A hand grasped around his. “Syler!”
“Emily, you need to run!”
“Fucking am, you asshole!” He could hear her panting even as the room was filled with more screaming, mass panic instigated by the gunfire. Gunshots sounded somewhere to his right. Arthur swore, ducking down behind a display, tucking all three of them down behind it.
“We’re twenty feet from the rear exit,” he murmured. “Straight ahead, one more aisle of techie bullshit. I’ll cover, you go!”
“Like hell I’m—” Emily snatched his hand, pulling him into a run as Arthur jumped up, laser sight and torch light flashing on as he worked to return fire against their assailants. They made it to the next set of booths, a scant few feet from the emergency exit, daylight seeping in around the edges, before a pair of armed men grabbed for them both.
Syler turned, snarling, pulling his Sig from his jacket pocket and firing it off into his attacker’s shoulder before the automatic laser sight even powered on. Behind him, Emily aimed a well placed knee into her attacker’s stomach, elbow taking him by surprise across the face, and he dropped as she swept a foot behind him and kicked out her hip, old self-defense lessons apparently paying off. She pressed up to him, back-to-back, both panting.
Arthur sprinted over, shouting. “The fuck are you waiting for! Move!”
Well you didn’t need to tell him twice. He surged for the exit door, Emily and Arthur hot on his heels, bursting out into sunlight, blinking rapidly and swearing as the bright light threw off his already tenuous balance. Arthur pressed a hand to the small of his back, shoving him forward and down the back alley, not pausing in their sprint until all three of them came out the other side. He pulled them into a side alcove, checking the streets. A stream of people were exiting both the front and rear of the building to the sound of fire alarms and encroaching sirens. The EMP seemed to have knocked out power to the entire block at least, along with every bit of communications equipment Arthur and Syler had on them. They needed to get back to their hotel.
“Sheath your weapon,” he barked, firm arm on Syler. “Let’s go.” Arthur tugged him along into the crowd, pushing another block before he slowed. He wrapped an arm around Syler’s waist, pulling him in tight, face stony. Beside him, Emily looked stunned. “Where are you staying?”
She glanced over at the agent. “Three blocks north, right up there.”
“Same as us. When we get to the hotel, get your things and go home. You don’t want to be here for this.”
“No, no, I don’t think I do,” she muttered, brushing back a piece of hair as she panted. “Christ, we’re having a fucking talk, Syler.”
“Later,” the engineer mumbled, moving to hurry them both up.
Arthur held him firm, pace more sedate. “If you run, it draws attention. We don’t need anymore of that, sweetheart.” All the same, the man kept them tight to the buildings lining the streets, slow but purposeful strides taking them back to the hotel in a scant handful of minutes that did absolutely nothing for his racing pulse. Arthur pulled out his key card to access one of the side doors, standing back to check if they’d been followed as his charges went inside. “Clear for now. You,” he pointed to Emily, “go home.”
She eyed him up, hands on hips, somehow brazen in the face of it all. “If anything happens to him, I will find you, Secret Agent Arm Candy.” She turned to Syler, darting in for a quick hug. “Room 216 if you need me, but I won’t be staying long.” She gave him a weak grin before darting off in the direction of the stairs.
---
Once they returned to the hotel room, Arthur was on him, hands running the length of his body to check for injuries.
“I’m fine Arthur,” he promised, shoving him off roughly and spinning towards the desk. “Hearing is a bit garbage, but that’ll die down.”
The other man nodded stiffly. “We need to leave.”
“No, I need to get in contact with Miranda. All of our long range communications devices got fucking fried. I have a back up short range set in our luggage, but I need her to start work on that trace asap before the fucker moves.” Arthur looked absolutely furious at the insubordination. “I have a name, Arthur, and a location. One is likely a fake and the other is going to be moving soon. Also, fuck me sideways, that isn’t augmented AI hacking!”
That got the other man’s attention. “What is it then?”
“Something that passes the fucking Turing test!” he snapped, fingers already flying over his laptop. “It’s not augmented. It’s not human-directed. It’s free-functioning, self-directed learning. It’s fully artificial intelligence. That was the test—human or AI!”
Arthur’s brow furrowed. “And why is this worth sticking around for?”
“Because I just taught it how to hack like I do Arthur! And so did Emily and every other fucking security specialist who sat down to test it before me, and every agency defending firewalls, and every government to boot. It’s learned with every single incursion and if we don’t find this bastard and eradicate his program, kiss every form of cyber security as you know it goodbye.” He took a deep breath, calling up Miranda as he finished. “The best of the best have been squaring off against an intelligent machine not a person. And that machine learns in real time.”
“It can get into the agency now?”
“Oh, almost certainly. Miranda?”
“What the fuck is happening over there?” Boothman called. The Colonel and Miranda could be heard over the speaker as well.
“Localized EMP detonated when I got through the last layer of cyber security the bastard put up around his connection. It was absolutely a trap. Name is Jonathan Byron, transmitting static IP so you can get a location lock. He’s
