They rush, as fast as they can, toward the exits. Just as I hoped, the drones turn and whirr through the air after them, one each, the doors opening for them as they follow the customers outside. The two security guards seem surprised to see them chasing the bank robbers.
“Move, Brady.” Keeping him tight to my body, I force him forward, his resistance more out of uncertainty than defiance. The security guards stalk along with us, keeping their distance even as they angle for a clean kill. I jerk Brady back and forth, trying to keep him in the way. For the first time, I notice the sound of sirens somewhere in the distance.
“I say we take the shot,” one of the guards behind me says. “The guy is clearly working with her.”
“Think harder,” I reply. “This is not a robbery, I haven’t even taken any money.”
“What do you call the chips your accomplices just took?” he asks.
“They weren’t accomplices.”
“Put the gun down,” says one of the guards in front of me, backpedaling slowly as I move with Brady toward the front entrance. “You don’t have to die today.”
The doors are near, but the two guards in front of me are blocking the way, and if I run, all four will shoot. I’m going to die here. In the next seconds I will be forced to weigh the lives of the guards, and maybe the lives of some of these customers, against mine. And what is mine worth, really? Odds are I won’t live out the hour.
But if I drop my gun right now, they win. Whoever they are, they win, and nothing changes.
The sirens are getting louder, decibel by decibel. I’m running out of time.
I pull the gun away from Brady’s head slowly, extending my arm, and the security guard in front of me tenses visibly as my aim comes to rest on him. The other three fan out.
“This is your last chance,” I say with an icy sureness that somehow doesn’t sound as false as it feels. “Drop your guns, and let me walk away, and you all live.”
The one I’m aiming at gives a barely audible nervous chuckle. “Drop your gun, bitch, and maybe you live,” he says.
Do something, Taryn. You’re out of time. You gave them a chance, and they’re still in your way.
“Fuck this,” says the guard I’m aiming at. He raises his gun.
Before he can level the barrel at my head, I squeeze my own trigger.
The silence is shattered by the crack of the gunshot. It stays shattered as everyone panics at once. People scream, people flee, another two gunshots ring out, all drowning out the nearing sirens and the sound of the dead guard dropping to the stone. The security guards bark desperate orders at me and at each other as they scramble to line up a clean shot, afraid to fire again as bank customers run past us, fleeing for the exits.
I’m in automatic mode now, though. I turn mechanically to the next guard, line it up, and fire. He gets off a couple of errant shots as he falls. As he clutches at his wound with his off hand, I aim carefully and put a bullet through his shooting wrist, and the gun falls loose as he screams in pain.
“Taryn, what the hell?” Brady is yelping, terrified, and probably deafened by the gunshots so close to his ear. I wheel him violently around, facing the two remaining guards. One fires hastily, missing, and with all the strength in my left arm I shove Brady off, sending him stumbling forward. Taking a two-handed grip, I fire over his shoulder. Another guard drops and his weapon clatters away, kicked by the feet of panicked customers rushing for the doors.
If everyone clears out of here but me, I’m screwed. There’s a reason bank robbers don’t let the customers leave. “Everyone down!” I scream as vicious as I can possibly sound. “Get on the damn ground and stay there or else!” I fire a few shots over their heads, and most of them drop to the floor, cowering, though many keep running.
One guard left. Anticipating his attack, I dive sideways to the floor, rolling through it and rising to a knee. Before I can get a fix on him he’s moved, and too many people are rushing through my line of fire. Evidently no longer caring about harming customers, he takes a few hurried pot shots through them, which zip and ricochet off the stone floor behind me. One of them nicks a middle-aged woman who shrieks but keeps running.
I leap to my feet and run, zig-zagging to avoid the bullets whizzing past. A shot strikes a civilian trying to crawl toward the exits, sending him spinning round like a top and tumbling down. A few screams go up as the remaining customers hug the floor. The sirens are close, I think, but it’s so loud in here that I can’t tell how close. How much time do I have before they’re here? How much time has gone by? Have those decoys led the drones far enough away? The sirens are so loud now. Time is nearly up.
I slip into cover behind one of the big, round pillars in the middle of the floor. A bullet strikes the opposite side of it, chewing into the stone. I creep around, then lean out, searching for the last security guard. He’s moved, and I can’t find him before a fast burst of bullets cuts through the air near my head. A full auto.
The door at the far end of the lobby opens, and one of the guards from the security vault leans out cautiously, holding one of the assault rifles from the weapons rack. I put a couple of shots through the doorway to make him think twice, but he fires back a burst from cover, and the other guard from the vault runs past him, stops, and sets, lining up a shot with a thick, bulky tagger rifle. But I’ve got him lined up already, and before he can even get a shot off, I put one right into his chest. He staggers but doesn’t go down, probably armored under his black suit, so I hit him again, just a bit higher, piercing him through the neck. Blood bursts out both front and back as he drops his gun, his hands grabbing desperately at his throat as he falls.
The other one sprays a few more blind flurries from behind the doorway. He’s not rushing out here, but eventually he’ll hit me. I’ve got to move.
I lean out again from the pillar, and a shot nicks the stone. The guard on the opposite side is trying to flank me, so I sidestep behind cover. The exits are far, but there are no more guards in the way, and this may be my last chance. I run for it.
Through the broad view-glass facade, I see that a barricade is already being set up outside. Heavily armed police emerge from trucks establishing a perimeter. I’m stuck.
Another shot rings out, and I’m hammered in my shoulder. I let myself go down, knowing that another is coming. It whizzes above me as I hit the ground. The dark cloth of my uniform is stretched and torn just under my shoulder blade, but the thin layer of armor sewn into the lining has stopped the bullet. A sting shoots through the spot where it hit, but a few centimeters higher and it might have broken my collarbone.
I snap off a quick round at the guard, missing wide. He aims for a kill shot, but I roll aside, and the bullet cracks into the bare stone, sending shards and dust into the air. On my back, I line up my sights just as he does, and I fire first by a microsecond.
He lets out a scream as his left knee folds under him. Dropping to the ground, he lets go of his pistol so that he can clutch at his ruined leg. “Bitch!” he cries. “Aaaaagggghhh!”
I scramble clumsily up to my feet, spinning. Where did the last guard go?
Two bullets punch the center of my back, throwing me off balance. I struggle to keep my footing, but another cracks into my left tricep, knocking me down again. My knees hit the floor hard. I turn, but the guard bearing down on me is setting for the kill shot, and I can’t adjust, don’t have time to dodge. This is it.
A sudden blur of gray slams into the guard from his side, tackling him to the ground. His pistol blasts a wild bullet into the ceiling high above, sending a delicate shower of dust wafting down. The man who tackled him grabs for the gun, and the guard loses his grip on it as he wrestles for control. Ducking low to keep the police outside from getting an angle on me through the view-glass, I rush over to get control of the situation, aiming my gun at the two men.