Chapter 9 - The Final Stand
Silas marched forward, entirely flanked by a dozen heavily armed tactical enforcers.
"End of the line, Arthur," Silas declared, his voice echoing through the deserted city street.
Leo, Sarah, and Evelyn dragged Arthur behind the sparse cover of a parked city bus.
"I have two magazines left, how about you?" Evelyn asked Leo, checking her weapon.
"I have never even fired a gun before tonight," Leo admitted, his hands shaking violently.
Arthur forced himself to sit up, grabbing the tiny black data chip from his lap.
"Evelyn, take my secure phone and prepare to upload the data via a cellular bypass," Arthur instructed.
"It will take exactly three minutes to penetrate their firewall from out here," Evelyn calculated.
"Then we will buy you exactly three minutes of time," Sarah said, picking up Arthur's dropped pistol.
Leo looked at his mother in absolute shock as she expertly checked the weapon's safety.
"Did you really think your grandfather never taught me how to shoot?" Sarah offered a small, brave smile.
Silas's men unleashed a devastating barrage of gunfire, shattering the bus windows above their heads.
Glass rained down on them as Sarah and Leo blindly returned fire to keep the enforcers at bay.
Evelyn furiously typed commands into the encrypted phone, trying to bypass the global security grid.
"Two minutes left!" Evelyn shouted over the deafening roar of automatic weapons.
Arthur was growing dangerously pale, his breathing becoming shallow and incredibly erratic.
Silas signaled his men to move up, effectively flanking their exposed position from both sides.
"They are closing in on us, we cannot hold them off much longer!" Leo yelled in sheer panic.
"Upload complete at ninety percent, just give me thirty more seconds!" Evelyn screamed back.
Silas suddenly stepped around the front of the ruined bus, aiming his rifle directly at Evelyn's head.
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"Cancel the upload right now, or I blow her head completely off," Silas commanded coldly.
Leo stepped right in front of the gun, shielding the encrypted phone with his own body.
