The glass security doors of the gaming pit opened silently, admitting a Korr strike team—half a dozen heavily armed men wearing Kevlar helmets, gas masks, and black body armor. They entered in close formation, single file, guns aimed over each other’s shoulders. The white Korr logo was a just a large stylistic “K,” like a heraldic symbol on their black helmets and breastplates.
Across the room another set of glass doors opened, revealing a second Korr strike team, identical to the first. The team leaders exchanged hand signals, then advanced in unison. They were a steely-eyed, professional bunch, with automatic weapons, Tasers, and beanbag guns at the ready. They moved as one, threading rapidly through the tangle of workstations toward their target. They clearly knew their business.
The strike teams fanned out, aiming toward the far corner of the room. As they moved in, several of them held up printed signs reading Danger: Do not speak. Leave immediately. White-hat gamers looked up one by one, nudging each other. Their game chatter died down, but the guards took up chatter of their own to compensate:
“Team two, cover that left flank.”
“Stop bunching up.”
“Cover that exit!”
“Clear the field of fire.”
The strike teams kept up a steady stream of talk as they formed into a wedge, focused directly on the target: the three gamers in the corner of the room. They could see the gamers’ heads dodging left and right beyond flat-panel monitors, reacting to what was displayed on their computer screens. All three men were completely absorbed in their games.
The forward team leader held up three gloved fingers and pointed directly at the players in the corner. Best to take all three down.
The strike teams were still tugging stunned gamers aside, holding a finger up for silence, then pointing to the exits.
Finally the two strike teams were in position, arrayed around their quarry at a distance of ten or twelve feet. They stared at the heads of three gamers—patches of close-cropped, spiky hair. The ambient chatter had died down now, and the targeted gamers appeared to sense something was up. They glanced around as the last of their neighbors scurried to safety. They were isolated. Silence finally fell upon the room, except for the stereo sound effects of nearby 3-D games.
One of the Korr team leaders touched a microphone switch on his gas mask and shouted in an amplified radio voice. “Users 23, 24, and 25. Remain seated, and put your hands where we can see them. This is not a drill!”
The two gamers on the left immediately raised their hands and looked up in utter shock. When they got a look at the dozen weapons pointed in their direction, they turned a shade paler than they already were.
The young guy on the right remained motionless, still sitting behind his monitor.
“User 25! Put your hands where we can see them! Now!” The team leader motioned for the two users on the left to clear the area. They were happy to oblige, and as they complied, two guards pepper-sprayed them in the face. They collapsed screaming as the guards zipped hand ties onto their wrists. It was done with expert swiftness and precision—like calf roping in a rodeo—and in no time, the guards were back on their feet, weapons ready.
User 25 was now isolated. A couple dozen eyes memorized the top of his head through gun sights. Bright laser dots clustered on his scalp.
The booming radio voice kept up the pressure. “Show your hands! Now!”
User 25 took a deep breath. “This is a mistake.”
“Hands where we can see them or we open fire!”
“A big mistake.”
“I said hands in the air!”
User 25 finally raised his hands. They were wrapped in jet-black gloves with silver caps—like thimbles—on the end of each index finger. Something was set in the palm of each hand, like a large crystal.
Suddenly a white-hot flash several times brighter than the sun pulsed through the room, followed closely by a second flash from User 25’s other hand. It took several moments for the light to flare down.
The strike teams were initially stunned, but then needles of agony burned into their brains. They dropped their weapons as they collapsed onto their knees, grabbing at their eyes and clawing their gas masks off their faces, screaming.
Brian Gragg kicked his chair away and stood up from the gaming workstation. As the blinded strike team members writhed on the floor, crying out, Gragg moved calmly toward the burly team leader who had shouted at him. Gragg aimed a silver-capped index finger at the man—a lens at its very tip. Black fiber optic and electrical cables ran down the back of Gragg’s hand like veins, disappearing beneath his shirt. “The name is Loki, asshole.”
A ruler-straight bolt of electricity cracked like a bullwhip from his fingertip into the man’s body armor, followed by a flickering series of bolts in quick succession—three a second. The team leader’s muscles jerked with each thunderclap. The smell of ozone filled the air.
After the last crack, Gragg lowered his hand, and the team leader dropped to the ground dead, his body smoking and sizzling.
Grimacing from the pain in his eyes, the other team leader glanced around blindly and shouted, “Who’s shooting!”
“That’s not shooting!”
“Hooks!” A pause. “Where’s Hooks!”
“Get to cover and sound off! Sound off!”
Gragg moved toward the fallen men. He pointed and let loose with several seconds of deafening thunderclaps. Men crawled away screaming, only to be immobilized the moment the first bolt hit them.
