The Astral Hacker (Cryptopunk Revolution Book 1) Brian Terenna (best novels to read to improve english txt) 📖

sending scores of bullets at my friends. The bullets push into the shield, but rather than doing any damage, they drop harmlessly to the ground.

Sunny jumps out of Alexander’s backpack and raises his hand to the slit in the shield. Green lasers shoot out of it. The guards cover their eyes, groan, and scream as the weapon blinds them.

A dazzler. Nice Sunny. Alexander must have told him.

Alexander shouts, “Americus. Americus. Americus,” as he slips his sniper rifle into the slit.

Each of his powerful shots blows guards off their feet as it ruptures through them. Most of them scatter, running back into the safety of the buildings.

One blinded guard smashes into the side of the building in his attempt to escape. Others run toward us to get around the bullet shield. Sunny’s dazzler burns their eyes while bullets from Nav’s massive gun punch holes into them.

As the guards flee, I imagine the turrets targeting my friends at any second. Their bullet shield would be no match for the powerful lasers. I glance up at the turrets, feeling sick, but somehow, they’re inactive.

The Liberator Drone hums as it activates on the top of the nearby roof.

Oh no.

“Cube,” Nav says into her q-link. “Access that drone and execute the program, Fae is a Genius.”

“Failure,” says her q-link.

The drone’s four rotor blades spin to life as it lifts into the air.

“Cube, execute variant C.”

The drone speeds toward us, its missiles threatening.

Just one of them would kill us all. I stare in horror as it prepares to fire.

“Success,” says Nav’s q-link.

The drone stops and hangs in midair.

Relief floods through me. It was clever to make variations on my program. “Nav, Alexander, get me a q-link and get me out of this chair.”

Alexander finds the release buttons and hits them. The clamps disengage, and he hands me a q-link.

I slip it on my wrist, my hopes soaring. Oh hell yes. Now, they pay. “Download operation software, Chim. Password D7LR21B85.”

I rip the brain-interfaces from my head and stand from the chair, shaky at first, but then with more stability.

“You’re injured, Fae,” says Sunny as he scans me.

“I’m fine. They treated the injuries.”

Nav’s gaze trails from my black eyes to my bandaged forearms and then over my bruised body. “Oh my God. What did they do to you?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just give me a chance to get them back.”

She nods, looking hard. Her drone aims at the building that half the guards ran into and launches a missile.

A fiery explosion erupts into the sky, and the building collapses as smoke and dust plume into the air. A burst of heat and small fragments pelt my bare skin, but its destruction energizes me.

Nav swings her drone to target a second building. Before she can fire, the building’s door flies open, and a guard fires a rocket. Nav gasps and directs her drone sharply upward. The rocket follows and hits its target.

Her Liberator drone explodes in a ball of fire and a loud bang.

A wave of wind strikes me, and I stumble to the ground, pain wracking my body. Nav and Alexander duck down just as flaming pieces of the drone bounce off our bullet shield.

Alexander jumps back up, and his sniper rifle bangs as he shoots the guard.

Troops exit the buildings, looking to get back into the fight. They fire on us, but their bullets fall uselessly at the base of the shield.

I don’t have a gun to fire back, but I have something better. “Chim, access the turrets.” When I tried to escape, I didn’t have time to take them over, but now I do.

My friends return fire as guards try to flank our shield.

It takes me a moment to focus, but when I do, I quickly find what they updated in the code. I make a small change to my program and power up my newly-controlled turrets, then designate us as friendlies and the guards as targets. Now you see what happens when you threaten my friends.

Brilliant red rays of light streak from the turrets and burn guards in half. They scream, their bodies smoking as they fall. Several dart behind cover and fire back. One man who’s still exposed raises his gun.

A laser vaporizes his head. He stands there for a moment, looking like a dying zombie from Silent City, then drops. The rest of the guards run back into a building.

Now let’s end this. “Nav, Alexander, keep watch on the buildings in case anyone fires from inside where the turrets can’t reach. I’m going to hack an Obliterator suit.”

I access the code and begin my attack. No other guards dare to show themselves as the minutes pass. Eventually, I find the weakness and execute my program.

“Chim, open the cockpit.”

“Boss,” says Alexander. “Can I pilot it?”

“Sure. Get in. I’ll hack the other one.”

A guard darts out from a small door near the other Obliterator suit and hops inside of it. The suit stands and rotates to Alexander. My laser turrets fire on it but have no effect.

Diablo! “Alexander, fire your rockets at it.”

“I don’t know how,” comes through my q-link. “I’ll fight it hand to hand. It won’t be able to shoot rockets at me then.”

He charges and dives on the other suit. They tumble and spin several times until they collide into a concrete wall, dust flying up around them.

I access the other suit’s firewall and start my hack. “They’ve updated the code. I’ll need some time,” I say to Alexander through my q-link.

“Don’t worry. I’ll take care of him,” says Alexander.

Just then, the other suit flips Alexander’s around and pummels him with powerful blows. How long do I have before he rips open Alexander’s cockpit and smashes his skull?

I’m working on a breakthrough when I