Leo smiled. "You're too late."
Leo had already been running for six.
Leo's heart stopped. He held his breath. The bar steadied. Sixty percent. download mach 4
Leo leaned his head against the cool metal of the dead terminal. The wind outside carried no sound but its own sorrow. Somewhere, out there, a farmer with a cracked earpiece was hearing the plans for a new world.
"Fifty-one percent," the terminal chirped. Leo smiled
Leo could see her now through the gap. Captain Voss. His old partner. She looked older than he remembered, her face a map of regret and desperation. "Don't make me come in there, Leo. That data belongs to the Collective. You're a thief."
Voss kicked the door. It fell with a deafening clang. She stepped inside, rifle raised. Behind her, two men in rebreather masks. He held his breath
"Ninety percent."
The first shotgun blast buckled the door's top hinge. Dust rained from the ceiling. Leo's screen wobbled on its stand.
It wasn't the speed that killed the download; it was the silence.
A second blast. The bottom hinge tore free. The door leaned inward, held only by a single deadbolt of rusted iron.