Miller eyed Dixon with a new respect, or at least a new regard. Then he said to one of his guys, “Get me two EMP rifles.”
The Ranger walked to a nearby truck and grabbed two rifles out of the back. He handed them to Miller, who gave them to Taylor and Dixon. He asked Dixon, “You ever handle a rifle?”
“I’ve designed rifles, Sergeant.”
Miller looked at Brodie and said to his men, “And get Sergeant Brodie here an M203, a carry vest, and a few suicide rounds.”
Brodie said, “I don’t like the sound of that.”
Miller smiled. “We’ve been cheating a little in the training exercises. Most of the dummy grenade rounds we shoot would never arm themselves in time to explode on impact. The tin men simply get too close, too fast. In the event we ever had to deal with them outside a simulation, Corporal Reyes, the whiz who designed the EMP bomb, stripped the grenade rounds of their weighted pins and moved the detonator forward so it’s almost touching the firing pin. They’ll explode on impact no matter the firing distance, but that makes the rounds a lot more volatile.” He walked over to the Ranger with the grenade launcher and carefully removed a grenade round from the man’s carry vest, then brought it over. He showed them the rounded tip. “You so much as press down on this with a bit of pressure, it’s going to blow up in your hand. You fire it too close to your target, and you’re flame-broiling your own ass along with the enemy’s.” He smiled again. “Suicide round.”
A Ranger handed Brodie a carry vest. He put it on and said to Taylor, “Don’t be jealous.” A Ranger handed him an M203 launcher.
Miller said, “There’s one round chambered, and here’s some more.” He carefully slipped eight grenade rounds into the front pockets of Brodie’s vest.
One of the guys said, “Don’t trip.” They all laughed. This was a gas.
Dixon slung her rifle over her shoulder, then walked to the door to the Vault and pressed her fob against the security plate. Sergeant Miller input the keypad code and Dixon opened the door. They all entered the anteroom.
Dixon approached the elevator doors. She said to Miller, “We’lltake the elevator both ways. You hear something coming up the stairs, you run.”
“No, ma’am,” said Miller. “We stand and fight.”
“Don’t be stupid,” said Dixon. “You’ll need to regroup.”
“That would give them a chance to escape.”
“They’re not looking toescape, Sergeant. They’re looking to hunt down and kill every last person on this base.”
Miller had no response to that.
Dixon pressed the button to open the elevator doors. They all entered, and Dixon pressed her fob to the security pad inside the elevator. Miller input the keypad code, then stepped out. “You sure you don’t want backup?”
Brodie said, “Stop trying to hog the fun, Sarge. See you soon.”
The doors closed on Sergeant Miller, and the elevator slowly descended.
The three of them looked at each other, communicating wordlessly as the elevator rumbled down the shaft.
Brodie knew this moment. He’d been here before. They were entering hostile territory, and no one knew what would happen. It could be a big nothing, your nerves jangled for no reason, and you’d laugh about it later. Or it could be the last moments of your life. You don’t know until you know.
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened.
CHAPTER 47
BRODIE TOOK THE LEAD ASthey exited the elevator into the vast subterranean room. He heard the buzz of the overhead fluorescents, along with the dull hum of the Vault’s climate control. It was cold. Colder than he’d remembered.
He eyed the rows of D-17s on either side of them. Seeing them like this, shackled and inert, felt surreal after what he and Taylor had been through. After what they’d seen.
How can they be so still?
He spotted the two empty bays—Number 4 and Number 20. Lenny and Bucky. One of them in hiding and one of them in pieces.
He felt the weight of the grenades swaying in his vest pockets as he walked. He thought of the millimeter of space between the firing pin and the detonator. And he thought about the single line of code that was the difference between these things being statues and committing a massacre.
He looked at the restraints around the tin men’s limbs. They looked much more substantial than what Lenny had busted out of in the lab. But the restraints’ controls, like the bots themselves, were governed by a few command lines in a computer. And everything down here was connected.
No one said a word as they slowly approached the computer console at the far end of the room. Both women held their rifles low but at the ready, fingers across the trigger guards, prepared to hit anything that moved with an EMP blast.