In a few seconds they were all motionless or convulsing.
The sickening smell of burnt hair came to Gragg’s nostrils.
“What the hell just happened?” Philips stared at a bank of security monitors. The security command center was packed with Korr Security folks pointing at monitors and barking into radios.
The Major snapped his fingers at the control board operator. “Get on the horn to Weyburn Labs. Tell them we might be facing an illicit LIP-C weapon. I need countermeasures and tactics.”
Merritt watched the intruder on the monitor. “What’s an LIP-C weapon?”
“Laser-Induced Plasma Channel. Uses laser light as a virtual wire for electricity.”
“Where did he get it?”
“The Daemon appears to be dipping into our research pipeline.”
Philips turned on him. “Just how many sections of the intelligence apparatus have been compromised, Major?”
“Not now, Doctor. We’ve got men down.”
Ross, Merritt, and Philips stared at the large central monitor. There, the intruder was stepping among the fallen strike team members, sprawled on the floor of the gaming pit.
The Major barked at the board operator. “Seal zones three through six. Let’s contain this asshole.”
Another Korr officer spoke up. “I’ve got an identity on User 25: Michael Radcliffe. Grad student, MIT—”
The Major waved it aside. “That’s bullshit. Radcliffe’s probably dead.”
“Should we pump tear gas through the ventilation ducts, sir?”
“Use your brain. There’s a dozen gas masks in there with him.” The Major checked his watch. “Call in an electronic warfare team and a demolitions team. We need to jam this fucker’s uplink, then kill him.” He turned to nearby Korr officers. “I want commercially marked choppers over our twenty. Scramble the perimeter defense teams. Lethal force authorized. No one enters or leaves this facility until I say otherwise.”
“Understood, Major.”
Philips pushed up to him. “Major, we should try to take this man alive.”
“We’re not capturing anyone, Doctor. This situation is going to end right now, and whatever’s left is all yours.”
Ross pointed at the monitor. “He’s doing something.”
They all looked up.
The intruder was standing, moving his arms as though controlling invisible objects, his mouth moving in a rhythmic chant.
Gragg concentrated on the plane of D-Space. The entire floor plan of Building Twenty-Nine was replicated there, spread out around him as a life-sized wire-frame model overlaid on the GPS grid. It aligned precisely with the corners of each wall in the real world. This allowed Gragg to see the geometry of adjoining rooms. More importantly, images from the building’s dense network of security cameras were wrapped around the wire-frame model’s geometry, showing a patchwork of live video from those neighboring rooms—giving Gragg an almost X-ray vision through the dense concrete.
Korr personnel sprinted through the hallways, loading weapons and sealing doorways. They were ants in his ant colony. He had seen the strike teams getting ready all the way back in their locker room.
The garrison was in disarray.
Gragg turned to look far beyond the concrete walls of Building Twenty-Nine, to distant, glowing call-outs in D-Space. He selected dozens of virtual objects he’d stored there, then launched his prearranged summoning sequence, making somatic gestures and speaking the unlock code to the VOIP module. “Andos ethran Kohlra Bethru. Lord of a million eyes, Loki summons you….”
Gragg looked through the sealed blast doors leading into the lab. The guards there had been pulled inside, but Gragg looked into the artificial dimension beyond them. He aimed his gloved finger at a virtual object in the lab, an object he had insinuated into the equipment collection some time ago. Gragg closed his fist on the object in D-Space.
Somewhere beyond those thick concrete walls a compressed air tank sprayed powdered aluminum across the lab space—then ignited it with an electrical spark. Suddenly the building shuddered, followed by a dull roar and the muted shrieks of twisting metal. A deafening klaxon sounded the alarm throughout the facility. Blue strobes flickered near the exits.
The Major scanned the security monitors as a dozen red lights blinked on a floor plan map. There. The lab was consumed in flames. The camera image rippled with interference, vertical hold skipping. One of the scientists ran through the picture, burning alive beneath white-hot flames. Sprinklers deployed to little effect.
“Goddamnit…”
“The science team. Get medics to the lab! And the equipment collection—”
“It’s too late….” Ross pointed to the monitor.
On-screen an acetylene tank was spinning in a pinwheel of flame near the lab table, then exploded, shaking the building again. The monitor image went dead.
Philips slumped and covered her eyes. “We just lost some of our best people, not to mention the Daemon equipment collection.”
Merritt grabbed The Major’s shoulder. “Where do you need me?”
“Sit tight, Merritt.” The Major looked back at Philips. “Are you still glad you conducted your little test, Doctor?”
“Without this test we never would have discovered we’d been infiltrated.”
