Page 60 of Nuclear Option (Owens Protective Services)

ELI

“Any wordon how much longer it will be until the city is up and running again?” I asked Mark, the city engineer.

He was still working out of our offices since it was the center of operations for getting our power grids back online. However, Cash wasn’t interested in helping any longer since Rafe had turned against us. But Cash wasn’t here, and we still needed power restored. The minute we kicked the city engineer out of our offices, the mayor would divert power to other areas of the city.

Mark sighed, leaning back in his seat. He’d been working long hours, and while we had gone to break Cash and company out of the spy center, Mark was here alone dealing with all the problems.

“Typical government bureaucracy,” he grunted. “I can’t get other cities to cooperate and share information.”

I nodded, “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“I’m guessing we’re still months away from getting the power fully restored. We all knew a cascade failure could happen, but no one listened. If they had just put safety measures in place, this could have been avoided.”

“I was under the impression nothing could be done.”

“Something can always be done. If engineers had taken measures to allow for the overload of power at the other substations, we wouldn’t have had the cascade failure. But that requires financial investment that the government wasn’t interested in making, because they assumed nothing like this would ever happen.”

“Well—“

I was cut off by the alarms going off all around us. I jerked my gaze toward the screens on the wall, immediately walking over to hit the alarm. A new screen popped up, showing men swarming the perimeter of the building, and they weren’t here to say hello.

“Saddle Up!” I shouted over the intercom. “Let’s flush the toilet of humanity!”

I stormed over to Mark and grabbed him, dragging him behind me as I headed for the panic room.

“Where are we going?”

“Getting you to safety.”

“What’s going on?” he asked, panic lacing his voice. “I don’t understand—”

“We’re under attack.”

“By who?”

“No fucking clue,” I muttered, still dragging him until we reached the bunker. I entered my code, and waited for the air seal, then pulled the door open and shoved him inside. He stumbled through the door, staring at the setup in awe. I grabbed a gun off the wall and handed it to him. “If anyone comes through that door that you don’t know, you shoot until the magazine is empty. Understood?”

“What if it’s one of you guys and I don’t recognize you?”

“You’ll be fine. Nobody’s coming down here. This room can withstand a bomb.”

“A bomb? Is that possible?”

“Anything’s possible,” I retorted, confused by his question. “I’ll get you when it’s safe.”

He started to argue, but I shut the door in his face and turned when it was secured again. By the time I got back to the conference room, everyone else was already taking up positions around the property. I slipped in my earbud and hit the button to speak.

“Thumper, talk to me.”

“I count twenty incoming. No markers.”

“Alright, no lolly gaggin’. Light ‘em up.”

“Copy that.”

The distinct sound of gunfire set my soul at peace. I was never calmer than when I was in a firefight. As I hot-footed it to my position, I checked my gun, jerking my chin at Red as I passed.

“Eli, we got a problem,” IRIS said over comms.

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