CO-OP (Animus Book 2), page 8
She saw that the technician had accessed the system and she pressed a button on her fast-hack prompt with the face of a fox. It was essentially a go signal for Kaitō to tell him to begin their plan without risk of using communication or getting her EI hacked.
She watched the security drone—the one she had Kaitō take over as they made their way into the server room. It entered the gate, the technician too busy looking through the files for the presumed corruption to notice it hover close to him, a black baton descending from the bottom of its circular body.
Chiyo activated another fast-hack, jamming the guard’s radio and vita tether signal to the technician. He would be none the wiser and wouldn’t hear the call that would soon come. At least for a couple of minutes, but that was plenty of time.
The drone flew a few feet above the technician before descending behind him to press the baton to his neck. The man shook for a moment, his free arm reaching for the cable connected to the computer, trying to pull it out. His fingers groped uselessly before his arm slumped down again. The cable had to be deactivated from the console on his wrist before it could be pulled out manually, something that she was sure he was aware of. But, considering he was pumped by a bajillion volts, it probably didn’t spring to mind right away.
She was good at exploiting little issues like that. The frenzy of the mind when in distress, or how the vita tether only deactivated when it read a heart rate that rapidly decreased, not one that suddenly spiked. Also, how access to the servers stayed open as long as long as it was cleared by the proper technician and they were still connected.
The man slumped soundlessly to the floor. The drone retracted the baton and hovered in front of the server, connected a toggle to it, and quickly downloaded the information and files Chiyo had previously requested. She flipped to a camera showing the guard. He shuffled awkwardly, looking for intruders but hampered by the semi-dark area she had created specifically to keep him occupied.
She was an intruder, technically, just not in the building. He could scour the area to his heart’s content and be none the wiser.
Chiyo changed back to the previous screen. Kaitō didn’t have much time. The guard might be unaware, but the sudden jolt to the heat would probably be read by a safety system, alerting nearby guards or the security station. When they didn’t get a response from either the guard or the technician, they would send others in or possibly activate an alarm and lock the entrance.
Not to worry, though. She was counting on both.
The drone put the toggle away and floated quickly back to its position in front of the gate. The door to the server room opened and two guards walked in, their guns at the ready. They strode over to the drone, and one pointed to the downed technician. By this time, the other guard had hurried back, clearly agitated. She activated the audio system on the drone to listen in.
“The lights went off. I went to check the area, my tether signal didn’t go off, and my radio has been silent,” the first guard protested, his demeanor indignant as he defended himself.
Another newcomer pointed to the technician. “Someone knocked the tech out and probably fled when we arrived. Why didn’t the drone do anything?”
Chiyo opened a command prompt for the drone, deactivating its motion sensors and visuals, and she pressed Kaitō’s command prompt again. This signal told him to wait. She saw the first guard walk over to it and examine it.
“Damn thing is malfunctioning. The lens is dark.” He growled his frustration.
“Probably a jammer. We’re most likely dealing with a specter,” the third guard reasoned, and Chiyo grinned. “Alert the others and activate the lockdown. We’ll get this bastard.”
“Bitch, if we're gender-specific,” Chiyo murmured quietly to herself.
“What do we do with it?” the first guard asked, motioning to the still inactive drone.
“Leave it here. If it was just a jammer, whatever was blocked will reactivate soon enough, and it might be able to get a visual on the intruder if they double back.” The third guard seemed to have some experience, though it clearly wasn’t enough. “If not, then we’ll come back and take it to tech for repair or destruction. Right now, our priorities are finding the intruder and getting this technician somewhere safe.”
The others nodded. One of the guards holstered his rifle and walked over to the technician. He heaved him up onto his back as the other two took point, and the three left the room. As soon as the door closed, Chiyo reactivated all the drone’s functions before hitting the loop action on her prompt. The cameras would now loop their feed for two minutes for anyone looking at a different feed to hers.
She activated Kaitō ‘s command again. “Scrambling ready, madam?” Kaitō asked.