Ross nodded. “That’s why we weren’t able to join Daemon Factions. He was tracking our every move.”
The Major turned to him. “Maybe we shouldn’t have been playing games with the Daemon in the first place.”
The board operator looked up again. “He’s not going anywhere, Major. The gaming pit is locked down.”
Gragg stood before the sealed bulletproof glass doors barring his exit. The camera-lined corridor beyond led to the building entry vestibule.
Gragg turned to face another D-Space object hovering just to the right of the glass doors. It was a surreal blue button, floating impossibly there as seen through his HUD glasses. It was labeled in large glowing letters: OPEN. Gragg tapped the virtual button with his gloved hand. It flashed.
The real-world ballistic glass doors slid open, and he stepped through the opening and entered the anteroom beyond.
Philips threw up her hands. “He’s out of the gaming pit.”
Ross gestured to the monitors. “The security system’s been compromised.”
“Who subcontracted that, I wonder?”
The Major gave her a look. “Stow that shit right now.” He turned to the board operator. “Physically cut the power to the north perimeter doors.”
The board operator rolled back in his chair. He opened an electrical panel on the back wall and started tripping breaker switches.
Philips leaned over the board and clicked from camera to camera. “Where is he?”
“Don’t worry, Doctor. He’s trapped.”
“That’s what you said last time. Show me.”
“We just tripped the breakers. The perimeter doors are frozen in a locked position. He’s not getting through inch-thick steel plating.”
She studied the bank of black-and-white monitors. The large one in the center now showed the intruder standing in a dead-end hallway some distance from the exterior steel doors. He stood above three newly fallen guards, their bodies smoking. The intruder was just staring up at the camera. Unnervingly calm. He was only a kid—early twenties at most.
The Major nodded at the monitor. “I told you we’d stop him.” He turned to a nearby guard. “I want every gun on the tarmac focused on that exit.”
Philips leaned into the microphone sticking up from the control board. She held down the mic switch. “You’re trapped. Give up, and you won’t be hurt.”
The intruder’s tinny voice came in over the speakers. “Dr. Philips, I see you discovered D-Space. Or at least a layer of it.”
A flash of fear swept through her. He knew her real name. How could he possibly know her name? Thoughts of her parents in D.C. thrust front and center in her mind. She turned to The Major. “Call Dr. Fulbright at Fort Meade. Tell him to take my parents into protective custody. Now!”
The Major snapped his fingers at a Korr guard, who grabbed another phone.
She keyed the mic. “You know who I am. So who are you—or are you afraid to tell me your name?”
“Bitch. I’m Loki, the most powerful sorcerer in the world, and I’m about to ruin your whole fucking day.”
Merritt took off his suit jacket and headed for the door. “Keep this nutcase busy, Doctor.”
Ross grabbed Merritt’s arm. “No heroics, Roy.”
“I don’t plan on any.”
The Major blocked his path. “Where are you going?”
Merritt looked calmly at him. “I’m going to see how that prick deals with flash-bang grenades. Unlock the gaming pit, Major.”
The Major appraised Merritt for a moment, then grabbed a radio and headset from a nearby charging station. The man looked as determined as he had in the famous Burning Man images from Sobol’s mansion. He tossed them to Merritt. “Good luck.” The Major watched him exit.
Philips turned back to the monitor and keyed the mic again. “Loki, Sobol is using you. What you’re doing is high treason. If you surrender now, I can help you.”
“You can help me?” He laughed. “I’m not the one who needs help. The society you’re defending is doomed.”
“It’s your society, too, Loki.”
“No. It’s my parents’ society, not mine. What does it offer my generation? A meaningless existence. Living long, boring lives, milked each day by salesmen. Livestock for a permanent ruling class. Well, I have no use for their laws, their maps, their failures. The Daemon has already defeated them.”
“This is your last warning: surrender.”
Loki smiled. “You don’t get it, do you?”
Philips sighed in exasperation and pounded the mic button again. “We physically cut the power to the door in front of you. Your hacks won’t work. Even if you manage to get through the door, we’ve got snipers covering the tarmac. They’ll cut you down from two hundred meters downrange. Just surrender.”
Loki shook his head. “You’re not thinking in enough dimensions, Doctor. Only part of me is in this building.”
Squads of heavily armed Korr Security guards ran to take up positions next to a guard shack ringed with highway barriers and razor wire at the perimeter gate. Behind them a quarter mile of bare tarmac stretched to the nearest hangar, but most of their attention was drawn inward, to Building Twenty-Nine itself. They listened to their encrypted radios and the voice coming through it.
“Shoot on sight. Repeat: Shoot on sight….”
“Copy that, Secom. Out.”
