Page 84 of Echo: Line
"Eight minutes," Tommy responds. "Maybe nine if their system architecture is weird."
Eight minutes for the download. We've already used four getting here. That leaves twelve minutes on the camera loop. Minus eight for download means four minutes to extract before our cover's blown.
The math is bad.
"Alex," I start.
"I know." His voice is calm. Steady. "We work with what we have."
Gunfire erupts from somewhere above us—muffled by distance and concrete but unmistakable. The sharp crack of rifles in enclosed spaces.
"Contact!" Kane's voice cuts through comms. "They made us. Multiple hostiles, north corridor."
"How many?" Alex asks, scanning our door.
"Too many. We're pulling back to secondary position."
The download bar crawls across my screen. Three percent. The server room suddenly feels like a cage instead of an objective. We're three floors underground with one exit and Committee security responding to intruders.
More gunfire. Closer this time.
"Delaney, abort," Alex says. "We're leaving."
"Not without the evidence." I'm photographing the download progress, documenting everything. "Chain of custody breaks if I leave the device unattended. Evidence becomes worthless in court."
"That's not a request."
"It's almost done." I watch the progress bar crawl forward. "We're too close to quit now."
"You don't have time." His voice carries an edge I haven't heard before. Command authority with no room for argument. "They're coming."
"Then you better hold that door."
He moves to better cover position, rifle trained on the corridor. "Tommy, any way to speed this up?"
"Already running maximum bandwidth. Ninety seconds, maybe less if the last files are smaller."
The download hits twenty percent. Then twenty-five. Each percent takes forever while gunfire echoes through the facility. Committee security knows we're here. They're hunting us systematically, clearing each floor, boxing us in.
Forty percent. Sixty. Seventy-five.
"Multiple hostiles headed your way," Tommy warns. "Two minutes out, maybe less."
"Delaney..."
"Almost there." My hands are steady on the keyboard despite my heart trying to beat out of my chest. This is what I'm good at—documentation, evidence collection, building prosecutable cases. The Committee murdered seventeen people and blamed me. This data proves it.
Eighty-five percent.
Footsteps echo in the corridor. Multiple boots, tactical pace, professional movement. They're not running blind—they know exactly where we are.
"They're stacking on your position," Tommy says urgently. "Sixty seconds until breach."
Alex shifts his stance, finger on the trigger. "Delaney, we need to move. Now."
Ninety percent.
The server room has one door, no windows, and walls designed to contain expensive equipment. If they breach while we're inside, we're trapped in a kill box with no way out.
