CHAPTER FOURTEEN—Precipice of a Memory

“Shit!” May snapped.

She was starting to get frustrated with these guys. The lasers continued cracking against the work bench she was hiding behind with such force and frequency that she thought they might have a mobile mounted machine gun placed in the damn hall!

She pulled the pin on her grenade and spun about on the tiles, making sure not to lift her head above the surface of the bench—otherwise her brains would get splattered all over the wall behind her.

She tossed the grenade with an overhanded throw and it exploded moments later. The weapons fire coming out of the hall lessened for a split second, but then started right up again.

“This isn’t good,” John said over the coms.

“Why don’t you use that launcher?” Kyle said.

“No—I’m saving that for when we really need it.”

“Fine.”

“Oh shit!” Kyle said.

May glanced his way, then up as hot lasers passed over her head and hit the wall in front of her.

“They’re pushing in! They’re pushing in!”

“Mobile shields,” John said, his tone stressed, but otherwise clam as a rapid-fire volley of lasers cracked off from May’s left where John was at.

She heard him grunt through the coms.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but this hard floor is wrecking my kneecaps.”

“What, are you an old guy or something?” Kyle bellowed. He lifted his repeater over the table and fired a fusillade of hot crackling energy rounds, then quickly ducked down as weapon’s fire was returned. “Shit!” he said. “They almost got me that time. They’re all over the place.”

“Time for that surprise?” May asked.

“Uh… yeah.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“I don’t think these guys are going to let me perch over my bench!”

“Shit!” May muttered through her teeth, more to herself than to the others. But then an idea came to her. “Kyle, we need to lay down suppressive fire.”

“Yeah! No problem!,” he said. “But I kinda like having a head.”

“Just blind fire, dammit!”

She scrunched down as part of the wall flaked off and fell heavily at her feet. She coughed as cement dust and other powdered construction materials blew up into her face.

“All right,” Kyle growled. “On your say so.”

“Now!” She said. “John, don’t let us down!”

She turned over and got onto her knees, realizing John’s pain and how hard it was to balance like this on such a hard floor.

Shaking her head, she thought she also must be old.

May lifted her assault rifle and like Kyle, blind fired her weapon over the bench in a fully automatic hail of deadly weapon’s fire.

The Invera-Tech response team must have noticed they were getting shot at because the fire she had been taking doubled and she was afraid she might get her hands blow off.

Something hissed and cracked loud enough for May to yank her head down reflexively. She almost hit the work bench as hot air blew past her, stinging her hands as the entire room flashed with light and a shockwave passed under the floor.

Men in black BDUs flailed like dummies through the air.

One of them landed between Kyle and May and she saw the other Anarcho pump his fist.

“Yes!” Kyle barked.

Another explosion rocked the door at the end of the hall leading out. She knew even before glancing toward Kyle that they were getting flanked.

But even though John had just smoked like five of their guys, they were still shooting from the first entry point.

“Fuck!”

“Kyle! You need to get in there!”

He nodded to her.

Then on the coms she asked, “John, are you all right?”

“I’m smoking.”

“I’m not sure we’re in that good a—“

“No, I mean, I am smoking. My sleeves are fried and I’m definitely a bit burnt on my hands.

“Me too. Is it bad?”

“No.”

“That rocket should hold them at bay from coming back in here for a few more minutes,” she said. “Do you have another one?”

“All out.”

“Damn!”

*

Men piled through the corridor, their weapons up and their faces covered with goggles and scanner devices.

He spotted them through the door and the window leading into the hall after crawling out of the main lab and into this room across the tiles.

He lifted his repeater and laid down a wall of hot lasers, shattering the glass and taking out the two guys fast, their personal body shields cracking in a flash of electrified energy.

But with the spray he was putting down, they had no time to react and jump into cover. With three thousand lasers a minute, the BD-S units cracked and by the time the wearers even realized what was happening, they had been riveted by hot lasers.

“Hells yeah!” Kyle screamed as the other security forces backed away.

Lasers and small explosions still rocked the main lab, but everything went silent in here as Kyle’s ears throbbed from the concussive force of their little battle.

Going to be deaf by the time I get out of here.

And he—they—would get out of here!

He smiled.

Glancing up toward the breached door at the end of the corridor, he thought those losers must have packed their bags and—

Something heavy slammed into the window frame and rolled out over the tiles.

It was a grenade.

“Fuck!”

He rolled.