A bay breeze kicked up, sending scraps of paper tumbling over the expanse of concrete and flattening them against the chain-link fencing. Nearer to the building another squad of Korr guards with scoped M4A1s rushed to take up positions in the staff parking lot—the best cover available. They took aim at the sealed steel doors of the building.
The roar of speeding engines suddenly came in on the wind. One guard turned, then urgently grabbed his officer’s shoulder, pointing. “Pas op!”
They both turned to see one, then six, then fifteen, then thirty cars screaming in from several vectors along the runway, racing in through the gaps between distant hangar buildings. The cars swerved with remarkable coordination, all converging on Building Twenty-Nine like a school of piranha.
“Polizei?”
The lieutenant blew a whistle, and everyone turned to face him. He pointed and shouted with an Afrikaans accent. “Incoming! Take cover!”
“Might be car bombs.”
“Belay that!” The cars had already closed half the distance. More were issuing from between the distant hangars. The lieutenant keyed his radio. “Secom, we have several dozen vehicles inbound at high speed. Code 30.”
Nothing but static came back.
“Scheisse.” He turned to his men. “Fire at will!”
Automatic gunfire erupted from a score of positions. The shots cracked flatly in the open air of the runway. Tracer rounds ripped across the tarmac, ricocheting off the concrete and whining into the sky.
“Knock out the lead cars! The lead cars!”
A light antitank rocket blasted from their lines in a pall of smoke and detonated against a mid-sized car at fifty yards, turning it into a tumbling ball of flame. A black domestic sedan swerved around the wreckage and came roaring onward. Half a dozen divots appeared in the black-tinted windshield at head level right in front of the driver’s seat, revealing a high degree of marksmanship. Then hundreds more bullets tore through its front grill. As its engine died another car surged past it, and as that one was riddled with bullets, yet another took its place. Already ten cars were smoking and rolling to a stop—but still more came on.
The shooting died down as half the squad dropped clips and hurriedly reloaded.
“Watch that left flank!”
The lieutenant leaned around the guard shack just in time to see a car’s front grill—which was the last thing he ever saw.
The car crashed into the fence line and concrete highway divider at 110 mph, disappearing into a cloud of concrete dust and debris as it tumbled end over end. It was immediately followed by three other sedans, crashing through the gate. Automatic weapons stitched them full of bullet holes from several directions. Shouting filled the gaps in the gunfire.
But other cars had already blasted through the fence line elsewhere, dragging great serrated lengths of chain-link fencing behind them. These caught guards across the thighs, tearing their flesh and dragging them screaming, even as other guards blasted out windows and peppered car bodies with bullets from M249s with 200-round belts.
Now they could plainly see the cars were unmanned.
“Dit kan nie wees, nie!”
“Fall back! Fall back!”
A car crashed into the edge of the parking lot, while two others careened off each other and slammed into a scattering pack of guards with such force that the guards’ bodies hurtled twenty yards and landed in the bay, followed closely by the cars that hit them. The cars sent up geysers of water as they hit the surface.
In the distance, more AutoM8s kept streaming through the gaps between warehouses.
Merritt raced out into the gaming pit, Berretta drawn. Automatic gunfire crackled like popcorn somewhere outside. “Damnit…“
Merritt slowed as he reached the still-smoking bodies of the strike teams sprawled between the workstations. He knelt to feel the pulse of the nearest one. Nothing.
He scavenged an HK UMP .40-cal submachine gun with a web belt of extra clips and flash-bang grenades, then spoke into his headset microphone. “Merritt to Secom. What the hell’s going on out there? Over.”
The Major talked into a radio headset. “Agent Merritt, we’re under attack. Stand by.”
Inside the security control room, the sound of muffled automatic weapons fire was starting to be eclipsed by roaring engines and crashing. The Major watched the external monitors. One camera showed a head-on view of a driverless, bullet-riddled car nailing the camera pole, the screen filling with snow. “Why didn’t they sound the alarm?” He was having trouble comprehending it. “This isn’t a guerrilla raid—this is a frontal assault.”
Ross examined the screens. “Computer-controlled vehicles. Dozens of them. The Factions call them AutoM8s.”
The Major stared at the large central monitor on the control board—seemingly the only monitor not at present depicting mayhem.
On-screen the intruder was busy moving his arms—manipulating invisible objects. He glanced up at the security camera. His voice came over the speaker. “I’ll let myself out.”
Just then, some ten yards behind the intruder, the steel doors were staved in by a shredded mass of metal. The whole building shook with a dull thud, concrete dust sifting down through seams.
The intruder barely flinched.
