Chapter 97 - Fire in the Crucible
"I'm a soldier of the United States," I said. "And you are an enemy of the Republic."
I squeezed the trigger.
*CLICK.*
Nothing happened. My firing pin struck an empty chamber.
"Did you really think," Arthur Carter chuckled darkly, "that I wouldn't have high-frequency electromagnetic dampening fields active in my own foyer? Your smart-rounds' electronic primers are inert within this room, Elena."
From the shadows of the grand staircase, four colossal combat automatons—humanoid assault frames clad in matte-black titanium armor—stepped forward, their red optical visors cycling into active tracking mode.
"Kill the escorts," Arthur commanded calmly, turning his back to walk toward the reinforced blast doors leading to the subterranean bunker. "Bring my granddaughter to the control vault in chains."
"Scatter!" I screamed.
The automatons opened fire with micro-missile pods mounted on their shoulders.
The grand foyer erupted into absolute carnage. Marble statues were blown into powder; centuries-old oak paneling splintered into flaming matchsticks.
Vance threw himself behind the grand stone fireplace, returning fire with his sidearm, but the standard rounds sparked harmlessly off the automatons' composite armor plates.
"They're shielded!" Vance roared over the deafening explosions. "Kinetic small arms won't penetrate!"
One of the machines charged Jake, its hydraulic joints hissing as it raised a heavy steel blade designed for close-quarters breach operations.
Jake didn't run.
In that split second, the boy who had mocked me at the barbecue grabbed a heavy wrought-iron fire poker from the hearth. With a primal, guttural scream born of pure desperation, he lunged forward, jamming the iron spike directly into the exposed hydraulic cooling line behind the automaton’s knee.
High-pressure synthetic fluid sprayed across Jake's face, blistering his skin. The machine stumbled, its leg locking up with a shriek of gears.
"Elena! Now!" Jake shrieked, holding the thrashing machine down with his bare hands.
I didn't hesitate. I dropped my useless rifle, drew my combat knife, and vaulted off the back of the leather sofa. I landed squarely on the automaton’s shoulders, driving the hardened tungsten-carbide blade straight through the optical sensor array into its central processing unit.
Sparks erupted. The machine seized violently and went limp, crashing to the floor, pinning Jake's legs beneath its massive weight.
"Vance! The satellite dish outside!" I yelled, rolling off the carcass. "If we can't stop Arthur from the inside, blow the physical dish on the lawn! Take my remaining C4 charges!"
"What about you?" Vance shouted, emptying his magazine into the visual sensor of a second advancing machine to buy us time.
"I'm ending this with Arthur!"
I sprinted toward the open blast doors just as the heavy steel plates began to slide shut.
"Elena, catch!"
Jake’s voice cut through the gunfire. Trapped beneath the dead machine, his face covered in chemical burns, he hurled Arthur’s fallen silver-topped cane across the polished floor.
I caught it in mid-stride. As my fingers closed around the handle, I felt the hidden release mechanism. With a twist, the silver eagle disengaged, revealing an eight-inch blade of folded Damascus steel—the ancestral dagger Arthur had carried during his clandestine operations in Berlin half a century ago.
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I dove through the narrowing gap of the blast doors, sliding across the threshold just as six inches of hardened armor steel slammed shut behind me with the finality of a tomb.
***
