Chapter 6 - The Two-Minute Window
The flashing red digits on the tiny digital screen flickered like dying embers in the thinning fog: 01:58... 01:57...
My lungs burned as if I’d inhaled broken glass, every breath tasting of metallic ozone and the harsh chemical residue of the Halon purge. My hands clawed at the cold, wet concrete, my fingernails scraping against the floor as I tried to drag myself toward the small maintenance panel.
Vance’s synthesized voice echoed mockingly through the silenced chamber, looping over the audio log: "Initiation complete. Pacific Fleet synchronization in progress. Target acquisition locked."
"Brooks! Do you copy?!" Captain Lawson’s voice tore through the tiny intercom speaker beside the panel, frantic and stripped of all command authority. "The system's locked down the pneumatic seals! We're trying to rig a manual thermal charge to blow the hinge, but it's going to take five minutes! Talk to me!"
"I'm... I'm here," I rasped, my voice sounding like gravel grinding together. I managed to roll onto my back, staring up at the pulsing red numbers: 01:34.
"The timer," I gasped, coughing violently as a spasm wracked my chest. "The maintenance panel... it's not a self-destruct. It's a remote override sync."
"What are you talking about?" Lawson demanded. Above me, I could hear the muffled, concussive thuds of heavy tools slamming against the steel bulkhead door as the precinct tactical team battered the frame.
"Vance didn't just upload to the Pacific Fleet's navigational servers," I said, forcing my eyes to stay open as black spots danced across my vision. "He routed the upload through this precinct's internal comms relay. He's using our secure federal bandwidth to bounce the signal so the Navy can't trace the IP address back to his offshore server."
"If he's using our relay," Lawson yelled, her voice cracking with sudden horror, "then the firewall will automatically isolate the connection in ninety seconds—unless someone manually inputs an administrative override code from the terminal inside that room."
"Which is on the other side of that locked door," I whispered. 01:05.
"Brooks, listen to me," Lawson said, her tone hardening into absolute steel. "There's a physical emergency bypass wire behind the maintenance screen you're looking at. If you cross-circuit the red and blue leads with your belt buckle, it will fry the local relay and force a hard system shutdown. But the electrical feedback will route straight through your fingers."
"It'll stop the synchronization?" 00:48.
"It'll incinerate your hand, Maya. Do it now!"
May you like
I didn't hesitate. I reached up, my fingers shaking violently as I ripped the metal prong from my leather tactical belt. The countdown clock flashed 00:32. I jammed my hand into the dark cavity of the open maintenance panel, my fingers brushing against live, sparking copper wires as the countdown hit ten seconds.
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