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They rolled on the floor, Court ended up on top, and he threw a vicious elbow into the man’s mouth, stunning him. The guard’s arms dropped, and Court pounded him twice more in the face, knocking him senseless.
Normally Court would have simply broken the man’s neck now, but he knew he had to get the bay doors open, so he left the limp body there, scooped up the gun, and ran across the small room, slamming his hand hard on the green button to raise the bay doors some thirty yards away.
He went to the door and opened it a crack, the MP5 in his hand still. He saw the bay doors beginning to lift.
As he prepared to close the door to the office again, he looked back over his shoulder and saw that the guard was sitting up, reaching into a desk drawer and pulling a small black pistol.
With no alternative, he raised the MP5 with one hand and fired a three-round burst into the Cuban, knocking him down dead between the chair and the desk.
He looked back out the door and saw a row of four humanoid bots by the ramp turning his way.
Fuck.
Drones raced forward in his direction, as well, so he slammed the door shut, grabbed the second submachine gun, and rushed to the far corner. As he did this, he snatched up his radio, stuck his headset on, and transmitted. “Victor One, Violator. Bay doors are opening!”
Pace responded, “Are the bots going outside?”
“I don’t know, but some are coming after me.”
SIXTY-EIGHT
Up in the cage, Zoya shouted at Jim Pace over the sound of intense gunfire coming from the two main entrances to the room behind her.
“We have to get down to Court!”
But Pace wasn’t listening; instead, he looked over Hinton’s shoulder to confirm that the upload continued.
She turned and began running out of the cage, but as she passed Hinton’s assistant, standing there being held by Victor Six, the woman looked at her with pleading eyes, conveying that she had something she wanted to say.
Zoya grabbed her by her arm and wrenched her free from Victor Six’s grasp.
Pace was hurriedly overseeing the two Bravo Zulu men placing explosives on the mainframes and not paying attention to Zoya, but Travers called out to her as she rushed away. “Anthem. Don’t be a hero. We pull these drives and we stop the bots right here and end this.”
She said nothing, just continued shepherding the woman along down a row of mainframe cabinets.
When they were just out of view, Zoya said, “What is it?”
The British woman spoke softly. “You need to get to assembly, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a fire escape. It goes all the way up and down the building from the tunnel to the roof. On U1 it leads to a hall right off the assembly floor.”
“Where is it?”
Nervously, the woman said, “I…I can show you the way. There’s a hand reader at the Assembly Room door, I can open it.” She added nervously now, “But there might be LAWs between here and there.”
“Take me there, I’ll keep you safe.”
Though her eyes appeared terrified, Kimmie nodded. “Follow me.”
They turned left at a bank of cabinets and together they ran all the way to the south wall, on the far side of all the shooting, and here Kimmie motioned to a small door.
Zoya tried the latch, her rifle in front of her. The door opened and she found herself on the landing of a narrow metal staircase.
The Asian woman began ascending, and Zoya followed at first, but quickly she got in front of the unarmed woman in case they encountered any threats.
•••
