Chapter 78 - Fire in the Mountain
The subterranean bunker erupted into a chaotic storm of flashing muzzle fire and deafening concussive echoes. Glass from the computer terminals shattered in a glittering cascade across the floor, while sparks showered down from the exposed electrical conduits hanging overhead.
Avery stepped out from the doorway, her Sig Sauer tracking with cold, calculated perfection. Two rounds snapped through the smoky air, catching an advancing operator in his ceramic chest plating and dropping him instantly to the concrete.
“They’re flanking the server racks!” Ethan yelled over the roar of gunfire, shifting his position to cover the right-hand corridor.
“Michael, how much longer on the system wipe?” Avery demanded, firing another precise shot that shattered the optical scope of an operator trying to set up a heavy suppression position near the main console.
“Thirty seconds!” Michael shouted back from behind the steel desk, his fingers hammering the final override sequence into the physical kill-switch of the mainframe. “The core data is transferring to the secure drive as we speak! Once this sequence finishes, the entire facility goes dark!”
Voss slid across the smooth floor behind the steel console, narrowly dodging a burst of submachine gun fire that chewed up the wall inches from his head. He slammed his hand down onto a large, yellow pneumatic lever mounted to the side of the master terminal.
“Purge initiated!” Voss roared over the noise.
Suddenly, a high-pitched, harmonic whine filled the bunker as the massive quantum servers began to spin down with terrifying speed. The brilliant amber displays flickered once, twice, and then went entirely black, plunging the vast subterranean chamber into absolute, pitch-black darkness save for the muzzle flashes of the tactical team's weapon attachments.
“Fall back to the emergency extraction tunnel!” Avery commanded, grabbing Ethan’s shoulder in the dark. “Now!”
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Moving by memory and tactical instinct through the pitch-black corridors, Avery, Ethan, Voss, and Michael scrambled toward the rear maintenance shaft carved deep into the rear of the bunker—a hidden escape route leading out to a secondary ravine on the opposite side of the mountain range.
Behind them, the shouts of the confused strike team echoed futilely through the empty, darkened halls of Project Deepfrost as the facility’s automated self-destruct protocols locked down every bulkhead door in the complex, sealing the network away from the world forever.
