Three.
Two.
One.
We moved together. I went left, Sebastian went right. My suppressor coughed twice. Both rounds found their target. Headshots. The man dropped without a sound.
Sebastian's arrow punched through the second guard's eye socket. Went so deep the tip came out the back of his skull. The man's finger twitched on the trigger as he fell. One round went wild, sparked off concrete.
“Shit,” Sebastian hissed.
“Inside. Now.”
We dragged the bodies through the door, let it close behind us. The basement opened up into a maze of server racks and humming machinery. Cold air. Blue light. The mechanical heartbeat of data flowing through circuits.
“Noah, we are in,” I said.
“Good. You're looking for server rack seven. Should be in the northeast corner. Main terminal is there. You'll need to access it directly to bypass the encryption. I can walk Sebastian through it while you keep them off him.”
We moved through the racks. Checking corners. Clearing angles. My pulse hammered against my throat. Too quiet. Too easy.
Sebastian reached the terminal first. Pulled out a data cable, plugged into the port. His fingers flew across the keyboard, muscle memory taking over. “Noah, I'm in. What am I looking for?”
“Root directory. Folder labeled 'Transactions.' Start the upload. I'll grab everything as it comes through.”
Then gunfire erupted behind us.
Bullets sparked off server racks. I dove left, returning fire. Glass shattered. Metal screamed. Someone had known we were coming.
“Contact!” I shouted. “Multiple hostiles!”
“I count six heat signatures converging on your position,” Noah's voice stayed calm. Clinical. “They came from a hidden room on the north wall. Sebastian, keep working. Upload's at twelve percent.”
Six targets. Two of us. Sebastian locked at the terminal. Worse math.
A man rounded the corner, rifle raised. I shot him twice. Center mass. He went down. Another took his place immediately. Trained. Coordinating.
Sebastian's left hand never stopped typing. His right hand grabbed his bow, nocked an arrow, and released in one fluid motion. The arrow caught the second man in the chest. Obsidian tip punched through Kevlar like tissue paper. The man staggered. Sebastian typed three more commands, then put another arrow through the man's throat.
“Upload at twenty-eight percent,” Noah reported. “Keep going.”
Three down. Three to go.
A guard charged my position. I met him head-on, ducked under his rifle swing, drove my elbow into his throat. Cartilage crunched. He gagged, stumbled back. I swept his legs, came down on top of him, knife finding the gap between his vest and collar. Blood fountained. He went still.
Sebastian's fingers never stopped moving across the keyboard. His eyes flicked to the right. Guard approaching from his blind spot. He grabbed his bow one-handed, twisted in his chair, and released. The arrow took the man through the eye. Sebastian was back to typing before the body hit the floor.
“Forty-three percent. Faster than I expected.”
Grenades bounced across the floor. Small. Metal. Flash-bangs, maybe. Or worse.
“Down!” I grabbed the nearest server rack, pulled it over as cover. The explosion rocked the basement. Light. Sound. Heat. My ears screamed. Vision went white.
Through the ringing, I heard Sebastian still typing.
Then shapes moved through the smoke. More guards. At least eight. Pouring in from multiple directions.
“Sebastian, we have a problem,” I said.
