He drew his sidearm, checking the chamber with a quick, metallic click.

“Hurry up, Doc.”

The progress bar reached ninety-six percent.

I hit the return key, executing the overwrite script.

The terminal screen flickered.

A line of red text appeared at the bottom of the blue window: *Warning: Buffer overflow detected.*

“Come on,” I whispered.

The progress bar paused at ninety-seven percent.

The blue drive’s red LED stopped blinking and turned solid red.

“Did it work?” Hayes asked, his eyes still on the corridor.

“It’s processing,” I said.

The progress bar didn’t move.

The system was trying to resolve the conflict between the real telemetry data and the random noise I had injected.

In the corridor outside, the sound of heavy boots echoed on the metal deck.

“In here!” a voice shouted.

It was Lieutenant Carter’s voice, high and panicked.

“They’re in the radio shack!”

Hayes stepped in front of the door, his body blocking my view of the hallway.

“Lock the door, Hayes,” I said.

“Already done,” he replied, his hand on the heavy brass dog lever.