HAPTER 2
2268.
32 years later.
The rain fell in a steady drizzle as Edon crouched on the rooftop. He had been watching the adjacent building below through night vision binoculars for nearly two hours, keeping careful note of everything he saw.
The building was a single-story affair, but the size of the parking lot and the wide garage style door dwarfing the regular entrance suggested more people than could fit inside, which probably meant there were more levels underground. That was not unusual - space and building materials were at a premium in the City, it was more cost effective to tunnel underground to create storage rooms and the massive laboratories Cybus needed to run their experiments. It was safer, as well. If a new product happened to go horribly wrong, it would do less damage under the earth than above, where collateral damage could be a problem. As you got further from the shining towers at the center of the City, underground accommodation became more common. The outermost limits were mostly huts that served as entrances to underground homes.
The facility was surrounded by a twelve foot fence, topped with razor-wire and cameras set up to watch every inch of the outside of the walls and the inner courtyard. There was also a watchtower manned by a single guard armed with a long barreled assault rifle with a scope attached. Two Variable Frames patrolled along the perimeter, equipped with carbines and fragmentation grenade attachments on their arms. They did not hurry, taking twenty minutes on each circuit, accompanied by a single human handler, similarly armed. Edon guessed that there would probably be more security personnel and frames inside the facility. He would have made his move over an hour ago, if he had his way. As it was, he was getting tired of waiting. He put the binoculars away in the duffel bag at his feet, and was on the verge of just going on ahead when an insistent beeping sounded in his ear.
Edon reached to his ear and pressed lightly on the receiver, accepting the incoming transmission.
"Good evening, father. Glad you finally made it. I was getting bored waiting for you."
"I'm not your father." the gruff voice of Robert Sol replied.
Edon grinned. "Well, you made me. Part of me is literally in your image. If not a father, maybe you're God?"
"This isn't the time or place for this, Edon. What have you learned?"
"Looks lightly guarded enough. A couple of very bored men, a few armed Frames. Cameras all over the place though."
Sol grunted. "I should be close enough by now to get into the system - run a loop through the security feeds. Once I give you the go ahead, you slip over the wall and sneak down to the research levels and destroy any data they have on the servers."
"That'll take too long! We've only got a couple of hours of dark left, and it'll only be a matter of time before some security drone see's your face and triggers an alarm back at Cybus."
"We're not exactly spoilt for choice, Edon. This is the best plan I have."
"I've got a better one." Edon said, kneeling and pulling an armoured jacket from the bag and slipping it on. "I run in, break a bunch of stuff, and run away again."
"And then have your face flagged by Orell and uploaded to every machine in the city. We need to stay covert."
"Not a problem." Edon replied, as he slipped on a bright red motorcycle helmet. He flipped the black visor down and zipped up the jacket. "How much trouble can a few 'bots be anyway? I'm stronger and faster than anything Orell's built so far."
"You're not indestructible!" Sol snapped "And overconfidence can get you destroyed. Get off that roof, and wait for me to give the all clear."
"Sure, father. Whatever you say." Edon started walking to the stairwell door, then he turned and sprinted toward the ledge, jumping off and diving head first to the ground.
He fell for ten stories before twisting so his feet pointed down. He landed on top of one of the security robots, driving it to the ground with enough force that the concrete underneath them cracked. Edon rolled, spreading the energy of the impact and came to his feet, turning and running at the remaining security robot and the human guard. He grabbed the guard by his kevlar vest and rammed him head first into the robots chest-plate hard enough to knock him out before throwing him aside. Steel arms wrapped around him then, the second security robot lifting him off the ground in a crushing bear hug. The arms tightened, trying to squeeze the life and air from him.
Under the helmet, Edon smiled to himself as he brought his arms up and grabbed hold of the robots forearms and started pulling them outward. Slowly, servos squealing, the arms started to move. Edon pulled them away enough to slip down to the ground, hooking one leg behind the machines and shoving against the chest as hard as he could, unbalancing the machine and sending it toppling to the ground. He clenched his fist, and a foot long blade sprang out of his forearm. Edon raised the blade and drove it down into the single red eye of the machine, clear through into the skull and destroying what passed for the security robots brain.
