Chapter 21 – Hardwired

"You must understand, that's an impossible request. Even killing me won't make it possible. There is no way to stop the pain faster at this point and yet retain the subject functional, or like you say, combat ready. The second stage drug would do it, but recovery would take hours," Ragnar explained the best he could, to the black man they called Hammerfist.

Now Sebastian and Ragnar were at least sitting on the floor and not against the wall. But they were hostages. For an MSA agent to be taken hostage was unthinkable!

And Kim had returned from dead, wearing the same battle uniform like the rest.

At least Sebastian took comfort from knowing the organization that had attacked. The Agents of Metal.

...

It was a scene from Hell Ian had never wanted to see. Jo thrashing against the gurney's restraints in total agony.

The technician had said he'd injected only one third when the flashbangs hit. Ian had punched him as hard as he could, and he had been knocked unconscious. In retrospect Ian considered if he should have plunged the rest of the syringe – and possibly all the rest of them – into him instead.

But it didn't matter. Ian could only concentrate on Jo now.

The rational part of his mind said that it was eventually going to be all right.

Focus! You're a killer! You didn't fail! She's alive, so be glad!

But right now it didn't ease his mind in the least. At least she was free of the restraints and the IV now. And Ian did the only thing he knew, he held onto her on the floor as firmly as was possible without actually hurting her, as she still shook like she had no sense of reality, only the agony. He kissed her, had his hands all over her, tried to come up with words of encouragement. Sweet nothings. Of course he had no idea if it was helping. Possibly the whole thing was just about him trying to feel better, and he cursed himself.

The only right way for this would be for him to suffer all the agony in place of her. Some kind of pain transfusion. But of course it wasn't possible.

Right now he didn't care for the consequences of the raid. He of course knew they had now technically taken hostages, without advancing their investigations at all, and REX was still out there, possibly ready to spring the trap. So what?

Had he been alone, this kind of thinking would have been unforgivable. But he could allow himself this, because Hammerfist and Kim were there, acting much more rational. Kim was searching for Erik from the holding cells. Hammerfist would look for evidence. And Eve would help them from the outside the best she could. They would handle it. Of course they could consider him a lousy over-emotional Agent in case they actually needed him for something critical, but then, fuck them too! The only consolation was that they didn't actually hear his thoughts.

Ian thought Jo was beginning to calm down a little.

It will be all right, angel, he thought. Just a little more time.

Meanwhile Ian still had his Agent sunglasses on, with the comms active. And suddenly he heard Eve's voice. So what? The rest would hear it too.

"Hey! Anyone! There's something on the network … does the number 218 mean anything to you? Actually, it's a time stamp. 2:18. That's … one minute from now."

Fuck. A shiver of fear passed right through Ian's spine.

There could be no other explanation. REX was going to explode the whole place in one minute.

"REX! Everyone out!" Ian shouted, and already prepared to stand up, taking Jo with him.

Then he understood there were several things wrong with that plan. They were on the sublevel. He could use the gurney to wheel Jo the first part of the trip, either to the stairs or the elevator. But then … he'd have to carry her. His strength or speed would run out. Which would mean that time would run out too.

Lesson for his next interview: love tropes are useless. Do not rely on them for survival. They're only good for sweet nothings when nothing is actually at stake.

Ian hadn't even considered all the unconscious guards. Even if the Agents all managed to get out, the guards would be blown to pieces and it all would be on the Agents. More murder charges.

"Don't think everyone will make it!" Eve shouted back over the comms.

"Can you do anything?"

"I don't even know what it is. It might not even be a bomb or anything!"

But something certainly was going to happen at 2:18.

"Keep looking!" Ian tried to push her on.

"I'm doing just that, all the time!"

The final seconds ticked down.

"I think it's the Agent –"

The clock hit 2:18.

Suddenly Ian felt uncomfortably warm. The lights above him flickered. Then he heard a powerful burst of static in his ears and his sunglasses shut off, along with all the lights in the room and in the corridor outside.

Electromagnetic pulse! The Agent coats had been tampered with. But why? The one on him began to cool down, but inside he already felt colder than ever.

...

In the middle of blackness, Sebastian possibly knew what was happening. The computer network and the power supply for it here were heavily EMP-shielded, so no lasting damage would be possible, but a focused pulse could still force a restart, for example due to momentary power supply overload. The system administrators would know it better, but during the restart a boot code would be loaded from a prearranged location. On computers this was typically the BIOS chip. MSA servers didn't use off-the-shelf parts, but the principle was still the same. They typically loaded directly from the network, using a minimal bootloader. As long as even one node was available, the restart would be possible.

From their talk, it sounded like the Agents only had rescue and possible investigations on their minds. Which meant someone had supplied them the EMP source and made them smuggle it in.

He also knew the MSA network relied too heavily on its custom solutions, and could in fact be worse than commercial options. Which meant that if the network here was compromised, the attack would easily spread to the rest of it.

...

Eve exited the Toyota and ran into the facility, as fast as her legs could manage. She had never felt worse in her life than now, and she would have to try to make things right somehow. Though she had no idea how. All her credibility as a hacker had been shattered. All the safety precautions she thought to have had down to last detail … worth nothing.

"Guys! Agents!"

She entered the blackness, and nearly stumbled over one unconscious guard. She saw the stairwell and began to descend.

"It was my laptop! It appears REX was on it too, and I had no idea!"