Page 54 of Mastermind

“You mean hide? If we get inside a cabinet, they’ll tear it apart. Chimps can rip off car doors if they’re angry enough,” I whisper.

“That’s not my plan. This is a server facility, right?”

“Yes,” I reply, watching a moving shadow in the distance.

“Where are all the cables supposed to go?” she asks.

“It’s a floating floor . . .”

So, underneath us.

Server rooms are built several feet above the ground with a false floor where all the cables run. There’s at least two or three feet of crawl space underneath our feet—enough room for cables and a human to connect them to all the junctions.

“I’m not sure it would be any better if we get trapped down there with them,” I tell Jessica.

“Where do you think we stand a better chance? In a two-dimensional fight or a three-dimensional one?” she asks.

Okay, she knows my language. “Cover me while I lift a panel.”

“Theo,” she says under her breath.

I glance back in her direction and see a large male chimpanzee blocking that row. I look back to my end of the aisle and spot two more.

I kneel to inspect the floor, keeping my gun aimed in their direction. Chimps don’t coordinate like we do, but they react and adapt so quickly, it’s effectively the same.

The floor is perfectly smooth. I can spot the seams where the panels fit into their recesses but can’t fit a fingernail in to pry one up, much less a finger.

Normally they use suction cups attached to handles to lift the tiles. I left mine at home. “They’re moving closer. Should we try a warning shot?” asks Jessica.

“Um, yes. But let me do it.”

I point my gun at the floor and aim it an angle. Bang!

My bullet tears into the flooring, leaving a thumb-size hole. When I glance up, the chimps are still advancing.

“That didn’t work. I think they lost their fear of guns,” says Jessica.

“It still may help us.” I wave my gun at the chimps on the left side, then hear the scratching of nails on the cabinet to my right.

I’m about to tell Jessica my plan when her gun fires and makes a loud clang as the slug ricochets off the metal cabinet.

There’s a loud thump as something jumps to the floor on the other side. I don’t look back because my chimps are getting closer. If I had to guess, she just shot near the one trying to climb over the top. The vibration of the bullet hitting the metal was enough to scare it. But for how long?

They’ll all go apeshit in a second.

I reach down, shove my thumb through the bullet hole I made in the tile, and lift it up.

“Jessica!”

I don’t know how, but she manages to drop to her knees and slide under my legs and into the opening before I can get the last syllable of her name off my tongue.

“Theo!” she yells, pulling at my foot from the crawl space.

I slide my legs in, and she pulls me all the way under. I try to straighten the panel so the chimps won’t have an easy time of getting it open, but with their strength, anything is possible.

“This way,” she whispers, crawling in the direction of the entrance.

“Hold up.” I crawl back and take a position with my gun aimed at the tiny spot of light streaming through my bullet hole.