The whole fight had taken maybe fifteen seconds.
"What was that?" Robert Sol asked in Edon's earpiece.
"What was what?"
"That noise just now."
"Oh." Edon braced a boot against the downed machines chest plate and jerked his blade free. "I dropped something."
"And that was?"
"Me."
Robert Sol let loose a string of expletives as Edon looked over the blade for notches before willing it to retract back under the skin of his forearm.
"There's young ears here, Father."
"Your damned stunt was... was." Sol trailed off, grasping for the words he needed.
"Relax. I'm in, I have a clear run to the main doors and-" He was cut off as what felt like a baseball hurled by a major league pitcher struck him in the shoulder knocking him off balance and making him stagger a step. "I'll call you back."
Edon cut off the connection and looked at the watchtower, cursing himself for not remembering the other guard. He sprinted towards the tower, jinking left and right at random to avoid the bullets that pinged off the concrete around him. Reaching the base, he leaped up the ladder, grabbing a rung half way up and started hauling himself to the top. Pausing before he reached the top, he tensed and sprang straight up, landing squarely in the middle of the platform. To his credit, the guard didn't panic, instead letting loose a controlled sustained burst into Edon's torso. Edon just walked aganst the hail of bullets, he felt a few make their way through the ballistic inserts in his jacket, but he paid them no heed. None penetrated past his skin, and his father could clear up any cosmetic damage later on.
He walked straight up to the guard, who had began to panic at last, still pulling the trigger of his carbine even though the clip had ran empty and his only result was a dull clicking sound. Edon grabbed the barrel of the weapon and twisted it from the guards hands, then ramming the stock into the mans stomach, and again between the shoulder blades when he doubled over. The guard slumped to the ground, and Edon knelt briefly to check his pulse before tossing the assault rifle to the floor and descending the ladder. He opened the channel to Sol again.
"Sorry. I forgot one. Don't worry. They're alive, but I doubt they'll thank me".
"You're a reckless idiot."
"If you needed an unthinking soldier, you should have used a dumb AI like Orell.".
Sol sighed heavily "Focus. I'm in their system now, but the connection is patchy.I've looped the cameras, but you'd better pray whoever's in the security room is fast asleep, or you're going to have a fight on your hands"
"I could always make a distraction". Edon suggested, walking back to the robot he'd taken down and pulling one of the fragmentation grenades from a storage compartment on the machines hip. "Some fancy cars here. I'd bet a fire would distract some proud owners"
"I'd tell you not to, but you're just going to do it anyway".
"Well, I'd rather they were too busy fighting fires than me. And it should buy me enough time in the confusion to slip in and out without you worrying about the mean men with their scary guns".
"Just do it already before the relief come out and find you there yapping".
Edon went into a crouching run towards the car park, blade glittering in the streetlights as it emerged from his forearm once again. Stopping briefly, Edon punched the blade through the side of a car, puncturing the fuel tank, and ripping his blade free. He continued up the line, methodically puncturing every vehicle until the fuel pooled an the concrete and the fumes were heavy in the air. Slipping into a heavy shadow at the corner of the building, Edon armed the grenade he had stolen and threw it underarm.
The results were predictable. A few gas tanks exploding may not be as loud as an actual bomb going off, but in the silence of the night, and the sound echoing off the walls around the perimeter of the facility, it was close enough as made no difference. There several more hollow booming sounds, and light blazed up from the cars that ad been hit as the flames roared up and consumed them.
A few seconds later, red lights began to flash at several points around the facility, and a warning klaxon began to sound. The giant metal door began to roll upward, just like a garage door as one more car went up with another whump of ignition and added its own cheery glow to the rest of the fire.