“Ready three minutes after you took control of the drone,” she said, flipping to another screen and pressing an activation button. It paused the drone’s signal to outgoing sensors, making it appear as if it hadn’t moved.
The drone quickly moved down the length of the room. Chiyo remotely opened an A/C hatch in the same corner where she’d shut off the lights. It flew in, and she switched to the drone’s visual display.
She watched the drone weave through the tight spaces until it reached another hatch, Chiyo opened it, and the mechanical entered an unoccupied office. It moved to a window, used a small, tri-pronged arm to unlatch and open it, then closed it on the way out.
Chiyo closed her screens, stood up, and walked out of the coffee shop where she had been sitting. She strolled into the park across the street, taking the path that led to the left and the side of the building she was infiltrating. With a quick look around to ensure no one else was around, she stopped beneath a tree and looked up. The drone perched on a branch, hidden by the leaves. She retrieved a USB memory stick as she motioned for the drone to come down. It landed in her hand and opened a hatch on the top in which Chiyo placed the USB.
With that, she saw the words “Mission Complete!” appear in front of her. With a smile, she watched the world around her disappear.
Chapter Nine
“Wow. This blue stuff is great.” Flynn sighed happily, lying on a medical bed on Kaiden’s left.
“I’m certainly feelin’ a lot better,” Silas agreed from Kaiden’s right. “Also kinda…fluffy?”
He turned to look at the sniper. “Right? Makes the various beatings I’ve taken seem almost worth it.”
“As much as I enjoy the fact that my serum is quite helpful and enjoyable to you, Initiate Jericho,” Dr. Soni began as she walked over to the side of his bed, “I would still much prefer that you not become so accustomed to it. Which, if you’re wondering, is a request to not be quite so injured each and every time you come in.”
“Maybe I look for excuses to see you.” Kaiden chuckled at her unamused expression.
“My hypothesis was that you simply had masochistic tendencies. But if what you say is true, then you don’t need wounds to pay me a visit.” She scowled. “Which means that I owe Wulfson ten credits, as the explanation might be idiocy.”
Flynn and Silas snickered, and Kaiden shrugged. “It apparently has its bonuses, though.”
“Not for some time after this. I’m out of the serum and currently waiting on my next batch, which will come in about a month at the soonest,” she revealed with a smile that could almost have been smug.
Kaiden could feel his heart sink. “You couldn’t rush-order it by any chance?”
Dr. Soni used the tablet in her hand to give Kaiden a quick hit on the head. “Not if I want it made properly, and this is the first time I’ve had to make another order in such a short time. You are responsible for over seventy percent of my stocks usage. The four I administered to you and your friends were the last of my current supply.”
Kaiden looked at Flynn. “You owe me for this.”
Flynn gave him a bemused look. “You act as if it’s your private stock.”
“Might as well be.” He laid his head back on his pillow. “She said I used most of it.”
“That merely means you get your ass kicked more than anyone else in the Academy,” Cameron called from a line of beds across from the trio.
“That means I work the hardest out of anyone here at the Academy,” Kaiden retorted.
“However you wish to spin this, Initiate,” Dr. Soni muttered, causing more snickering and chuckles from Kaiden’s compatriots. “Besides, you’re fortunate I’m so generous. Officer Wulfson did ask me not to give you any more of the serum.”
“Yeah, I remember, malicious bastard.” Kaiden sighed before looking at the others, “See if I bother saving y’alls’ asses again in the next mission.” He looked at the doctor. “Hey, Doc, you said you only used four vials of the serum, but there are five of us.”
Soni pointed across the med bay to the bed next to Cameron. “Your Tsuna friend, Initiate Cage, is being taken care of by Dr. Mortis. I was not sure if the serum would be viable for him in any case.”
Kaiden looked over to see the Mirus doctor running a scanner over Jaxon’s body and the toxin sponges enveloping his face. Kaiden grimaced, remembering his time with the blob, although Jaxon was apparently taking it a lot better than he did. He looked relaxed, his arms crossed while he lay motionless on the bed. Granted, he might be in much more pain than the four of them since he didn’t get Soni’s serum.
