"What the hell is that thing?" Evie scrambled backwards until her back was up against a bank of heavy filing cabinets. Never taking her eyes off the nightmarish hound, she scanned the room in vain for an escape route.

"Your tax dollars at work." Vince yelled.

"It won't hurt you as long as you don't leave the room," Lear said, shakily. "Or threaten it. Whatever you do, don't shoot it in the head."

"Fuck that. I'm not gonna end up Madonna's sex slave." Vince raised his Glock, shooting six rounds at the dog's mechanical skull.

The DARPA canine opened its jaws. Making hollow clunking noises, it effortlessly snapped bullets in midair. It calibrated, whirring like an ATM machine as its muzzle telescoped out in a camera lens fashion, then returned fire, shooting his own bullets back at Vince.

"Sonofabitch!" Vince yelled, ducking. "Evie, don't waste your ammo — this thing eats bullets."

"It eats security guards too." Lear yelled.

The hell hound raised its hind leg and shot bullets from its crotch area, knocking a book titled How to Win Friends and Influence People from a shelf above Lear's head. Falling to the ground, he crawled on all fours behind a credenza.

"That's a new self-defense feature." Ray yelled into their headsets.

"Do something before it eats us." Evie screamed. "It's Jaws armed with a howitzer."

"This fucker could take down the Pentagon all on its own." Vince shouted.

"That's DARPA's BIG DOG model. There should be an emergency kill switch underneath it." Satoshi buzzed into their headsets.

Evie threw a heavy duty stapler at the dog to draw it away from Vince, then scrambled on top of a filing cabinet. The DARPA assassin dog bounded over to her and started climbing the metal drawers. Evie removed her wool coat and threw it over the metal snapping jaws. Disorientated, the creature threw its steel head side to side, trying to dislodge the heavy fabric. "Now what?" She yelled.

"Get away from her, Cujo!" Running up to them, Vince round-house kicked the dog in its side, breaking his foot in the process. Evie jumped down as the hydraulic dog fell sideways, pulling the cabinet on top of itself. Vince howled, cradling his injured foot as Evie crawled over to check the dog's underbelly. A long serpentine tongue shot out of the dog's mouth, snatching Vince's gun away from his hand. There was a grinding screech as BIG DOG chewed the Glock to pieces, followed by a hydraulic whine as the animatronic dog tried to free itself from the cabinet, pumping its legs like a trash compactor. Frantically whipping its head like a pinned lizard, it snapped steel jaws at Evie to prevent her from reaching the emergency kill switch lever.

"Distract it, Vince. I can't reach the power handle."

Knowing it was either Evie's life or his, the former navy seal painfully rolled over and pulled down his drawers, mooning the electronic canine. "How'd you like to take a bite of that, pooch?" Vince taunted the crazed machine, wiggling his butt cheeks.

Enraged, BIG DOG gnashed razor-sharp teeth, preparing to eject his tongue through Vince's anus. Across the room, Lear shut his eyes, unwilling to watch the fatal colonoscopy. "Jeezus Evie, hurry!"

Inside the control room, Satoshi and Ray covered their mouths with their hands, horrified.