The car that had smashed in the steel doors was now entirely blocking the exit. But then another unseen vehicle cut in from the side and ripped the first one out of the hole with a deafening crash.
The opening was now clear.
Merritt heard the first crash and saw sunlight streaming in from beyond the sealed ballistic doors. He loaded the UMP and by the second crash he was rushing toward the glass doors.
Gragg emerged into the sunlight through the shattered opening of the main door.
As he did so, a silver BMW 740 with blacked-out windows rolled up to meet him. Its rear door opened, and he slid inside, pulling the door closed behind him. The BMW screeched off toward the wrecked fence line, followed close on by a pack of domestic sedans.
Merritt emerged from the dark, smoking doorway screaming, “Loki!” He stopped, clutched his UMP’s fore grip, and opened up with three short bursts, expertly tagging the tinted rear windshield with a dozen closely grouped shots. The .40-cal bullets left small divots but not much else. The car was obviously a security model.
“Goddamnit!” Merritt lowered his gun and watched a sizeable pack of unmanned vehicles converge like a single organism, surrounding the BMW to shield it. They accelerated toward the distant fence line, running over several bodies in the process. The pack of cars was heading for the distant hangars at high speed.
Merritt glanced around at the carnage surrounding Building Twenty-Nine. There were bodies, streaks of blood, burning vehicles, and debris littering the tarmac. Columns of black smoke billowed skyward. There wasn’t a guard in sight—or any intact unmanned vehicles for that matter. They had all left with Loki.
Merritt spotted a racing motorcycle parked along the wall in the staff parking lot. He rushed over to it and searched for keys—nothing. He slung his UMP over his back and pulled his Berretta pistol, aiming it at the ignition lock. He turned his head away.
Boom.
Pieces of plastic and metal parts clattered across the pavement. Merritt holstered the Berretta, then mounted the bike. He turned the shattered lock cylinder to Start and kicked the engine to life, revving its powerful engine. He grabbed the helmet hanging from the handlebars and pulled it on. He flipped down the mirrored visor, and a moment later he screeched out after the pack of automated cars receding in the distance. He accelerated madly through the debris field and rocketed out onto the runway in hot pursuit. He could barely make out the silver BMW in the middle of the car pack, but he targeted it with every ounce of horsepower he had at his disposal. The bike engine howled.
After buckling himself in, Gragg looked back toward Building Twenty-Nine.
Directly over the building a bright red glowing sign towered in D-Space sixty stories tall, rotating like a neon sign and visible for miles around to anyone on the Daemon’s darknet. It proclaimed in giant letters with an arrow pointing down: Top-Secret Anti-Daemon Task Force. Gragg laughed, then raised one black-gloved hand. He drew another glowing red box across D-Space to encompass the entire facility. With a click of his pinky he brought up a pop-up menu, then selected Kill Everyone.
Merritt’s motorcycle howled across the decommissioned runway. He leaned into a swerve at a hundred mph to avoid a pothole, but as he came out of it, he noticed a second wave of unmanned vehicles streaming in toward Building Twenty-Nine. Thirty vehicles, including a couple of white Econoline panel vans. A detachment of mid-sized domestic sedans peeled off from the main group and vectored in on Merritt.
“Oh shit…”
The sedans were almost on him—and still accelerating.
Merritt’s youthful passion for fast motorcycles finally paid off. He thrust his body up and over the left side of the gas tank—expertly pulling into the hardest turn he could manage at high speed. Friction coefficients instinctively ran through his head and muscle memory took over.
The first blue sedan screamed past on the right rear flank with a margin so close the wind pounded into Merritt’s thigh.
Merritt leaned right.
Half a second later, two more sedans clipped each other just feet behind him. Hollow crashing sounds—as of rolling vehicles—boomed, then quickly faded behind him.
The fourth one came so close it tore Merritt’s left rear turning light off. This left Merritt wavering and off balance. The motorcycle yawed from side to side for a few moments until he got it back under control. He was now highly aware that he wasn’t wearing riding gear.
He looked up to see Loki’s pack of cars racing through the decommissioned base’s front gate. Merritt shot a glance behind him. Two cars were pursuing and closing fast. He yanked on the throttle, and raw acceleration nearly ripped him off the saddle.
Merritt raced down a lane between hangars and keyed his radio. “Merritt to Secom. In pursuit of Loki. He’s headed…east…in an armored, silver late-model BMW. It’s surrounded by a pack of unmanned vehicles. More are headed your way.”
The Major’s voice came in over the radio. “Agent Merritt, terminate this pursuit. Repeat: Terminate pursuit immediately.”
Merritt emerged from between the hangars and saw Loki’s pack racing out into the city streets, smashing other traffic aside. “Negative. This guy’s a danger to the public.”
