Extinction Machine

Chapter One Hundred Twenty-two

VanMeer Castle

Near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Monday, October 21, 8:28 a.m.

“What’s the game plan, jefe?” asked Warbride.

“It’s real simple,” I said. “Kill anything in a jumpsuit. Put a bullet in anything that looks like a computer. Don’t die.”

“Hell,” said Prankster, “even I can remember that.”

I held up my fist. They bumped it.

Corny, I know. Juvenile, sure.

If you’re one second away from running into hell—actual hell—you can do whatever you damn well please.

We turned, set, closed everything out but the mission.

“Go,” I snapped.

We burst from the hallway and split, Warbride went wide and left, Prankster cut right and I ran dead up the middle, all of us firing, firing, firing.

Rounds hammered into pilots and technicians, into Blue Diamond guards and machines. People screamed, men and women.

We did not discriminate, we didn’t pick targets. We killed everyone we saw. It was butchery.

Men fell from ladders that were hooked onto the sides of T-craft. Men sprawled over computer consoles, their blood soaking into the machines and shorting them out. Men toppled screaming from catwalks.

Return fire was confused. There were so many techs, so much valuable equipment that the Blue Diamond guards had to pick and choose their targets. We did not.

Prankster paused under a T-craft, plucked a grenade from his vest, pulled the pin and hurled it high overhead. It hit the top of the machine and exploded. If that did any damage, I couldn’t see it.

“The struts,” I yelled, hoping he could hear me through the din.

A moment later I saw a grenade go rolling and bouncing beneath the same T-craft. It rolled to a stop at the base of one of the steel struts. The blast bent the strut inward at a forty-five-degree angle.

That was enough. It was too much for the ponderous weight of the massive vehicle. The black ship canted toward its crippled leg and in its fall smashed a whole row of important-looking computers.

Then I saw Shelton. He was surrounded by a cadre of guards, two of whom had to help him limp along. I must have clipped him when I’d shot Mr. Bones. They were hustling toward a big industrial elevator. I broke into a run. I don’t think I’ve ever run that fast in my life, firing the weapon I’d taken from a dead guard. Emptying one magazine from a hundred feet away, dropping two of the guards. Hitting Shelton at least once in the arm. I dropped the magazine and swapped in a fresh one, fired, fired.

As the elevator doors shut.

I sprayed the narrowing gap, throwing as much death as I could into the metal box.

It closed.

There was a second elevator waiting right there. Give chase or stay with my team.

I tapped my earbud. “Warbride, Prankster, Shelton’s in the freight elevator.”

“Go get the f*cker,” screamed Warbride. “We got this.”

It was the only choice I could make. I dove into the elevator. There were three buttons.

GARAGE

HOUSE

HELIPAD

I knew where Shelton was going and stabbed the top button. As the doors swung shut I looked out at the carnage. Two of the best and the bravest against a cavern full of people.

As the door closed I saw something that absolutely horrified me. Two of the T-craft suddenly pulsed with brilliant white light. Truman Engines were firing. Some of the craft were going to escape.

The world was going to burn.