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It was… pride? Pride as it looked past Jack and Poppy. Another bullet slammed into the AI’s seemingly fragile leg, but it didn’t fire back.
“Find Caine, Jack,” it suddenly commanded. “It is imperative. He will kill your woman and interfere with my objective. You must find him.”
Another bullet struck its shoulder and Poppy knew it only pretended to falter. Because then it jumped. Straight from the floor, as the flashlights on the weapons followed it, to the top of the security wall where it was open between the wall’s header and the warehouse’s roof by a good six feet.
Then it was gone.
“Don’t lose her,” Jack yelled as the ropes suddenly came free of Poppy’s hands, then her feet. “Follow her.”
He was on his feet as more lights filled the room and Ian and Kira were kneeling beside her.
“Go!” Ian Richards nodded to Jack. “Hurry.”
And Poppy watched Jack race away from her.
He was leaving her, running into danger, his expression savage and determined.
“Come on.” Ian lifted her to her feet. “Let’s go.”
He her from the room and the warehouse into the bright sunlight beyond, and into chaos. Soldiers were running to the other warehouses, orders being shouted, and Army vehicles speeding into the enclosed facility.
What made Poppy look up, she wasn’t certain. But there, just inside the tree line, it stood. The AI that had escaped only minutes before. It lifted its hand in a half salute, then turned and disappeared from sight. And no one was following.
“Where’s Jack?” she whispered, as Ian rushed her through the compound. “Where is he?”
“He’s fine,” Ian assured her hurriedly. “Here, my men will take you home…”
“No…” Poppy cried out, clutching at Ian’s arm, staring around desperately, certain Jack would be there. He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t…
With a quick movement of his hand, Jack sent Hayes, Hank, and Lucas on a parallel path up the heavily forested hill where they’d last caught sight of the AI. It was damaged, he knew, but how the damage affected it, he wasn’t certain. It sure as hell didn’t appear affected as it jumped from the floor of the warehouse to the top of the wall.
And it sure as hell didn’t seem affected as it sprinted up the hill with a speed that was astounding. And tracking it wasn’t hard, which was worrying. As his gaze slid from tree to tree, constantly moving, he could feel the threat in the air.
It was watching him and his team as they tracked it. Tracking them as well, no doubt.
Why hadn’t it shot him and Poppy when it had the chance? It could have taken out all of them, despite whatever damage it might have sustained. And that jump from the floor to the top of the partition wall hadn’t shown any indication at all that it had sustained damage.
A bullet to the chest, shoulder, and leg for sure, he knew, and there had been reports that at least one of the soldiers outside had managed at least one shot to the fleeing computer’s legs.
This was fucking insane.
It was even worse than the canine robotics he’d seen in the field. At least the four-legged variety had depended on orders to activate its programming. This seemed to be acting purely autonomously.
“Sitrep,” he murmured into the comm link he wore at his ear.
“In position,” Hayes answered, his response placing him just above Jack to the left in the same pattern in which they’d entered the forest.
“In position,” Lucas’s low report came a breath later.
Jack moved his gaze slowly to his left, tracking each shadow and tree until he finally caught sight of the other man.
“Same,” Hank’s quiet response came a moment later.
At least they were all alive. God help that bag of electronics if one of these men didn’t survive the day.
“Just ahead,” Lucas said as they moved up the mountain. “My twelve o’clock.”
Jack’s gaze followed the line where Lucas should be until he glimpsed the slightest hint of a leather bomber jacket disappearing behind several trees bunched together.