“Repeat: Terminate this chase!”
“I don’t report to you, Major! Until the bureau orders me otherwise, I’m going after this bastard. Out.”
He accelerated out the abandoned front gates of Alameda Naval Air Station and hit the surface roads with a bounce.
Gragg cinched the racing harness tighter around his body as the powerful BMW AutoM8 roared into the streets of Oakland.
The unmanned steering wheel spun crazily as it went into a power slide around the corner. AutoM8s crowded Gragg’s car on either side, muscling other cars out of their way. His entourage was a pack of a dozen sedans. He saw their random, alphanumeric call-outs hovering in D-Space all around him.
He concentrated further ahead—on the dozens more AutoM8s streaming in toward him from across the city. His strength was growing by the minute, now reaching upwards of a hundred vehicles.
He waved his gloved hands and screeched cars across the mouths of distant intersections, sealing out cross-traffic and opening the way ahead.
Gragg’s own pack invaded a busy intersection against the light—sparking several broadside crashes as his minions forced a path for him. Smashing glass followed screeching rubber. Wrecked cars spun out of control, and pedestrians ran for cover.
Gragg’s BMW raced through the carnage and past a local patrolman ticketing a landscaper’s truck. Gragg’s eyes narrowed, and he brought video from dashboard cameras of a trailing AutoM8 up onto his HUD display. In the video window Gragg could see the local cop sprinting to his squad car, speaking urgently into his hand radio.
With a subtle motion of his hand Gragg clicked on the license plate of the police car, locking the nearest AutoM8 onto it.
The video image disappeared in a cloud of snow on impact, and Gragg chuckled to himself, imagining the consequences.
On the tarmac surrounding Building Twenty-Nine, two white panel vans came to a stop as a dozen more AutoM8s circled around them, on guard. The rear doors to each van opened, and metal mesh ramps dropped onto the pavement with a clang.
A deep, guttural roar rose over the other engines, and down each ramp rolled a riderless, black racing motorcycle with dozens of brushed steel blades running along their tops and sides like cooling fins. Neither bike had handlebars, but instead had forward-mounted hydraulic assemblies of brushed steel, folded tightly. A cowling of black laminate armor enclosed the front. In place of a rider’s saddle was a circular steel dome about a foot in diameter, its surface etched with mystical symbols. Nearly every inch of the bikes was covered in runes and glyphs and razor-sharp blades. They were as much fetish objects as machines.
The motorcycles rolled to a stop and twin hydraulic jacks slammed down onto the pavement like oversized kickstands or half-formed legs. They thrust each bike nearly a foot off the ground, where they stood revving their 1800cc engines deafeningly. Then twin robotic arms with gleaming three-foot sword blades unfolded from the forward hydraulic assemblies, lashing forth on gimbals, arcing smoothly with blinding speed as they ran through diagnostics like insects cleaning their antennae.
At some unseen signal, the bikes retracted their kickstand jacks and hit the pavement, rear wheels smoking. They streaked off toward the hulking silhouette of Building Twenty-Nine in the distance.
Philips and The Major moved swiftly down a corridor, followed by Ross and four heavily armed Korr guards. Personnel raced past them in both directions, carrying computers and boxes of files. The Major was speaking on his L3 phone. “I understand.” A pause. “Yes. We’re working back channels to warn off civilian authorities. I will.” He snapped the phone shut.
They reached the gaming pit and could see black smoke seeping from the seams of the sealed lab blast doors, hinting at the inferno burning within. Korr medics were doing CPR on two strike team members, while other guards were placing bodies in a row on the floor.
Philips slowed for a moment. “My God…”
The Major pulled her past and motioned for Ross to follow. “We’re evacuating this facility. Choppers are on the way. I’m taking the first one to go after Agent Merritt. I want you and Mr. Ross on chopper two.”
“Where is Merritt?”
“He went out after this ‘Loki’ person, but we can track him. His radio has GPS.”
Ross noticed guards pass by, uncoiling detonator wire from a reel. “What’s going on?”
“We’re about to have a serious industrial accident here. Prearranged cover story.”
Philips snapped alert. “This facility still contains critical equipment and data, Major.”
“This facility is in danger of being overrun by the enemy, Doctor.”
Philips thought about this for a moment, then produced her own encrypted phone and started punching numbers. “I haven’t received orders to abandon this facility, and until I do, I’m not going anywhere.”
“In that case…” The Major drew a Glock 9mm pistol from his coat and chambered a round. “I can’t risk you falling into enemy hands. Your knowledge of U.S. ciphers is too great.”
Ross stepped in front of her. “Wait!”
