Chapter 24 - THE CHOKEPOINT"Contact left!" I roared, squeezing the trigger of my carbine in a rapid, controlled three-round burst that caught the lead operator squarely in the ceramic breastplate, spinning him hard into the wall.
Miller dropped to one knee beside me, her weapon barking rhythmically as she laid down an impenetrable wall of suppressing fire that forced the remaining two contractors to scramble back behind the concrete corners of the access tunnel.
"Nathan! The upload is at eighty percent!" my father yelled over the deafening din of gunfire and wailing alarms, his fingers flying across the auxiliary override terminal as sparks rained down from the blown ceiling conduits above.
"We're running out of time! They're calling in air support!" Miller shouted, ducking as a heavy-caliber round punched clean through the concrete pillar inches above her head, sending chunks of pulverized stone raining over her shoulders.
I pulled a fragmentation flash-bang from my tactical belt, pulled the pin with my teeth, and tossed it down the hallway with an underhanded heave.
BOOM!
A blinding white flash and a concussion wave echoed down the subterranean tunnel, followed instantly by groans of pain and the clatter of dropped hardware.
"Ninety-five percent!" my father shouted, triumph cutting through the strain in his voice. "The core is opening!"
With a heavy, pneumatic shriek, the massive blast doors in front of us disengaged, sliding slowly apart to reveal the sprawling, cathedral-like expanse of the Omega Grid server farm—thousands of blinking blue server racks stretching out into the subterranean darkness, humming with the terrifying power of a global conspiracy.
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"Now!" my father yelled, yanking the titanium drive free from the console just as the final security door locked wide open.
We dove headfirst through the threshold into the server room as a fresh wave of armed reinforcements poured into the outer corridor.
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