Nearly a dozen men came running out in the same uniform as the previous guards. Or at least, portions of the same uniform. It looked like several had hopped out of bed and pulled on whatever they could reach. Some were dragging fire extinguishers, and Edon smiled. As if they were going to be much use against fires that large.
"Good luck with that, boys". He murmured to himself as the last of them passed his position, staring agog at the burning automobiles. He slipped inside, trusting that he had distracted the bulk of the security forces for the facility. He went through the large door and down a long ramp into the facility.
Post Merge: November 28, 2010, 01:11:37 AM
As he went down the spiralling ramp, the air grew colder, to the ambient underground average. Eventually, the ramp opened up into a larger area that reminded Edon of pictures he had seen of the interior corridors of a sports stadium. Three doors faced him. One was hanging slightly ajar and bore the legend QUARTERS. The other was shut, and read ADMINISTRATION. The last, a large steel vault door was labeled LABS - R&D, TESTING. A concrete loading dock with its edges painted in yellow and black caution stripes stretched out to his side, at just the right height to make use of the large transport van parked nearby.
And there were the two guards standing in front of the vault door, each armed with a hostile looking shotgun.
Edon did not hesitate. He blurred forward, and and one of the guards was down before he realised he was in a fight. The other had already brought his weapon to bear and opened fire. In his rush to shoot, he had not aimed. Pellets buzzed around Edon as he took a swift step to the left, before rushing in, grabbing the barrel of the shotgun and shoving the other end hard into the guards face. There was a crunch as the nose gave way before the butt of the shotgun, and the man crumpled to the floor, leaving th weapon in Edon's hands. He tossed it away, and kicked the other down the hall. He stepped up to the door marked ADMINISTRATION, and opened it. He paused and looked back at the two unconscious bodies on the floor.
"God, I'm good" He said aloud, before passing through the door and closing it behind him.
The administration office was empty. Any body working would have been drawn outside by the fire, leaving Edon to himself. He looked around anyway, double checking to make sure there were no technicians or guards waiting around, before sidling into the separate office at the far end of the room. Inside was a large wood desk, with a terminal that was still on. And still logged in.
I almost feel sorry for this guy Edon thought as he sank into the plush chair on the other side of the desk and regarded the screen.Then again, leaving a system wide open like this - he deserves some system wide mayhem.
His fingers flew over the keys, looking for anything that looked important. The sheer number of files was almost overwhelming. It would take all night to find anything of note amongst the boring minutae of running the facility. Edon sighed and leant back into the chair. He looked at the hardware tower next to the monitor, searching for input ports. Once he found the one he needed, he took off his leather gloves, and pried back the fingernail on his left hand. Under the nail, was a small connector that he pulled out and plugged into the port, a thin wire trailing back to his finger. He leaned back in the chair again, closed his eyes, and initiated a connection to the terminal.
The world fell away, leaving him in a rioting swirl of colour and sensation. He could feel the icy touch of intruder counter measures and defences in the system, and simply pushed through them. Colours whirled past his eyes, representing all the data on the network in the facility. And one silvery thread that trailed off into the distance, back to the main systems at the Cybus tower. Edon started along it, and stopped in his tracks as the cold feeling from before returned, intensified to the point where it caused him severe discomfort and he hurriedly pulled himself back before he was literally frozen in place by the mainframe defences they had there. He looked back at the smaller system of the research facility. He knew he had little time - his physical body was still sitting in the office, undefended, and he had no way of knowing what was happening outside while he was still in the system. He made aquick decision. He did not have the time to go over every file, even interfacing directly, where his ability to acces them was vastly faster. Instead, he spun lines of code and colour, creating a program that would rewrite copies of itself over each file, and then move to the next. And the next. Until the entire system became choked by his creation copying itself, and its copies making copies, and so on until every byte of space on the hard storage was overwritten. Almost as an afterthought, he rewrote the door codes to access the testing laboratories as well, so he could gain entrance.
