Fever Read Online Free PDF Page B

nods. I look over the console. It looks like there’s a security scanner similar to the one on the gate built into it.
                “What’s this for?” I ask.
                “It’s so that they can check that anyone trying to use the system isn’t an intruder,” Jack explains. He looks at it, and I can see him trying to calculate something. “In theory, if I were able to log in, then we’d have complete control over this place, including the defenses. But no, it’s too dangerous.”
                “What’s too dangerous?” I ask. “We power the place up, you log in, and then we turn the defenses off. Easy.”
                “Depending on how long the log in takes,” Jack points out. He shakes his head. “Ordinarily, it would be okay. There’s a delay deliberately to allow an operator to connect. But we’re already trespassing, and we don’t know if everything will run at the same speed powered off you, Celes.”
                “So are you saying we shouldn’t do it?” I ask. I look him in the eye. “Is what we’re getting here worth it?”
                “It could get us to Location Thirteen quickly, and save us all the danger that might be on the way.”
                “Then it’s worth it,” I decide, and move up next to the console. “I believe in you, Jack. You can do this. Just be ready to log in when I power things up. On three. One, two… three.”
                I reach down into myself, pulling up power the same way I did with the car engine. Except this time it can’t be just a quick spark. It’s a constant stream. One that makes the console hum, and the gears of the turret beside me whir as it comes to life. Slowly, ponderously, it turns towards us, its barrels starting to spin.
                “Hurry up, Jack!”
                Jack puts his eyes to a scanner, punching in a number on the accompanying keypad at the kind of speeds only he can manage. The mini-gun is spinning faster now, its barrels a rattling whir as they blur their way round and round. Any second now, the first bullets will come out of it to tear the two of us to pieces. What will that be like? Will it even hurt, or will it be so fast that there isn’t a chance for it to hurt? I don’t want to find out, but it’s looking more and more like...
                The mini guns stop spinning, turning away from us. There’s a grinding noise as the gate at the front of the compound starts to open. Doors around the storage facility raise themselves in near silence.
                “You did it!” I say to Jack, stepping away from the console.
                “We did it,” Jack corrects me. “Come on. Let’s go see what there is that can help us.”
                The first locker we go to contains weaponry. We take a flak jacket each, just in case, while Jack passes me a handgun, a knife, and even a couple of grenades. He’s a little more heavily armed by the end of it, with a shotgun strapped to his back and a short, blocky sub-machine gun on a strap.
                The weapons aren’t the end of it though, because the next locker contains camping supplies. The one after that has food. As for the one after that …
                “It’s a helicopter,” I say. “You actually keep a helicopter in a storage locker?”
                It looks like one of those fast, long range ones the Faders favor. One of the ones we used over Switzerland. Only this one is somehow folded up neatly onto a large steel pallet for moving around. AmaTim aroundzingly, the two of us can move it easily. We take it out to the road in front of the storage location, and in less than another half hour, Jack has it looking like a fully operational helicopter again. We even manage to get extra fuel tanks onto it. We climb in and Jack sets the rotors