Armen Gharabegian - Protocol 7

They would gain access to the safe house through a special escape hatch in the double-hulled dome, even if it meant cutting through the metal with a laser. It wouldn’t take them more than a few minutes.

* * *

Hayden started scrambling through the various components scattered on his work desk. He looked over his shoulder at his insane robot as he slapped a small device onto the holo-display and started downloading files he knew he would need.

She had finished her destruction. Now she was just standing there, motionless, over the smoking wreckage of the console. As he glanced at her he saw her head twitch in an almost human way, as if she was listening to a voice only she could hear.

How could it have happened? he asked himself. How could Teah have been seized by Remote Access Intervention? Somebody had the ability to seize control of the AI from a distance-probably a very long distance, through the satellite net itself-and make it do whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted.

To hell with that, he thought, and turned away from his traitorous creation for the last time. Two can play that game.

Nine and a half minutes and counting.

Stay focused, he told himself. Don’t miss anything. There were several key modules that he needed to disconnect and take with him as he fled the facility, or no future plan of any kind would work. He knew that the completed Spector would need to be rigged differently, so he had one chance to grab what he needed.

There was no going back now.

Nine minutes.

His fingers started shaking as he raced through hundreds of security codes that allowed him to access the deepest, most classified files. He was manipulating the entire system through a sequence of passwords that he had created himself to keep others out and protect his work-and now he was the one doing the damage.

There was a faint clang above him-the noise of metal on metal, coming from outside, from beyond the dome itself. Are those footsteps? he asked himself. Or something landing…rolling? He could feel a wild panic rising inside him as the rumbling grew louder.

Six minutes.

He snatched the little memory device off its docking pad. Time to make a run for it, he thought as he fumbled for the last bits of equipment and started sprinting toward the back door. I can’t risk being captured, he thought as he ran. I can’t.

He had never felt such fear before. His body trembled uncontrollably as he filled his arms with a bulky tangle of hardware and ran.

Four min-

He was fifteen feet from the escape hatch when the lights went out.

Damn it, he thought in the middle of the darkness. They were even faster than I thought.

There was a hum and a clank as the emergency lights switched themselves on. Suddenly the ghostly shapes of the Spectors were illuminated by harsh white beams that sliced up from the floor. The outer skin of the vessels, which automatically mimicked the environment, made the vehicles almost invisible. Hayden, short of breath, skidded to a stop and shoved what he had collected into a small duffel bag. He forced himself to keep going, moving very slowly and, in absolute silence, toward the secret escape route.

He was starting to panic.

There were footsteps coming from above. He could hear them. He looked up to see a ceiling hatch directly above Spector I slowly unlock and open. The black ops team lowered themselves through the opening, like spiders dropping in on their prey, holding laser-guided weapons mounted with lethal-looking canisters.

Hayden recognized the attachments to the weapons. Immobilization gas, he told himself. No intruder would have a chance once the gas had reached their system. And this time, I’m the intruder.

He had only one chance, and he decided to take it. He crouched down close to the floor and kept going. Just a few steps, he told himself. Just get out this door; they don’t even know it exists. It’s not on any of the schematics. I made sure of that. Just slip outside, into the tunnel, get to Simon and the others and-

He heard the hissing when he was less than ten feet from the exit.

* * *

The surveillance team released the immobilization gas as they carefully scanned the entire facility for intruders. There was no reason to wait; the facility was supposed to be empty. If anyone was there, they deserved to be gassed; if no one was there, the only cost was a few ounces of antipersonnel aerosol. Either way the Counterforce Team members were already masked. That was standard operating procedure.

It took only seconds for the scanning AI to locate the intruder. It spoke to the team members through the earpieces in their helmets, describing him in detail, feeding them his location as seen through the security cameras.

They spread out into a wide crescent and moved slowly across the bay, following directions, using the equipment as cover, staying quiet. They were in no hurry. Their intruder had nowhere to go.

He was trapped.

Hayden barely made it to the door, duffel bag in hand, before his body started reacting to the gas. His vision distorted as he watched his own hand reaching for the doorknob. He felt his knees weaken as if his joints had suddenly turned to rubber.

He heard a sound behind him, the clack-clack of a weapon being cocked. He didn’t want to turn around-his turn had come, he told himself irrationally-but his body was beyond his control. He spun slowly, like a disoriented swimmer underwater, and saw a man with a gas mask and goggles, dressed in black, pointing a large rifle toward him.

At me, he thought.

He was beginning to lose feeling in his body. He knew it was over.

But he could still sense, just a little, a strong set of hands grabbing him from behind, dragging him back toward the door.

The voice was familiar, though he couldn’t quite place it. A small but effective dose of the immobilization gas had penetrated his system, and he was falling into semi-consciousness. He felt bodiless, but was still strangely aware of everything around him.

“You grab the module case, and I’ll lift him,” the voice said.

Seconds later, everything went black.

The Hidden Entrance

“So I guess this all makes sense to you somehow,” Samantha said, her voice dripping with weary sarcasm.

Jonathan was sitting in the front seat of the Rover. Samantha on the far side of the back seat, watching the empty road and waiting. Waiting for Ryan to finally arrive, waiting for Simon and Andrew to return from the underground tunnel with Hayden in tow, waiting for the world to just return to normal.

Neither of them was very good at waiting. They sniped at each other instead.

“Sam,” Jonathan started, knowing he didn’t want to get into it with her-

“Sam?” she asked. “You haven’t called once in the last year and you feel comfortable calling me ‘Sam?’”

“Okay then, Samantha. My apologies, I didn’t know using a nickname had anything to do with frequency of contact.”

Samantha gave a small snort. “Seriously Jon, stop being yourself.” She turned back toward the entrance of the tube and silently ordered Simon: Come back. NOW.

She’d never been able to completely turn off her feelings for Simon, though she had struggled with them many times. Now, though, everything seemed to be spinning out of control, and she didn’t know what to anticipate next. She had no idea how to feel about anything anymore.

She leaned her head against the cool glass of the Rover’s window, closed her eyes, and sighed deeply.

Jonathan broke the silence.

“Samantha,” he said, “I know how outrageous all of this must seem to you. The secret messages, the wild car chase, the masked men in your flat…it’s crazy, I know.” Samantha’s eyes slowly opened, but she didn’t move her forehead from the coolness of the window. It felt good: solid, stable. “I’m not sure how all of the pieces connect yet,” he said. “None of us are. I’ve only been in England for a few hours, and I’m still not sure if it’s my people or Hayden’s or somebody else entirely who’s chasing us, or what they know. But Sam-Samantha-I came back because I was genuinely afraid that something was going to happen to Simon if I didn’t.”