Chapter 7 - The Interrogator's Mirror-7
"The transmission finalizes in precisely ninety seconds, Maria," Martin Pierce whispered, his finger tightening around the trigger guard of the carbine. "Once the master keys hit the Cyprus array, your company becomes our property—sorry, Alexander’s inheritance becomes our property, and your little dream of going back to your classroom daydreaming will be liquidated by order of the state insurance commissioner before dawn. Drop the terminal and step back across the threshold. Now."
Victor didn't lower his weapon. I took a slow, measured step forward, my gray eyes locking onto the operator’s face with a freezing, absolute finality that made his finger twitch against the trigger.
"The foundation doesn't rely on your state commissioners, Martin," I said, my voice dropping into a low, gravelly baritone that carried the absolute weight of my newly found purpose. "And my father’s—sorry, Alexander’s heirs aren't an asset on your ledger anymore. They’re the kids who watched their family break an electronic vault with a fire ax. They know exactly what the truth looks like when it comes through the door."
With a sudden, violent heave, I didn't lunge toward the gun; I hurled the heavy steel crowbar straight into the center of the massive, high-voltage electrical transformer box mounted on the concrete pylon directly adjacent to the server racks.
CRASH-BOOM.
The heavy iron bar smashed through the protective fiberglass shielding, short-circuiting the main three-phase industrial power line running into the warehouse grid. A blinding, blue-white explosion of electrical arc fire erupted from the box, hissing violently as the pouring rain leaking through the corrugated roof vents flooded the exposed circuits.
May you like
The automatic carbine fired a wild, uncontrolled three-round burst into the concrete ceiling as the operator was thrown backward by the sheer concussive force of the electrical blast, his weapon flying from his hands and spinning off into the dark waters of the shipping canal drainage trench below.
The entire warehouse was plunged into a sudden, pitch-black twilight, the high-density server mainframes grinding to a dead halt as the main circuit breakers tripped, leaving nothing but the vibrant neon-green countdown timer on my personal mobile device flashing down toward zero in the dark.
