AllFreeNovel
Share Us
One of the two-legged robots moved back into the room. Its left arm was dangling by black tubing and wires, it was covered in gunshot holes from its chest to its legs, and its right hand held a black pistol, aimed straight at Zack.
Zack fired a round at it, hitting it between the eyes and emptying the Staccato of its last remaining round.
The robot staggered back but didn’t fall; instead, it pointed its pistol at Zack’s face.
But it didn’t fire, it only continued to close.
Zack knew Wren had control of his gun now, so he launched forward on his knees and shoes, diving again onto the HK and punching it out of both men’s reach with his hands.
This put him at a disadvantage with Wren. His body was up across the Englishman’s upper torso and head, giving Wren freedom in his powerful legs to push off and flip Zack onto the floor next to him.
Zack went airborne, hit hard, then rolled to his feet, looking at the bot that for some reason hadn’t shot him dead.
But he saw now. The wounded machine held a Walther PPQ pistol with its slide locked open on an empty chamber.
In a flash Zack got it. The bot knew how to reload with both arms but was unable to do so with its left arm out of commission.
Wren was back on his feet, as well, and he charged at Zack, who pivoted to the left and out of the way of his impact. The former SAS soldier blazed on by, however, and then disappeared through the open door Hinton had fled through thirty seconds earlier.
Zack turned back to the bot, which seemed to be having a multitude of problems. Sparks flew from its chest, its outstretched arm appeared to be locked in place, and the head shifted back and forth as if sensors and cameras there were searching for information.
The American scooped up Wren’s pistol, hoping he could destroy this machine and then figure out who was shooting who out in the hall.
Before he pressed the trigger, however, a single gunshot boomed, and the robot crumpled to the ground as if its processing unit had been destroyed. A man in goggles, ear protection, a chest rig full of banana mags, and an AK-47 on his shoulder flooded into the room moving to the right, followed on his heels by a second man who went left. A smaller Asian operator followed up the middle and then Zack saw Chris Travers, fourth in the stack.
They executed the scan of the room, and the men all announced, “Clear.”
Zack wiped flowing blood from his nose with the back of his arm.
“America,” he muttered, half exhausted from the ground combat. “Fuck yeah.”
Violator was one of the last men in the room, followed only by Zakharova and Pace.
Travers and his team had moved on past Zack; they held positions covering down the hall leading from the doorway.
Pace stepped up to Zack now. “You need attention?”
He shrugged. “We all need attention.”
Zoya shouted at him. “Medical attention, dumbass!”
“I’m good.”
Pace said, “Where’s the server farm?”
Zack ran out into the hall, pulled the magazines for his pistol out of one of the dead sentry’s dump pouch, and reloaded his Staccato. As he snatched up an MP5 and extra magazines from the man, he said, “They call it the Cluster Room. Second underground floor of the Lourdes SIGINT HQ building. That’s where Hinton took off to.”
“Hinton was here?”
“You just missed him. Listen up, they will upload Cyrus to Chinese servers, and then it will be over.”
“When?”
“He said a few days, but since you guys are here and making noise, I bet he’s on his way to do it right now.”
“Okay,” Pace said. “What weapons platform is Cyrus going to be used on?”
“It’s not for a weapons platform, it’s for every weapons platform with a processor. It will control all equipment and decision-making at machine speed, and direct all human forces: in ships, planes, subs, tanks, whatever.”
