shell gs go in the 'out' pile

  Michael spped a new mag into the P90 and stepped over the body of the guard who had until retly been shooting at him.

  “There’s about five ing up the stairwell trying to get past the crowd.” EP said. He heard hard breathing and whimperiween the wails of the arm.

  “Aill here o leave!” No one moved. He gnced back at the lobby, theo the whimpering cubicle and found a woman crouched under her desk tapping her phoears illuminated by the light.

  “Leave now! Take the stairs!” She scrambled up and out without looking at him.

  “Anyone else o go now!” A man stood up in the ter row like he had accepted his exeichael pointed.

  “Out. Now!” The man stumbled towards the lobby. Seeing the other two leave unharmed, the st few got up and followed. Michael stood on a desk to see if he had missed ahen got down ahe on ba auto.

  “Let me know, EP.”

  “They just passed the workers you let out. They’re iairwell on your floor.”

  Michael got down in a cubicle.

  EP had been looping camera footage to hide the team’s movement, while the real feed yed across three of her stacked monitors. She switched to the lobby cam and saw gunmen with pte carriers over suits and oxfords move out of the stairwell in practiced movements. The one in the rear aimed at her and fired. She jumped in her chair as a window on her monitor went bck.

  “They took out the camera. They must know I’m in.”

  Michael heard them move through the lobby a up oher side of the reception desk wall. He aimed out the cubicle doorway and visualized himself firing without being hit, letting the sario live in his mind as his body moved automatically. A gun peeked out around the wall and his P90 screamed.

  Using the exposed barrel as a guide, he put the first five rounds through the wall into the man’s chest. As the body fell out into the aisle, he walked his fire to the right and the reception wall coughed out puffs of fabrid particle board. gs fell down his legs and the muzzle fsh brushed the inside of the cubicle. In about two seds, he was empty.

  Bullets sprayed through the fabric half-walls and kicked up pieces of carpet around him as he dove down the aisle and rolled into a cubicle in the ter row. He ejected his mag and pulled another one from his pouch. Someone cursed loudly from behind the wall, and another fired through the cubicles blindly as they walked dowher aisle. Michael spped his mag in ahe bolt home as rounds sparked out of the monitors over his head.

  Someone yelled “Moving!” from behind the reception wall and stomped down the row outside the cubicle door to his left. He aimed at the fabric wall and fired as the footsteps reached the doorway. The burst ripped through the panel and caught the guard full i before he ever had a ce to see who shot him.

  “Fuck you!” someone yelled, and stomped onto a desk in a cubicle towards the reception wall. They opened fire and bullets ripped through the corkboard pnner on the wall above his feet. He rolled uhe desk to his right and aimed up at the desktop. The climbing guard stopped firing just long enough for Michael to hear his foot stomp down above him. He fired with his eyes closed and got covered in pressed woments and hot brass. After half a sed, a body dropped hard on the desk.

  “Shit!” Anunmahe end of the row past Michael’s head, dumped his mag through the cubicles. Michael smmed through the paneling and rolled into the adjat cubicle, ending up on his stomader the other desk, half tangled in cords and aiming at the wall. To his right, blood streamed through the bullet holes in the desk.

  At the end of the row, the guard cursed, his voice full of fear. Ay magazi the ground with a distinctive springy cd his boots dragged on the carpet as he stepped back. Between the wail of the fire arm, the sounds came through equally from both sides. Michael closed his eyes and visualized the aisles, the distahe guard right in the middle, and fired off the rest of his mag.

  The guard screamed in the middle of the burst, a gut-pung scream, like the word ‘nmented by terror. It was the kind of scream that made Michael want to run out and hold him. Instead, he untangled himself, sprang into a low croud had a new mag in the P90 in uwo seds. He moved out of the cubicle, checked down the row towards the reception desk, then turowards the window offices.

  The guard breathed heavily. Michael aimed through the doorway of the st cubicle, into the paneling on the far wall, towards the wheezing, panicked sound, a out a fifteen-round burst. The breathing stopped. After a bit of silehat felt lohan should have fit between two wails of the arm, he stepped around the end of the row.

  The guard was slumped into a pile of blood, gss, and torn fabric, with a magless AR at his feet and a Jericho in his right hand. A few rounds had shattered the gss wall of the feren and broken a window oher side. Police lights flickered on a curve of highway. Thin clouds had moved in and dampehe sun. Sirens came through with the wind and he was hit by an overp nostalgia. It really had been a long time. He turned and moved down the row towards the reception desk and heard a strained voice from the lobby.

  “–up here fug now! He’s up here!”

  He stepped through the door with his P90 raised. The guard was leaned up against the front of the ter with blood pooling below his hip. He raised his pistol off the floor limply as the burst caught him in the head. Michael moved to the elevators while gs rolled across the marble.

  “I need a status update.”

  Michael is very ed with colteral, so he prefers the 5.7 round which is less likely to over-pee. That is, unless you're oher side of a fabriel. up: A gun get you into trouble, but a grenade get you out. -EE