“Do you want to see my orders, Doctor?”
She was speechless, staring at the business end of the pistol.
Ross held his hands up. “She’ll go, Major.”
The Major lowered his gun. “Puts it into perspective, doesn’t it? Now get ready to pull out.”
“What about my people?”
“They’re no longer your people. This task force has been dissolved. I’ve been ordered to send you back to Fort Meade and to remand Mr. Ross to the custody of the FBI.”
“On what charges?”
“Multiple counts of wire fraud and identity theft.”
She stared at The Major. “That’s insane. He just made a breakthrough.”
“This task force has been ineffective at curbing the rapid growth of the Daemon. Your narrow field of expertise is being folded into a larger effort. Mr. Ross’s services are no longer required. If they ever were.”
Ross looked unsurprised. “But I have an amnesty agreement with the Justice Department.”
“The terms of which you failed to meet.”
“We failed because task force functions were compromised by private contractors.”
The Major nodded to the nearby guards, who raised stun guns. “These men will see that you’re delivered safely. Resistance is optional.”
Philips kept shaking her head. “Major, if Merritt captures Loki, we can find out how they compromised our systems.”
“The Daemon won this round, Doctor. I have orders to break off contact with the infiltrator as soon as possible.”
“You can’t just let Loki escape.”
“The number one goal right now is keeping the existence of the Daemon a secret until we mitigate the risks to the global economy. That goal is not compatible with open warfare on our perimeter or by Agent Merritt pursuing a pack of robotic vehicles through downtown Oakland. We’re lucky we don’t already have news choppers swarming overhead.”
“If we can stop this thing now, it will be worth the hit to the economy.”
“I’ll be sure to put that in my report, Comrade Philips.”
The thumping of a chopper was now audible. The Major spoke to a nearby Korr guard. “Hold them here, and rush them to the roof when the second chopper arrives—but not before. Understood?”
The lead guard saluted. “Yes, Major.”
The radio on the guard’s belt crackled to life. “This is Perimeter-9…do you copy?”
The Major motioned for the guard to hand it to him, and he started heading toward the stairwell doors as he keyed the mic. “This is Secom, Perimeter-9. What’s your status?”
Out on the tarmac Perimeter-9 clutched a radio handset and winced in pain. “All units down. Repeat: all perimeter units are down. Request medevac and air support.” He limped painfully behind a wrecked and bullet-riddled AutoM8. His lower leg was stained with blood just below a makeshift tourniquet. The leg was badly mangled.
The Major’s voice came over the radio through a haze of static. “Report on the unmanned vehicles.”
“They left with the intruder. But more of them just arrived. They’re forming for another attack. I’m out of ammo, sir. Badly injured.” He craned his neck back toward a chopper angling in toward the roof of Building Twenty-Nine. “Requesting immediate airlift.”
“Negative. Just stay put, Nine. Help’s on the way.”
Just then Perimeter-9 heard the howl of high-performance engines. He turned to see twin racing motorcycles streaking across the tarmac in his direction. They were moving in close formation at 150 mph or more.
“Hold it. I’ve got two motorcycles inbound….” He stepped behind the fender of the car, putting the car hood between him and the approaching bikes. “They’re moving fast as hell.”
“Where are they headed?”
Suddenly a brilliant green laser light dazzled his eyes. He held up his hands against it, squinting. “Hang on, I’m being painted by something. I can’t see—”
The roaring engines were suddenly on him and he heard a deep thwack. He was completely disoriented for several moments. As his vision cleared, he had a view from the ground—a view of his own headless, one-armed body slumping over the hood of the car ten feet away, then sliding onto the pavement.
Back in the gaming pit, The Major was already gone. His voice came through on a nearby guard’s radio. “Perimeter-9! Do you copy?”
Ross watched eight armed guards piling black bags onto the floor for transport. Two were staring at him with hard eyes—stun guns ready.
“I guess I should have seen this coming.”
Philips squeezed his shoulder. “I won’t let them do this to you, Jon. I have friends in Washington, too.”
Suddenly the howl of racing engines echoed down the corridor behind the nearby ballistic doors. Everyone turned to see shadows streak along the corridor wall, then twin black motorcycles roared into view beyond the closed bulletproof glass doors. They raised robotic blade arms menacingly. The blades on the lead bike were already stained with blood.
Everyone stepped back away from the doors. The Korr guards raised their weapons, clicking off their safeties. Ross pointed toward the far glass doors. “Let’s get to the roof. Now!”
Philips stared at the machines beyond the sealed Lexan glass. The most exotic thing that the Daemon had spawned yet. “Jon, I’ve seen the word ‘Razorback’ listed in decrypted Daemon intercepts. This could—”
A spiraling green light stabbed forth from the face of the lead bike, beaming through the ballistic glass into her eyes. She screamed and slammed her palms against her face, staggering back.
