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Relieved to be once more in uniform, Gunnery Sergeant Repeth crept forward toward the side door of the New White House, not so white really but a mixture of white accents and sandy Southwest tans looking like blurs of grey in the fading light. The muzzle of her suppressed PW10 sniffed forward, her every sense fox-sensitive.
Already she had gently gunned down three Secret Service agents, the coughing of her weapon sounding like a desert bird or perhaps an echo from a mistuned motor engine, something passed by as ambient noise. The Needleshock combination she was using included an additional soporific; she hoped she would have at least two hours before any of them woke up.
The knob turned but the door did not budge, as expected. Nothing for it, really, this was the moment she had anticipated but delayed as long as possible. Readying a pair of Needleshock grenades, filled with tiny unitary capacitor module shrapnel, she took a deep breath and then reared back, slamming her booted foot mule-style into the door.
It popped open with just one bang, a better result than she had hoped. She pushed through it as it came back at her on its hinges and she ran, crouching, pinless grenades in one hand, PW10 tight to her shoulder in the other.
The first figure she saw went down in a coughing burst of ‘Shock, sprawling in the middle of an anteroom with three more exits. She slid forward along the wall and tossed the explosives through the two open doors and kicked the third with her booted foot.
It resisted stubbornly, three blows, and then finally splintered on the fourth. She fell deliberately to the ground and rolled to the side as high-powered pistol rounds zipped and popped through the opening, followed by the chattering of heavier bullets from an assault rifle. A ricochet stung her calf but she ignored it.
Scrambling to the doorframe she slid the muzzle of the PW10 around the corner and thumbed it to full automatic, sending a long spray of needles ricocheting around the President’s office. She followed this in a roll, dropping a magazine and reloading as she moved. Two pistol-wielding Secret Service agents lay sprawled in states of embarrassment, bloodied but destined for Edenhood. The door across the room slammed shut.
Cursing under her breath, she threw a shoulder painfully against the barrier, feeling its solidity and lack of give. Safe room, she thought, an armored refuge of last resort. I have to hope it is proof against comms transmissions as well, that the last Secret Service agent remains incommunicado inside with the President. Time to cut my losses and run.
She heard alarms beginning as the Executive compound woke up, and she estimated she had three minutes before the whole of the reaction force would come down on her like an avalanche of bricks. Reaching into a cargo pocket, she pulled out a hard case with rounded edges and placed it on McKenna’s desk. Who looks at all the pen cases, cigar cases, and mementos on someone’s desk? She had to hope the President would notice it, as others might not, and read the note. She had to hope he would use what was inside to free himself from the addictive nanites. And she had to hope the syringe of Eden Plague, made from her own blood, would even work. That’s a lot of hopes. Better than being a White House slave.
Back out the way she came, this time running fast, bullets licking her heels, she sprinted, first hurdling the low wall then reaching up to grasp the points of the wrought-iron fence, flipping herself up and over in a gymnast’s dismount, ignoring the shredded palms of her gloves and hands alike. She landed on her feet and somersaulted back up into a run, this time flat out, her hands reaching for the sky in front of her as her stride lengthened to an Olympic hundred-meter dash.
