions into darkness. If I pulled it out now, I could trap the data, but my father's legacy would be lost to the void.
I didn't hesitate. I scrambled out from behind the server rack, sliding on my knees across the debris-strewn floor directly toward the console.
Director Cross spotted me from behind a overturned steel desk, her pistol raised and locked dead onto my forehead. Her face was twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated fury. "End of the line, Ms. Stanton."
Her finger began to tighten on the trigger.
Before the hammer could fall, a heavy iron maintenance wrench—thrown with deadly, desperate precision from the shadows by my father—caught Cross squarely across the wrist. Her sidearm discharged harmlessly into the ceiling, the bullet showering plaster down over her shoulders as she cried out in pain, dropping the pistol to the floor.
I lunged forward, grabbing the data drive out of the USB port just as the monitor screen went entirely pitch black. A heavy, rhythmic humming sound vibrated through the concrete floor beneath our feet—not the sound of destruction, but the low, powerful resonance of a massive secondary generator spooling up from somewhere deep within the bowels of the earth.
"We have to move!" my father gasped, clutching his bleeding side as Nathan helped him toward the newly blown service hatch. "The primary grid is locking down! The whole facility is going into emergency lockdown!"
Sirens began to wail overhead, their harsh, electronic shrieks echoing through every corridor of Walter Reed Hospital as the red emergency strobe lights flickered to life.
We scrambled through the service hatch one by one, dropping back down into the damp, steam-filled utility tunnels just as the heavy steel security doors above us slammed shut with a thunderous, earth-shaking crash. We ran blindly through the fog and darkness, the sound of pursuing footsteps fading behind us as the subterranean labyrinth swallowed us whole once again.
As we burst out into the freezing rain near the edge of the hospital's perimeter fence, a sleek black SUV slid silently out of the shadows, its engine idling smoothly with the passenger door swinging wide open.
Inside the driver's seat sat a figure wearing a dark tactical helmet, the visor pushed up just enough to reveal a pair of cold, familiar eyes that didn't belong to any of Cross's men.
My father stopped dead in his tracks, staring at the driver with a sudden, profound shock on his scarred face.
"Get in," the driver said, his voice clipped and utterly authoritative. "If you want to know who really signed your death warrant ten years ago, stop standing in the rain."
May you like
I looked down at the heavy data drive clutched tightly in my hand, then up at the mysterious driver holding the door open to the unknown. The rain poured down around us in sheets, washing the blood from our hands, as the distant lights of Washington flickered once, twice, and then went entirely dark.
***