Ross rushed forward and grabbed her. He pulled her behind the guards, who were also dazed by the light. “Don’t look at them! They have blinding weapons!”
Then the ballistic doors slid open with their familiar hiss—and the roar of the advancing Razorbacks filled the cavernous gaming pit. Followed by gunfire and—almost immediately—bloodcurdling screams.
Ross pulled on Philips’s arm. “Run!” The engine roar was deafening now as Ross guided Philips down the adjacent hall toward the open security control room door. There was only a smattering of gunfire now as the roar of the engines zigzagged across the room behind them. Smashing furniture. Ross risked a quick glance back behind them. Blood was spattered all over the walls and floor near the ballistic doors. A Korr guard was running toward him, firing blindly over his shoulder as a Razorback raised twin, bloody blades and screeched after him on the polished concrete, green laser spiraling. Ross turned away as a series of metallic ringing sounds, screams, and sharp thwacks accompanied the roar of engines.
Ross reached the security control room door, half dragging the blinded Philips across the polished floor.
“What’s happening, Jon? What’s happening?”
“Keep moving!” He took another glance behind them as the same Razorback accelerated down the hallway in their direction. Ross looked away just as a laser light played across his face.
He pulled Philips inside the control room, then dropped her on the floor and raced back toward the open control room door. He kicked the hollow steel door closed just as the Razorback screeched to a stop in front of it. He put a shoulder against the door and slammed it shut, locking it.
Almost instantly a series of massive dents deformed the door, accompanied by the thunderous roar of a powerful engine. The pounding continued, deforming the door surface as Ross backed away from it.
He felt Philips clutching for his leg. “Jon, I think I’m blind!”
He glanced toward another door leading out the far side of the control room. He knelt next to her and shouted over the engine noise. “Nat, we can’t stay here!”
She gripped her face, tears streaming down from between her fingers. “My eyes, Jon! They’re burning!”
He grabbed her roughly. “Nat! Nat, listen to me!”
She stopped. The Razorback’s pounding vibrated the floor.
“It could be temporary.” He looked back at the door. “If we don’t leave here now, we’re going to die!”
The sound of deforming metal reinforced his argument.
She took a deep breath and nodded. “Where are we?”
He shouted over the deafening roar of the Razorback. “Security control room!”
She nodded. “We can make it to the back gate!”
He helped her to her feet, and they headed to the door on the far side of the small room.
One of the Razorback’s steel falchions pierced through the door and wrenched free as the engine roared again.
She stopped him. “The perimeter doors. We need to trip the breakers back on.”
“I’ll get it. Just go! Follow the left wall.” He pushed her through the door, then turned. Jagged holes had been torn into the sheet metal of the other door. Part of it was broken away, and he could see one of the Razorback’s gnarled, twisted blade arms through the slits. It paused for a moment, then he heard a ping sound, and the twisted blades spun free like disposable razors, clattering onto the concrete floor in the hallway outside.
Ross rushed to the breaker boxes. He stole a glance at the bank of camera monitors on the control board. One showed the Razorback in the hallway outside, reaching around to its side. A metal click-clack, and the arms rose with fresh, gleaming blades.
“Son of a bitch…” He opened a panel marked Perimeter and tripped all the breakers back on. He raced back to the far door, looking behind just as the Razorback smashed the door in. He turned away as its laser painted him, and it roared across the room. Ross slammed the new door behind them, and the pounding started almost immediately.
A Bell Jet Ranger chopper hovered inches above the cluttered roof of Building Twenty-Nine. The helicopter was electric blue with a bold yellow logo for Golden Gate Heli-Tours. The Major rose from his kneeling position and scurried toward it at a crouch. A crewmember wearing a Korr flak vest pulled him inside. The Major leaned toward the helmeted pilot, who nodded in his direction. The crewman handed The Major a closed-circuit headset, and The Major slipped it on.
The pilot’s voice came over the headphones, “What’s the situation here, Major?”
“I need to get topside. We’ve got a Daemon operative escaping into the city and a federal officer in pursuit. Where’s my kit?”
“Case on the floor, sir.”
The Major pointed at the crewmember and copilot in turn, but spoke to the pilot. “These people, off.”
Both men looked to the pilot, who simply said, “You heard the man. Take the next chopper out.”
They unbuckled themselves and with a hesitant look jumped down onto the roof.
The Major shouted. “Go!”
The pilot yanked on the stick, and the chopper ascended rapidly, making corkscrews of the columns of black smoke.