Carl stepped in first.

Lod second.

The door closed.

Kate, Alex, and I stood up from the stainless-steel table.

Coop weirdly decided that it was time to take off his tap shoes.

Carl frowned at him. He was dressed in a gray jumpsuit with a gun belt around his waist and a two-way radio hanging from his pocket.

Lod had a silenced pistol in his hand, and a two-way radio clipped to his belt. He was wearing a white jumpsuit. The only white one I’d seen in the Deep 2.0.

Lod looked at Alex. “What did you think of my manifesto?”

“Succinct,” Alex answered.

Lod smiled.

“Is the Internet still up?” Alex asked.

“For ten more minutes. Then we’ll start taking it down. Because of all the servers it’s a little more complicated than the cellular system. No matter, we’ll be taking out the major power grids soon. Major cities first, then smaller communities. You should see the television feeds. The panic has begun. There are hundreds of people on their way here right now hoping to join us. Others are coming because they don’t think the government is doing enough to stop us. Vigilantes. There will be blood in the streets when the two groups meet.”

“And what do you think other countries will do when the US crumbles?” Alex asked.

Lod shrugged. “We’ll have to see how my compatriots fare in other countries. This takedown is not happening just here.”

Coop stood holding his tap shoes by the laces. One in each hand. I was certain he would tie the laces together and string them behind his neck. I had seen him do this a thousand times. But now? What was he thinking?

“There will be blood in here as well. This is not really a holding cube. It’s an execution cube.” Lod walked to the center of the cube and pointed down at the drain. “Easy cleanup. I thought of everything. I’ve sealed off the stairs and the elevators so Carl can drag your bodies out of here quietly. It’s just Carl and me. Everyone else is down below celebrating. The only decision that remains is what order. The boys first, obviously. Pat, then Coop. My quandary is should I kill you next, or Kate? Have you told her?”

“About Rebecca?”

“So you have told her. Good. That makes the decision easy. You’ll be number three.” He looked at Kate. “And you will be last. I guess there is something to gene hardwiring. You became a traitor just like your mother.”

“You didn’t think of everything,” Alex said. “No one can. Not even you.”

Lod gave him a sarcastic smile. “Really? What am I missing, brother?”

“The laptop.”

“Nice hardware. Your passcode was weak though. Bob had no problem cracking it. He’s playing with the laptop right now, looking at the software as we speak. Says he can’t decipher it. But he will.”

“No, he won’t.” Alex held up the remote.

“A flash drive is no good without a computer.”

“This one is a little different.”

Alex flipped it over. It was no longer flashing. The green light was bright and steady.

“It’s tied into that laptop. It’s a switch. It will kill everything you worked for. All I have to do is press it. There will be no restarting the computers or your servers. Ever. You can’t get new equipment because you can’t leave here.”

Lod raised his pistol and pointed it at Alex.

“Go ahead,” Alex said. “The last thing I do before I die is press the button.”

Lod pointed his pistol at me.

“Go ahead. You’re going to kill us all anyway,” Alex said.

I couldn’t have disagreed more. I wanted those few minutes.

“You’re bluffing,” Lod said.

Alex shook his head. “You know better than that. I don’t bluff.”

“Carl! Get on the radio. Tell Bob to shut down everything right now!”

Instead of grabbing his radio. Carl pulled his gun.

“I asked you to pull your —”

Two things happened at once.

Kate dashed forward and kicked Lod’s pistol out of his hand.

Coop threw a tap shoe at Carl’s head. It would have hit him and knocked him out if he hadn’t caught it with his free hand, moving as fast as a cobra.

“Shoot them!” Lod screamed, holding his wrist.

Alex pressed the silver bullet. There was a momentary flicker of the overhead lights.

“Shoot them!”

Carl walked over and picked up Lod’s gun. “If I’m going to shoot anybody it will be you.”

Kate kicked the legs out from under Lod, who fell to the ground, looking up at her in rage and pain.

“You killed my parents. If you try to get up, Carl won’t need the gun.”

Carl tossed the tap shoe to Coop.

“That would have hurt.”

“Sorry,” Coop said. “I won’t do it again.”

“You better not.”

The lights were still on.

“You’ll never get out of here,” Lod said. “The exit doors are computerized. And you just took the computers out. Nice going.”

Alex ripped Lod’s lanyard off his neck, walked over to the door, and swiped it through the reader. The door clicked open.

Lod laughed. “Not the interior doors, you idiot. The exit doors.”

“What about the back door in your quarters?” Kate said.

Lod’s smile disappeared. “There is no back door. You’re stuck here with me until the end of time.”

“Of course you are lying,” Kate said. “You have always lied to me.”

“Tie him up,” Alex said.

“Why?” Lod shouted. “I think Kate broke my leg.”

“Good,” Kate said.

Carl tied him up with the keycard lanyards.