Fight the Future Read Online Free

suddenly screeching up to the curb. Agents in FBI windbreakers ran from the unmarked vehi-cles, Darius Michaud among them.
    "Where is it?" he demanded as he rushed into the lobby to meet Scully. Around them workers streamed out of the building, their voices high-pitched with anxiety. The school-teacher shouted as she hurried her class past, the children crying out excitedly when the saw the mob of FBI agents. Scully paused and stared out the huge glass wall, to where fire engines roared up alongside the unmarked vans, fol-lowed by a phalanx of city buses. Everything suddenly had the feel of a situation that was verging out of control.
    She caught herself before she could give in to that desperate line of thought and turned to face Michaud. "Mulder found it in a vending machine. He's locked in with it."
    Michaud looked over his shoulder and yelled at an agent directing people through the doors. "Get Kesey with the torch! It's in the vending room."
    He looked back at Scully. "Take me there," he commanded.
    "This way—"
    • • •
    The windowless room felt like a cell to Mulder, as he crouched in front of the soda machine and stared glassy-eyed at the array of explosives there, the shifting pattern of red numerals on the LED
    display.
    7:00
    He wiped a bead of sweat from his chin, hurriedly punched at his cell phone as it began to chime. He jumped, then switched the phone on with relief.
    "Scully? You know that face I was mak-ing—I'm making it now."
    "Mulder." Scully's voice was muffled by a keening sound in the hallway. "Move away from the door.
    We're coming through it."
    He backed away, even as the brilliant blue-white flame of a gas plasma torch began to roughly trace the outline of the metal door. Gray smoke sifted inside as the stench of scorched metal filled the room.
    The hinges glowed, then turned black. The torch finished its circuit of the doorway, so that a somewhat smaller rectangle momentarily appeared within it. Mulder heard a series of thumps and a faint voice yelling " Go !" Then, with a muted crash, the door fell inward and crashed to the floor.
    "Mulder…" Scully began, but was silenced as Michaud shoved past her, handing off the plasma torch to another agent and grabbing a hefty tool kit. She followed him inside, along with three other agents—bomb techs. They headed for where Mulder stood gazing at the soda machine's digital readout.
    4:07
    Mulder shook his head. "Tell me that's just soda pop in those canisters."
    Michaud gingerly set the tool.kit on the floor and stooped in front of the machine. "No. It's what it looks like. A big I.E.D.—ten gallons of astrolite."
    He pursed his lips, studying the bomb, and without looking up, commanded, "Okay. Get everybody out of here and clear the building."
    Mulder frowned. "Somebody's got to stay here with you."
    "I gave you an order," Michaud snapped, still not looking up. "Now get the hell out of here and evacuate the area."
    Scully sidled up behind him. "Can you defuse it?"
    "I think so." Michaud snapped the tool kit open and withdrew a pair of wire clippers. The other agents nodded at each other and quickly left the room.
    Michaud pushed up the sleeves of his wind-breaker and flexed the wire clippers. Mulder watched him dubiously.
    "You've got about four minutes to find out if you're wrong."
    Without warning Michaud turned on him. "Did you hear what I said?" His voice shook slightly, and there was a febrile intensity to his gaze.
    "Let's go, Mulder," Scully murmured. "Come on."
    She started out the door. Mulder remained for a moment longer, staring at Michaud.
    But the other man's attention was focused solely on the bomb. Seconds passed, until finally Mulder turned and followed Scully into the corridor. In the room behind him Michaud set the wire clippers carefully on his knee but did nothing else; only crouched staring at the bomb. Just staring.
    Outside, the last of the building's occu-pants had been evacuated. The horde of schoolchildren raced up the