Gregg Hurwitz - Prodigal Son

He continued along the wagon-wheel spoke toward the center of the base, where the collection of buildings constituting headquarters were arrayed. Finally a few signs of life—a lone truck rattling toward the perimeter, two airmen halted on the street talking into their phones.

Evan waved. They waved back.

The disk of the lab building loomed ahead, its shiny black doors presenting a unified front. The Mimeticom box truck and dueling SUVs were parked at a slant in front, and he pulled in next to them and hopped out.

In case Joey wasn’t watching, he said sotto voce, “Now.”

As he mounted the stairs, the door buzzed open. He entered.

The outside corridor was dark and desolate, but the massive lab below threw sterile light up through the interior windows. He peeked down, spotting the private contractors way below in the distant rear of the lab, mostly blocked from view by a metal contraption the size of two soccer goals but filled in with various layers. He could barely make out their movement through the slats.

He counted five forms back there—no, six. Assuming that was the full transport team, where was Molleken? Evan scanned the space, found the OpsCenter at the dead middle of the lab. That’s where he’d have to insert the Yubico key and the Hak5 USB Rubber Ducky.

He pulled back to avoid being seen, walking along the curved corridor to the elevators, the wall lights turning on as Joey illuminated his way.

The sensor pad blinked green before he could touch it, summoning the elevator.

The front doors banged open behind him, two MPs moving inside. The beefy one spotted him. “Hey!”

Evan turned as they jogged toward him and waved them to hurry. “Move it! The base perimeter’s been compromised. We gotta alert the transport team.”

The MPs arrived as the elevator dinged open. “Who are you?”

“I’m an engineer in the microdrone division.” Evan stepped onto the car. “Come on, come on.”

The MPs entered and stood on either side of him, close enough that their shoulders brushed. The big guy breathed down at him from the right. “Microdrone division?”

Evan stared straight ahead, the elevator descending, taking him ever closer to a half dozen armed adversaries.

“That’s right.”

A third of the way down now, the lab floor drawing ever nearer. He thought about the stapled gash in his right arm, carefully wrapped beneath his long-sleeved shirt but still vulnerable. Anything he did from here on out, he’d have to be careful not to tear flesh through metal.

A radio gave with a bit of static, and the MP on Evan’s left turned up the volume. “—repeat: We have a breach. Any uncredentialed personnel should be detained and questioned. Copy, Tanner?”

Evan sensed the men’s faces swivel to him from either side.

He took a swift step back, setting his braced ankle outside the big guy’s foot, palming the side of his head, and accelerating it into the wall as he tripped him. The guy’s ear slammed into metal, and he crumpled.

To Evan’s left, Tanner had almost cleared leather with his SIG Sauer, but Evan grabbed it and yanked it the rest of the way out, goosenecking the wrist. He twisted the sidearm free, dropped the mag, jacked the slide to send the chambered round spinning, and emptied the rounds with fifteen quick flicks of his thumb.

Mouth gaping, Tanner stood watching the brass rain down on the tips of his boots.

The SIG spun in Evan’s hands as he disassembled it, the pieces dropping, a two-second breakdown. Keeping the slide, he asked politely, “May I cuff you to the railing?”

Tanner nodded.

Evan dug a flex cuff from a cargo pocket, zipped it around the MP’s wrist and the handrail. He did the same for the big guy, who was still unconscious, then plucked up his pistol. As Evan’s hands took the second SIG apart in similar fashion, he looked over at Tanner, who’d recoiled against the wall.

“He’s had a pretty bad concussion, but he’ll be okay.”

Tanner nodded, his eyes wide.

The doors opened, and Evan smacked the emergency stop button to stall the car. “I’m gonna have you guys wait here a sec,” he said, dropping the SIG Sauer slides and the men’s radios through the dark gap between the elevator and the lowest floor. “You’re gonna want to stay quiet. I’m not the bad guy here.”

Tanner nodded once more, his Adam’s apple jerking in his throat.

Evan drew his ARES and stepped out onto the lab floor.

It was football-field vast, the sight lines blocked by benches, walls, and workstations. Cautiously he picked his way through a labyrinth of test gear toward the OpsCenter and the crew of mercenaries beyond.

ARES 1911 drawn, pistol tucked close to his chest in a two-handed retention position, finger indexed on the frame, not the trigger, thumb on top of the safety—precautions to avoid shooting someone who didn’t need shooting, like a wayward engineer. The Tenth Commandment: Never let an innocent die .

Once he acquired visual on the threat and decided to deliver projectiles, he needed less than one-tenth of a second to disengage the safety and pull the trigger. He preferred a heavier press, 4.5 pounds with a little creep, which gave him more travel once he took up the mechanical slack in the trigger. So much precision training, so many minuscule adjustments to make sure he was operating as close to perfection as was humanly possible.

Voices carried back to him. The clanking of gear. He crept forward through the maze of workstations, pulse pounding, eyes darting from threat area to threat area. Jack’s voice whispered in his ear, a mantra of competence: Off target, off trigger. On target, on trigger.

A long table strewn with disassembled motor parts. A pallet of propellers. Two soldering benches. A pony wall built of stacked electronics crates. The gasoline stink of epoxy glue.

Finally he reached the OpsCenter. Crouching to keep his head low, inching toward the nearest hardware tower.

Now the voices were louder.

“—first swarm, quick and quiet, before any oversight—”

“—cannot memorialize this launch in any way—”

“—hang on, hang on, need to fire them up—”

A rumbling filled the air, and Evan flattened to the floor, taking a moment to realize that the sound was coming from the building itself. Way, way above, the ceiling irised open in the center, a growing spot of night sky blooming.

A flight path up and out.

Evan shouldered to the edge of a desk and peered around the corner.

Now he had a clear view of the giant contraption they’d been readying, and the sight of it stole his breath. He took it in, disbelief rolling through him.

It was wider and taller than unrolled gymnasium bleachers, but each step was as narrow as the slat of a venetian blind. A massive swarm of dragonflies perched on the slats, filling the entirety of the bleachers. These were the drones that Molleken had threatened him with in the battle lab, the glowing eyes that had risen before him in the darkness like a wall of menace.

The next-gen dragonflies were a more wicked-looking design than the one that had killed Jake Hargreave. Needlelike stilettos protruded from their faces, gleaming menacingly. In addition, each had a square box strapped to its thorax.

A bigger version of the backpack worn by the robotic bee that had blown a hole straight through the head of a mannequin.

Explosives.

At the base of the shelving unit, a jumble of empty rugged black Seahorse crates with the Mimeticom M emblazoned on their sides had been discarded. They were wheeled, their twist-lock latches released to show the scored charcoal foam inside.

Several of the contractors unpacked the dragonflies from the last crate, setting them equally spaced on the top slat of the shelving unit. The swarm was nearly assembled.