He willed himself to disconnect, the cyber world receding until he felt himself back in the confines of his own body. He opened his eyes and chuckled at the image of his own hand, flipping the finger, on the monitor. That image would spread to every screen of every machine as his program continued its inevitable march across their network. He unplugged the data jack and let it reel back, folding the fingernail back into place and pulling his gloves back on. He did a quick check. Little more than five minutes had passed while he dived into the network. He stood up and made his way back into the hall. The guards had not stirred since he left them, and he stepped over them to reach the access panel for the vault door and tapped in the access code 3D0N-S01. The door hissed and clanked for a few moments before rolling to one side. As Edon stepped through, the door closed again behind him.
The room was not what he expected. Edon had thought he would find a spotless, shiny white room, perhaps with tubes and enclosed spaces with experimental technology. The reality was a stark concrete room, a thirty foot cube, with workbenches and terminals hooked up to what looked like an up sized version of a regular Variable Frame, split at the middle to reveal hollowed limbs and control surfaces. On the workbenches were several weapons, built to the same scale as the machine in the middle of the room. Edon crossed over and hefted one thoughtfully.
Bigger isn't always better, guys. He thought, sighting down the barrel. Don't let me dissuade you though - even if the recoil makes your toy soldiers fall flat on their asses.
He put the gun back and looked over the rest of the room. There was only one more item of interest. Kept a fair distance from the machine was another device that looked familiar. A cylinder half as tall as himself and barely a foot wide, uniform gray punctuated with glowing lines that emitted a gentle hum that was barely audible even in the silent room. It was a power source, much like the one inside all the Variable Frames in the City. It constantly recharged itself, though each cycle degraded the cell and made it less efficient over time, until it finally degraded to the point where it would no longer function. Gabriel Orell had designed the first generation used for the original Variable Frame models, and Sol had refined the design on his own. Edon recognised it because he had a much smaller, more efficient version in his own chest with a lifetime measured in decades rather than years. It looked like Cybus were trying to improve the design, probably to power the massive machine behind him. It looked like it had already been given its initial charge, which gave Edon an idea.
He looked around the room and spotted what he needed almost right away. A heavy duty power cable that dangled from the closest wall, already hooked into the main generator for the facility. He grabbed it, and plugged it into the power cell, opening a channel to his father again.
"Finally! I've been calling you for the last ten minutes!" Sol said irritably.
"I've been busy."
"I know. Cybus has a heavy support unit on the way. You'd best be getting out of there as fast as you can."
Unbidden, an image forced its way into Edon's head. A map of the city sector, showing the test facility, the location of the support squad making their way, and a smaller waypoint he assumed was the van where his father was tapping into the extranet. Edon hated it when Sol did that to him.
"I'm already on my way out. And I think we'll need your wheels to get out of the city. Are you safe enough where you are until I get to you?"
"I should be. I'll call if I have to move. Don't call any more attention to yourself."
"Ah." Edon said.
"You've done something else that's not even remotely connected with the word covert, haven't you?"
"I might have rigged a little explosion in the testing labs."
"How little?"
"If we're lucky? This level crumbles. It might be bigger than that."
"I'm not going to ask how. Just get out and get to me without any more trouble."
"Got it."
He ran to the vault door, running the numbers in his head. He had maybe three minutes before the excess power building up in the power cell overloaded it and it exploded. If the output was even equal to his own, the resulting blast would be big enough to destroy the test lab and the giant Frame inside. Or even greater.
Counting down in his head, he impatiently waited for the great door to roll open and stepped through. The two guards had already gone - outside to get backup, Edon hoped. He sprinted up the ramp as fast as he could, racing against the clock ticking down in his head. He could see the red glow of the fire raging in the courtyard just ahead. He had a minute remaining. Lowering his head, he pistoned his legs as fast as possible, finally reaching the main doors.
And then the explosion ripped through the facility, the blast catching Edon and tossing him into the air like a leaf in a gale.[/pre]
