Chapter 6 - The Siege of Lakeshore Tech
The mercenary team did not hesitate.
A sharp, high-velocity flashbang grenade arced through the air, landing ten feet from the police sedan.
BOOM!
A blinding flash of white light and a deafening concussion wave rocked the driveway. The two police officers guarding the vehicle were knocked off their feet, disoriented and clutching their ears.
Jasmine tackled Arthur to the grass, covering his head with her body as dirt and gravel rained down around them.
Inside the police car, the triplets were screaming.
“Mom!” Zach’s voice cried through the open window.
Jasmine scrambled up from the ground, her instincts taking over. She grabbed a tactical flashlight dropped by one of the downed officers, pulled the driver’s door of the police sedan open, and shoved Arthur Vance into the front passenger seat.
“Tasha, get down!” Jasmine yelled to her friend in the back.
Jasmine jumped into the driver’s seat, slammed the car into reverse, and stomped on the accelerator just as a hail of suppressed gunfire shattered the sedan’s rear windshield.
Glass rained down over the leather seats. The police car roared backward across the manicured lawn, spinning 180 degrees before tearing through a wooden garden fence and bursting onto Lakeshore Drive.
“Where are we going?!” Tasha screamed from the backseat, clutching the three children beneath a heavy wool blanket.
“Lakeshore Institute of Technology!” Jasmine shouted, her eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror as the black armored SUV burst through the broken gate, pursuing them through the city streets.
In the passenger seat, Arthur Vance was frantically flipping through his leather notebook, his trembling fingers tracing lines of complex mathematical formulas.
“They’re tracking us through the city’s traffic management network,” Arthur warned, his voice rising over the roar of the engine. “Sovereign Tech already has partial access to the regional grid! They’re controlling the traffic lights!”
Two blocks ahead, the traffic lights at the intersection of Michigan Avenue instantly turned bright red, while cross-traffic signals turned green, sending a heavy semi-truck roaring directly into their path.
“Hold on!” Jasmine screamed.
She yanked the steering wheel hard to the left. The police sedan mounted the sidewalk, blowing out a tire against the curb, knocking over a row of metal newspaper stands, and swerving back onto the road just behind the speeding semi-truck.
In the backseat, Zach pulled his tablet from his backpack, his small fingers flying across the cracked screen despite the wild ride.
“Mom!” Zach yelled. “I’m routing our car’s GPS through a localized spoofing VPN! I’m making the traffic grid think we turned east toward the lake!”
Ahead of them, the automated traffic signals suddenly flickered and glitched, resetting to a flashing yellow caution pattern.
The black armored SUV behind them swerved violently, tricked by the spoofed signal, skidding off toward the pier while Jasmine guided the limping police sedan into the dark, oak-shaded entrance of Lakeshore Institute of Technology.
The campus was quiet, deserted for the weekend.
The massive limestone building of the Department of Computer Science loomed against the night sky like an ancient cathedral of technology.
Jasmine slammed the car to a halt in the loading bay beneath the building.
“Out! Everyone out!” she ordered.
Tasha ushered the children out of the back seat, while Jasmine helped Arthur Vance out of the front. The police car’s front tire was completely shredded, smoke curling from the wheel well.
“We don't have much time,” Arthur gasped, pointing toward the heavy bronze doors at the rear of the building. “The core server room is located three floors below the basement level. It’s built into the bedrock beneath the lake.”
They rushed through the service entrance, Jasmine using her old alumnus access card to clear the perimeter security doors.
Inside, the building was dead silent, the air cold and smelling of floor wax and old books.
They hurried down the wide concrete stairwell, descending deeper into the earth until the fluorescent lights overhead were replaced by harsh red emergency illumination.
At the bottom of the third basement level stood a massive vault door made of solid reinforced steel, equipped with a biometric retinal scanner and an industrial multi-key lock.
Above the door, a digital timer mounted to the wall was counting down in bright red LED numbers:
00 : 22 : 14
Twenty-two minutes until Sovereign Tech’s global virus would execute, broadcasting the corrupted version of Project Sentinel to every infrastructure hub in the country.
Zach stepped up to the massive vault door, holding up his tablet. “Mom... the server room is already locked down from the inside. Someone is already in there executing the script.”
Jasmine looked through the thick bulletproof glass window set into the center of the vault door.
Sitting at the central terminal inside the glowing glass room, typing frantically at a glowing black console, was a man she recognized instantly from the news.
Victor Vance—Arthur Vance’s estranged younger brother, and the Chief Technology Officer of Sovereign Tech.
May you like
Victor turned his head, looking through the glass window, a cold, victorious smile spreading across his face as he held up a wireless detonation drive.
He didn't just intend to launch the virus. He was going to blow the subterranean lab to pieces the moment the transfer was complete, burying David Taylor’s legacy—and everyone who knew the truth—forever.
