The Belt - Complete Series, page 87
These were the problems that occupied Fredrick VanHeilding’s mind as he observed an incoming comms alert from Lui Wei, the governor of Neo City, now on a Xiang Zu command ship near the Eugina sector and coordinating the takeover of the Belt. Several thoughts occurred to Fredrick at the same time as to why he was seeking a dialogue, and none of them were good. He gestured at the communicator, and a 3D projection of Lui Wei blossomed to life above the screen.
“We have a situation, Fredrick. One that requires our combined efforts to resolve.”
Fredrick sat up and glared at the projection of Lui Wei. This straight-to-the-point greeting seemed very out of character. Something serious must have happened. “So what’s the problem?”
“As you are probably aware, a tentative resistance movement is coalescing around Elektra. This in itself is not a major problem. We will simply establish a blockade and starve them into submission. A little medieval perhaps, but effective. However, a crew of mercenaries, under contract to Xiang Zu, have absconded with the QI core that was stolen from the Mars ship several months ago.”
Fredrick jerked forward. “What? You can’t be serious. I was under the assumption you had that thing locked down tight, in an underground bunker, with your scientists poking at it from behind the safety of a very long stick.” He was not going to miss an opportunity to rub it into Lui Wei when he got the chance. “How could you let this happen?”
“Simple treachery, Fredrick. Something your family are only too familiar with.” Lui Wei was sticking it right back at him.
Fredrick felt a twinge of anger at Lui Wei’s audacity, but decided to let it go. He took a sip of tea to gather himself. “I take it this…crew of mercenaries are heading to Elektra?”
“We are not certain, but it seems likely. Perhaps they think the QI core can be used against us.”
Fredrick was becoming more alarmed at this development. Knowing that a QI core was out in the wild was not conducive to a good night’s sleep. “And can they?”
“No, not without the technical expertise, and no one on Elektra has the remotest idea how to activate a QI core. So, we’re safe in that respect. The broader issue is more how it could be used for propaganda. Elektra has already been reaching out to representatives of the lessor families, and we suspect that they are actively trying to pull Mars into the conflict.”
“Mars is no threat to us.” Fredrick waved a hand. “They know we could hobble any of their ships if we cared to.”
“Agreed. But we do not need a protracted conflict, we need to crush this resistance before it has a chance to grow. This is why we, Xiang Zu, are asking for you to provide us with a small team of your node runners so we can sniff out the location of the QI core and bring it back under our control.”
Fredrick considered this for a moment, a little longer than necessary so that Lui Wei could stew. “On two conditions,” he said at last.
“Name them.”
“One, is that they remain under VanHeilding command. And second, is that when you finally locate the QI core, you destroy it once and for all.”
It was Lui Wei’s turn to take a moment, while he considered these conditions. “Very well. How soon can you have them board a ship and rendezvous with us in the Eugina sector?”
“A few days, no more.”
“Good. I will await their arrival.”
The comms connection closed and the 3D projection snuffed out, leaving Fredrick VanHeilding with a vaguely disturbing feeling.
They should have destroyed that QI when they had the chance, he thought. Any prospect that it could be activated in this region would be a disaster. It was fortunate that he had node runners to spare.
Yet, Fredrick could feel the pieces being moved around the board but couldn’t make any sense of it. Were they all totally unconnected, just random events? Or was there some deeper existential threat brewing?
He gave up trying to think it out and instead contacted Cortez Ramirez, his master node runner, with instructions to head out to the Eugina sector, find that QI core, and assist the Xiang Zu Corporation in any way possible to crush all resistance out in Elektra. For good measure, he authorized them to depart in his most well-armed ship and take as many battle-droids as needed to get the job done.
12
SUBZERO RESEARCH FACILITY
Luca stood motionless behind the cover of a broad, rocky outcrop a few hundred meters above a frigid, windswept valley floor. From this vantage point, she had a clear, unobstructed view of the VanHeilding genetic research facility. To her left, the valley stretched and broadened outward to a frozen sea. To her right, it rose to where the accommodation blocks were located. But for Luca, her attentions were primarily focused on a tall concrete structure housing a bristling antenna array.
Athena had given her use of a long-range personal transport, which she had flown all the way from the western edge of the North American continent. It was autonomous, under the control of the QI, so most of the journey here she had rested. Once past Newfoundland and out over the Labrador Sea, the craft entered stealth mode, with Athena hiding it from both satellite and ground-based traffic detection systems. From there she had taken it up over the Davis Strait and onto Baffin Bay, where it dropped altitude and skirted the tops of the waves and headed for the Greenland coast. She brought it into land without incident, in a barren, desolate area not far from the VanHeilding facility. Luca then packed herself into clothing more suited to subzero temperatures, slung a pack with her equipment over her shoulder, and walked for over two hours across a gap in a range of low hills to bring herself down to where she now stood.
