Page 45 of Black Bay Protector
“Actually, according to these readings,” Lark pointed out. “His robotic upgrades are titanium alloy, and while not impossible, I doubt they extend to his testicles.”
Glancing up from the screen and the metrics listed there, she saw both the General and his son were looking at her like she’d lost her mind. “What? I’m just saying.”
The General shook his head hard and turned his attention back to the screen. “Put me through to him.”
With a nod, Matt hit the button for the mic.
“Son, this is General Marshall Davies and I run this facility. You have two choices. You can turn around and leave peaceably or I can send my men to escort you out by force. Either way, you won’t be accessing Black Bay.”
The upgraded soldier looked into the camera. “You won’t comply?”
“Hell, no, I won’t comply.”
“Fine.”
With that, the man removed one of his gloves revealing a metal hand, and raised his middle finger.
“Ooh, Dad, look. He’s flipping us off. Real scary.”
While Matt could get as snarky as he liked, Lark held her breath. This wasn’t over and she waited to see what the soldier would do. Somehow, she didn’t think his threat had been empty.
The top joint of the middle finger he was holding up suddenly lifted, and as if it was hinged, fell back to reveal some sort of oddly shaped… key, maybe?
With a knowing smile that sent chills up Lark’s spine, he inserted it into the monitoring system and all their feed from the tunnel suddenly went dark.
“What happened?” the General demanded. “What the hell just happened?”
“He’s taken control,” Matt said in disbelief as he bent over his keyboard and typed frantically. Despite his best efforts the system showed the walled partitions in the tunnel sliding back one by one. “The son of a bitch just took control of the tunnel. I’m locked out.”
“Get it back! Now!”
Jace groaned as the shrill ringing of the phone woke him from some of the best sleep he’d had in a long time. Meanwhile, Paige, beside him, bolted into a sitting position and shouted, “I’m awake!” before looking around, adorably befuddled.
When they’d arrived home last night, they’d spent hours doing some deliciously naughty things to each other, on every surface of the place before they’d finally succumbed to some much-needed sleep. The phone rang again and Jace was tempted to ignore the call in favor of snuggling back up with his woman, but a glance at the time told him that whoever was on the other end wasn’t waking him up for idle chit chat. Something had happened.
Grabbing the phone, he didn’t even have time to speak as the General barked at him to get his ass to security and bring Paige. His eyes widened in surprise when the Old Man added, “Her brother’s here.”
The news had her throwing clothes on almost as fast as him. Jumping into the Jeep, Jace floored it, arriving at security in record time.
With Paige right tight on his heels, they raced into the room. The General was pacing while Matt and Lark were both working frantically at the monitoring stations. “What’s going on?”
The General looked at Paige and pointed to a bank of six monitors, one of which showed a still frame of a man in sunglasses at the entrance of the tunnel. “Is that your brother?”
“It is,” she said, nodding as she approached the screen to get a better look. “That’s Grady.”
“Well, he’s here and demanding we send her out,” he told Jace. “When I refused, he took control of the tunnel.”
“He’s three-quarters of the way through,” Matt announced.
“God dammit! I want someone at the manual release valve. If we don’t have the system back before the final check-point we’re flooding the tunnel.”
“No!” Paige protested, reaching a hand out to the General. “Please. If it’s me he wants, let me go talk to him.”
Appalled, Jace grabbed her and spun her around. “Are you out of your mind?”
Her face was frantic. “He’s my brother.”
“He was going to kill you!” Jace couldn’t even believe they were having this argument.
