stand down order

“Shutting it down now, but … shit, Outlaw, the blowers are still functioning. They … they must be connected to some other power source. Something I can’t get to remotely.”

“Can’t use that answer, Bug. Find me something.”

“If you can keep that jammer off I can keep the lights on. But you’re on your own with the blowers. Sorry!” I dropped the jammer and stamped down hard enough to burst the device into fragments. It gave a single puff of smoke and then died. With the lights on I was able to find Adam’s gun and his two extra magazines. I took the sleeping guard’s weapon, too. I looked at Eve, laying in a weeping pile, then went over and crouched in front of her. I placed the barrel of one of the guns under her chin and, despite resistance, made her raise her head and look at me.

“How do I stop this?” I demanded. Eve shook her head. I placed the barrel of the pistol hard against her kneecap. “I can make this last,” I said. “You know that. So, tell me right now. How do I stop this?”

“Each … each blower is self-contained. Battery operated. You … you’d need to turn them off individually.” I gaped at her, my mind racing on to process that and at the same time figure out how to stop the machines while taking fire from Santoro’s crew.

...

I pressed harder with the barrel. With my other hand I tore off her black wig and saw that a slender wire mic was hidden by the hair.

“Is there a team channel?” She nodded. “What is the stand-down order?” Her eyes shifted away. Some reserves of courage seemed to rise up in her, but she shook her head.

“Fuck you,” she said, spitting the words at me.

“I warned you,” I said, and shot her through the knee.

Her scream tore the air in half, rising to the supersonic. I placed the barrel against the other kneecap. That was as effective as a slap across the mouth. She stopped screaming and sat there, shaking, sweating, bleeding, terrified, staring at me.

“What is the fucking stand-down order?”

Eve did not want to give me the code. For whatever such stubbornness or loyalty or stupidity is worth, she did not want to give it up.

And yet…

...

“Bug,” I said as I moved into the hall. People were running and yelling, some crouched down, but the Rage pathogen did not seem to be out here. Small mercies. “I have one of the Fixer’s coms units attached to a booster unit. I need you to access their system and send the following message: ‘Icarus Falls.’ Repeat that back. Good. I’m plugging the coms unit into my Q-box.”

The Q-box was a device the size of a deck of playing cards, with various kinds of ports on three of the four sides. The unit I found in the wig had a standard double-end cable and I plugged that in. An encouraging little green light flicked on.

“Got it, Outlaw,” said Bug, “but whoa! There’s some serious protection here. Firewall and encryption.”

-Rage pg. 430-433, Kindle Edition