Before she departed, the avatar handed back her now modified neural-lace, noticeably lighter and sleeker. Along with this, it also gave her a small, square metal box containing an antimatter bomb. Whether this had been recycled from the device that had been housed inside her neural-lace or a new creation, Luca wasn’t sure. But just like the previous Damoclean sword that had literally hung over her head, this too could only be detonated by the QI, at a time of its choosing. The third item that the avatar presented her with was the pathogen analogue that Dr. Rayman had provided, now fashioned into yet another QI-activated device. The fourth and final item was the drone, Fly, now restored with its full complement of toxic barbs.
Luca took off the pack and dug out the box containing the neural-lace. She opened the lid, extracted the lace, and placed it up under the base of her skull. She did all this with a slight sense of trepidation. Memories of lying on the operating table in Xenon’s science institute back on Mars flashed in her mind. Would she be able to remove the lace once it activated? Had Athena tricked her again? In reality she knew it hadn’t. The QIs may be many things, but they were at least true to their word. Yet, it wasn’t as if she was completely off the hook. She carried in her pack an antimatter bomb remotely controlled by the QI. She was not free yet, not until she did what she came here to do.
Luca activated the lace and it took her a moment to adjust to the finer fidelity that this new lace afforded her. Soon she established a connection to a satellite that the QI had conveniently positioned a few hundred kilometers overhead, and through this she could now interact with Athena. Her visor began to populate her vision with AR details on terrain, weather, and a host of other data points. She reached into her pack again and this time brought out the drone, Fly. She activated it and set it on a flight path high up toward the facility, trusting that it would be too small to be detected.
Combined with the real-time satellite feed, the drone’s sensors now fed Athena with data on security sensors and guard movements. After a few moments, her visor showed an array of new data including a potential path to her destination with the minimum potential for detection. She picked up her pack, slung it over her shoulder, and broke cover. She began following the AR path displayed on her visor.
This took her down the side of the valley along the southern edge of the facility. Her target destination was the antenna array building. This was situated farther away from the main complex, down toward the sea, possibly because the valley sides were much lower at this location. There were no doors anywhere to be seen on its surrounding walls—it could not be accessed from the surface. But there was a hatch on the flat roof to allow maintenance crews access to the antennae and communication dishes for servicing and upkeep. This led Luca to deduce that the building must be somehow connected to the main underground facility. And if she could get in that way, she should be able to find her way to the data-vault.
She cautiously approached a narrow gate in the five-meter-tall chain-link perimeter fence. This was the closest access point to the antenna building. There were no guards or maintenance crews around, but there was a microwave motion detector curtain that ran around the entire fence. She would have to deal with that first.
Fly rose up and landed on top of the microwave transmitter tower covering this section. It scuttled down the side, deftly unscrewed an access panel, and disabled the beam. Luca moved forward and tested the gate; it opened. She went through and took cover behind one of the many shipping containers that had been stacked up around this sector. Fly reconnected the beam and flew over to rest on Luca’s shoulder.
“So far so good,” she whispered, her breath condensing in the frigid air. “Hopefully they won't have noticed that microwave going down, and if they do, they won’t bother checking now that it’s back up.”
Luca moved off, following the route laid out on her AR visor, ducking into cover wherever she could. After a few short minutes, she arrived at the base of the antennae building. Sheer concrete walls rose up unbroken for ten meters on all sides. She took off her pack, opened it, and took out a gas-powered gun with a grappling hook inserted in its barrel. She took aim at the metal gantry structure surrounding the antennae, and fired. The hook sailed upward, trailing a light nylon rope in its wake. It clanged for a moment as it hit something, then caught. Luca pulled on it a few times to satisfy herself that it would hold her weight, then clipped the gun mechanism to the front of her belt, pressed the actuator, and the rope began to slowly rewind, pulling her up along the outer wall.
She clambered over the edge and dropped down onto the flat roof, then disentangled the hook and placed it back in her pack. Finally, she moved over to where the hatch was located. Beyond this point, she would be on her own. There would be no AR feed, no useful data overlays until she found a network node, which she hoped she could hack into and find a route to the data-vault.
She inspected the hatch and found a small access panel to one side. “Fly, see if you can take that apart and get this door open.”
The drone dropped down onto the panel and went to work. A few moments later, Luca heard a whirring sound and the hatch door slowly hinged open.
“Okay, let’s go check it out.”
She dropped down into a tangle of support structures. Metal girders crisscrossed the space, butting up against stout concrete supporting beams. Great columns of cabling snaked down the walls; she followed them and came to the next hatch, which had a simple turn-wheel locking mechanism. She opened it slowly, then dropped down another level to a room packed full of control and test equipment. “There’s got to be a network node in here somewhere. See if you can find it, Fly. I need to get out of this gear.”
Luca began stripping off the thick arctic clothing, including the AR visor. Underneath, she wore clothing typical of a VanHeilding lab technician. Around her neck hung a fake ID card. It would enable her to blend in with the general staff, so long as no one got too inquisitive.
Fly’s voice sounded in her head via the neural-lace. “I have located a node.”
