Chapter 7 - The Server Room Siege
The deafening roar of the gunshot sent the tactical men diving for cover behind the bookshelves.
Jordan grabbed Claire’s arm and yanked her down the main corridor toward the back of the library.
"The server room is in the basement, hurry!" Claire shouted, leading the way to the stairwell.
They could hear Officer Davis shouting commands and returning fire, buying them precious seconds to escape.
They sprinted down the concrete stairs and slammed into the heavy steel door of the IT department.
Claire frantically typed the default administrative passcode she had learned from a summer coding camp.
The green light flashed, and they threw themselves inside, locking the deadbolt securely behind them.
The room was freezing cold and filled with towering racks of blinking computer servers.
"We only have a few minutes before they blow those hinges off," Jordan panted, dragging a heavy desk in front of the door.
Claire rushed to the master terminal and shoved her SD card into the primary drive.
"I am bypassing the local network entirely and establishing a direct, encrypted tunnel to the FBI's cyber division," Claire explained, her fingers flying.
Outside the door, heavy footsteps echoed down the stairwell, followed by the terrifying sound of a power drill.
"They are drilling out the lock mechanism," Jordan warned, picking up a heavy fire extinguisher to use as a weapon.
The computer screen prompted Claire to enter a secure destination address for the massive data dump.
She typed in the direct IP of the federal bureau and slammed the enter key to initiate the transfer.
A progress bar appeared on the screen, estimating three minutes until completion.
"Come on, come on, go faster," Claire begged the machine, watching the percentage tick up agonizingly slowly.
The steel door suddenly jolted inward as the lock was completely destroyed by the drill.
Mrs. Whitmore’s voice drifted through the small gap, dripping with absolute malice.
"You kids really thought you could outsmart people with endless money and power?" she mocked them.
The tactical men began ramming the door with a heavy battering ram, pushing the barricaded desk backward.
The transfer bar hit eighty percent just as the door gave way, crashing into the server racks.
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Mrs. Whitmore stepped into the freezing room, holding a massive fire axe she had pulled from the hallway.
Without a moment of hesitation, she swung the heavy axe directly at the master terminal's motherboard.
