Chapter 6
The heavy metal base of the fire extinguisher struck the reinforced glass with a dull, sickening thud that vibrated straight through the floorboards and into Maya’s boots. A web of fine, spider-like fractures bloomed across the outer layer of the laminate pane, but the thick industrial glass held firm against Leo’s frantic assault.
"Harder, Leo! Hit it again!" Marcus screamed, grabbing Leo’s shoulder to steady him as the smoke thickening in the hallway began to obscure their faces entirely. The red emergency strobes flashed rhythmically, painting their panicked expressions in alternating shades of bloody crimson and stark shadow.
Inside the freezing server room, Maya shielded her eyes with her forearm as tiny fragments of outer glass cascaded inward, dusting the frost-covered floor at her feet. The temperature inside had plummeted past minus ten degrees, her breath crystallizing instantly on her eyelashes as she fought against the biting numbness settling into her limbs. The terminal screen in front of her beeped frantically, the ninety-nine percent progress bar still stubbornly frozen while a secondary command line began compiling a system-wide erase sequence.
"You're going to break the seal and let the thermal dump flood the hallway!" Maya yelled, her voice trembling as she pressed her gloved hands against the fractured glass to push him back. "Stop hitting the glass! You're going to kill us all!"
"We're already dead if we stay out here!" Leo roared back, his face pressed mere inches from the glass, his eyes wide and bloodshot from the acrid smoke. "Open this damn door, Maya! Now!"
"I can't open it from the inside while the decryption is running!" she shouted, her fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard in a desperate attempt to bypass the erase sequence before it wiped the diagnostic drive clean. "Bryce programmed a dead-man's switch into the mainframe! If I cancel the download, the files vanish forever!"
Chloe whimpered in the background, sliding down the soot-stained wall until she was sitting on the concrete floor, pulling her knees up to her chest. "He lied to us... Bryce told us it was just a harmless prank for the clout... He said we'd all get a cut of the sponsorship money..."
Marcus froze, turning his head slowly toward Chloe through the haze of smoke. "What did you just say?" he demanded, grabbing her hoodie collar and hauling her to her feet. "What sponsorship money, Chloe? What are you talking about?"
Chloe avoided his gaze, her lower lip trembling as she coughed violently. "The... the off-shore account. Bryce set up a shell corporation using Leo's dad's signature. We were just supposed to keep Maya locked in here for twenty minutes so the transfer could clear without her firewall blocking the port!"
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Leo stopped swinging the fire extinguisher, his arms dropping heavily to his sides as he stared down at Chloe in stunned disbelief. "You knew? You knew he was using my family's name for a corporate fraud scheme and you didn't tell me?"
Before Chloe could answer, a loud, thunderous explosion shook the entire sub-level foundation. The main transformer housing unit located just down the corridor blew its access panel off with incredible force, sending a blinding wave of white-hot plasma and a wall of thick black smoke barreling directly toward them.