Luca hurriedly stashed the winter clothing along with the heavy pack behind a tall test rack, then came over to where Fly had perched itself over the network node. She jacked-in.
Her cerebral cortex was instantly assailed by a cacophony of data, and it took her a moment to get a handle on it. Soon though, she had established a connection to one of the satellite dishes, allowing the QI Athena data access to the facility. More importantly, it enabled it to harvest all the data being periodically transmitted to backup locations around the globe. But that was the easy part of the mission—the hard part was yet to come.
Luca sifted through the internal data-stream, searching for the location of the data-vault that Athena had speculated should exist at this location. She breathed a sigh of relief when she found it, a vast server farm covering almost the entirety of one of the lower levels of the subterranean complex. The sheer volume of data stored there was astonishing.
Found it, she messaged Athena. Creating a data pipe for you now. Luca sought out the firewalls, and with Athena’s help, created a backdoor into the vast treasure trove of research and routed it to one of the satellite uplinks atop the antennae tower. Athena commenced harvesting.
But Luca was not finished yet; she still had a lot more to do. Next, she searched for the location of the bio-labs, specifically one dealing with the most deadly of pathogens, one with Bio Level 4 security. She found it just a few levels below her current location and charted a route that avoided most of the security systems. For those that she couldn’t avoid she would have to use her fake pass card, the details of which she now entered into the security system database, giving her top-level access to all areas. But she wanted to keep the use of this to a minimum, since such actions left a fingerprint, and to pull this off she wanted to leave absolutely nothing that could raise suspicion. She needed to be a ghost in the machine.
“Okay,” Luca said finally, as she jacked out of the network node. “Time to go. Sorry, Fly, but I need to hide you away for a while.”
The little drone tucked in its wings and folded itself up. Luca dropped it into a shoulder bag, similar to those used by the research facility’s staff, complete with the VanHeilding insignia emblazoned on its flap.
Luca worked her way down the various levels of the antennae building, eventually exiting out onto the main bio-lab floor. Here, the corridors were bright and wide, with glass-paneled rooms along either side. She passed several people on her way, but no one paid her any notice.
She came at last to the security doors leading to the Bio Level 3 & 4 labs. She held her pass up to the door lock, it clicked open, and she entered a small room with a guard sitting in front of a row of monitors.
He glanced up at her, a little confused. “I wasn’t expecting anyone else.” He checked a screen. “There’s a full team in there.”
Luca gave an exasperated sigh and waved her ID card. “Check again, I should be on the access list. I’m just here to deliver an urgent item.” She patted the shoulder bag.
Luca held her breath as the guard looked back at his computer screen. “That’s odd. I see you now. How did I not spot that before?” He shook his head. “Sorry, I don’t know how I missed that.” He pressed a large red button on the bench, and the access door to Bio Level 3 & 4 opened.
Luca passed through into a short corridor. Both labs were accessed through a common set of locker rooms, one male, one female. Here, technicians would begin the arduous procedure of changing into full hazmat suits before entering the actual lab. But Luca didn’t need to go that far. She entered the female locker room and began searching for a suitable spot to hide the pathogen analogue that Dr. Rayman had provided her, now packaged with a remote trigger. She picked an air vent located below the low bench that ran along one side of the room. She removed the cover, gently inserted the device, and armed it. Luca then closed her eyes and focused on the data-stream. “Athena, I’ve activated the analogue device. Do you have access?”
“Yes,” came the voice in her head. “Everything appears nominal. I have control.”
“Good,” replied Luca. “I’m moving on to the next objective.”
A minute later she passed the security guard on the way out, offering him a nod. He nodded back, but with a curious look as if he had not quite made his mind up about her.
Her next objective would be considerably more complex, taking her all the way down to the lower levels of the complex and into the highly secure data-vault.
Yet she didn’t really have to do this; she could leave now and still have all the research data. But her objective was nothing short of complete destruction; that was the only thing that would break the VanHeilding family. She kept going.
Her key card got her through the next series of security doors and she finally arrived at an elevator that would take her all the way down. Luca was breathing hard when she entered, feeling the adrenaline coursing through her body. She took a few deep breaths and tried to calm herself. She dropped her shoulder bag on the floor and rubbed her neck and shoulders.
The elevator stopped at an intermediate floor, the doors slid open, and in walked a young IT guy. He looked surprised when he saw her.
“Hi,” he said as he glanced at the ID card hanging around her neck. “Don’t get many lab techs in this sector. So, what brings you here?”
Luca couldn’t decide if his suspicions were being raised or he was just making conversation. She decided to be vague and casual. “Yeah, it’s like visiting a foreign country.”
“Ha, you got that right. Complete with a different language.” He paused for a beat as if considering something. “Say, you work in the Microbiology sector, you must know Rachael. How’s she doing? I haven’t seen her in a while.”
Goddamnit, thought Luca, why can’t this guy just shut up. Again, she used her neural-lace and focused on the internal data-stream, searching for some details on this Rachael person, but she was getting flustered and couldn’t focus.
