“The others are back,” Krysty said, moving behind the desk. “Ryan is going to try a gren.”
“Good,” J.B. replied, getting out from underneath the desk. “I wanted to use the Claymore, but trapped in here the concussion would have pulped us both flat.”
In the hallway, the companions started making a pile of furniture to help contain the blast of the gren, when Krysty noticed one of the elevators down the hallway open its doors. Standing inside the lift was a droid, its belly needier swiveling in search of prey. Nobody in the hall seemed to notice the arrival of the elevator and continued working to free their trapped friends.
“Ryan, droid!” Krysty screamed, firing her M-16 in the direction of the approaching machine as a warning.
The impact of the 7.62 mm rounds into the barrier had to have made some small noise because Ryan looked up in time to see the droid crawling from the elevator. Without hesitation, the man triggered the flamethrower, the burning lance washing over the machine in a hellstorm of liquid destruction. Blinded by the flames, the droid cut loose with its needier, the slivers tearing apart the pile of furniture as wood chips and stuffing exploded into the air like confetti.
Dropping to a knee, Dean assumed a firing stance and triggered the Weatherby, a foot-long tongue of flame erupting from the longblaster. The droid jerked from the brutal impact of the heavy slug into its armored hull, the needier going wild, hosing the deadly slivers into the ceiling, chewing the tiles into dust.
Webley and LeMat booming, Doc hammered the machine with miniballs and bullets from his twin .44 handcannons. Then, past the flaming droid, the other elevators opened and two more droids strode out. Any view of the companions blocked by the flames and furniture, the machines turned their lasers on J.B. and Krysty. The Plexiglas wall became spotted with brown patches from the hits, and soon they couldn’t see what was happening on the other side. But as Ryan sent out another spray, the reinforcement droids swiveled about and marched over the burning wreckage of their fallen brother, lasers stabbing through the swirling smoke.
“Bastard button summoned the sec droids,” J.B. spit, forcing his hands away from the Uzi. His friends were fighting for their lives only a foot away, and there was nothing he could do to help them with the barrier solidly in place.
“There has to be another way out!” Krysty shouted, looking at the walls and ceiling. She sent a burst from the M-16 into the ceiling, blowing away the tiles to expose a sheet of prestressed concrete. The alcove was as solid as a bunker.
“Got an idea,” J.B. said, grabbing hold of the desk. Groaning with the effort, he flipped over the massive piece of furniture and it crashed to the carpet, throwing business cards, phone and computer helter-skelterbut also exposing a column of bundled wire extending from inside a hollow leg and going into the floor.
Quickly, the Armorer slashed the wires and scraped the ends clean to start twisting all of the bare copper together. A minute passed in tense silence while the man worked feverishly, the soundless battle in the hallway only visible as flashes of light in the dense smoke and fumes.
A bright spark snapped as J.B. twisted in the last wire, and a large section of the alcove wall behind them broke apart to expose a shiny steel door. The wheel lock turned by itself, and with a hiss of hydraulics, the armored portal swung aside to reveal another room deeper in the office building. Without pause, Krysty charged through the doorway, desperately trying to find another way to reach her friends.
Stainless-steel walls and floor announced the next room as a surgical laboratory of some kind, the ceiling a complex array of pipes, cables and wiring. A glowing panel of white plastic illuminated several X-ray negatives clipped to the frame showing the details of human anatomy. Several locked cabinets stood alongside a line of operating tables, a curved bank of comp controls facing the tables from the far end of the lab.
Spotting a second door, Krysty headed that way but slowed for a tic as she realized the X-ray negatives were of pregnant women, their unborn babies resembling tiny brains equipped with ropy tentacles. The woman barely had time to react to the sights when flashing lights danced across the control boards. Suddenly, her M-16/M-203 was seized by a mechanical arm from the ceiling, the robotic claw yanking away the weapon with enough force to break fingers if she hadn’t released the rapidfire.