I pressed the C4 into the gap between the key code box and the control shed’s wall. There wasn’t much more than a pound of it. All I could get from stripping the last of the claymores from the Dogwood Glen armory. That would’ve been enough for my original purpose, but it’s a lot easier to kill yourself blowing up your own car than it is to blow up a building, even a small one like this. Maybe the gas can I set next to it wouldn’t catch. Maybe there was no juice in the junction box to start an electrical fire, either. Maybe the goddamn batteries in the remote clacker would be dead. Or maybe they’d all work but destroying the control shed wouldn’t do anything but trigger the containment vault’s emergency back-up system.

Somebody punched me in the left kidney. Then I heard the echoing report and I knew it wasn’t a punch. I dropped to the floor of the shed and the next shot blew a splintered hole in the wall. I reached up and pushed the antennaed blasting cap into the C4. I could hear them closing the distance and started to black out. “You don’t have to die,” I told myself. “Not yet.” Then I pushed myself up onto my boots, tore out of the doorway and gave those fuckers something to chase.