“Don’t y’all have any Tsuna medics or doctors? You know, since there’s like a hundred Tsuna students here now?” Kaiden asked.
Soni nodded, “We have four. However, when I told Initiate Cage that I would call one in, he asked that I did not and explained that he would prefer to keep his condition private.”
Flynn moved up on the bed, resting on his elbows. “He’s worried that the Tsuna Conclave or whatever is going to pull them out if anything seems suspicious or even remotely deadly concerning the Animus.”
Kaiden tried to silence him with a frantic wave, but Soni held her hand out to stop him before nodding. “He told me, and I can understand. I was not a part of the negotiations at all, but I was briefed by the head of the board and Professor Laurie when they returned. I can understand their people’s trepidation. The Animus has always had detractors, even when it was first conceived almost eighty years ago. We have had the benefit of seeing the possibilities and outcomes through the years, while the Tsuna went from discovering a new species and trusting them with some of their own with a machine that invades their minds in only a couple decades—a bit of a jump, I must agree.”
“So you’ll keep it a secret?” Silas asked.
“He has no grievous wounds unless Dr. Mortis discovers something we didn’t see in preliminary scans. And while he might be in pain due to his experience with the Animus, this was explained during all the delegations that dealt with bringing them here in the first place. So far, there’s no reason to send a report that I can see.”
“Thanks, Doc, he’ll probably breathe a little easier knowing that,” Kaiden said appreciatively. “If what he does is actually considered breathing.”
“It is, but merely a different method.” She smiled “But I will use this as a convenient segue to ask you about your injuries. You said you all came out of the Animus feeling like this?”
Kaiden nodded, sitting up on his bed. “Jaxon figured that because we’ve been using it so much, our Animus oscillation has gotten to the point where the pain is a bit more…real than it was at the beginning.”
“Plus, we all got blown to hell,” Silas added. “Metaphorically, in our minds, anyway.”
Soni began looking through something on her tablet. “True, but you’ve only been at the academy for three months. For such extreme pain transference, you would have had to use it every day for more than twelve hours at a time.”
“Well, we do use it almost every day, if you count the training, tutorials, scenarios, missions, and private usage,” Flynn stated.
“Plus Cam, Flynn, and me went to preps before coming here. We all spent a little time using the Animus pods at our schools to get ready for admission,” Silas added.
Kaiden swiveled his head between the two. “Y'all are preppies? Doesn’t come across to me…” He looked at Flynn. “Well, except you, maybe.”
“How so?” Flynn asked.
“Kangaroo butler,” Kaiden answered.
“That was—”
“Named after your actual butler, right?”
Flynn was silent for a moment, then he grinned. “Doesn’t mean I’m a fancy bastard or nothin’.”
Kaiden smirked and shook his head. “Nah, you’re a good shot. I’m just messing with ya.”
“Don’t have a high opinion of preps?” Silas asked.
“Guess I just didn’t meet the right people.” Kaiden shrugged.
“How uncharacteristically nice of you to say so,” the raider jeered.
“Cameron is kinda pulling you down.”
“What did you say about me?” Cameron called.
“Don’t worry about it,” Kaiden retorted, looking back at the doctor. “Sorry, what were you saying, Doc?”
She handed her tablet to Kaiden, showing him a list of Animus missions. “Which one of these did you do?”
Kaiden flicked through them, shaking his head. “None of these. In fact, the one we did wasn’t even available until I used the hub.”
“We figured that Chief had something to do with it,” Flynn recalled with a slight shrug that spoke unconcern.
“Chief?” Soni asked.
“My EI.” Kaiden reached under his bed and brought out his jacket. He fished out his oculars from one of the pockets and put them on. “Hey, Chief. Wake up, partner.”
“I never sleep.
“That…sounds oddly eerie,” Kaiden murmured. “Hey, can you bring the map up on the doc’s tablet?”
“At this point, it feels like I’m bringing the evidence to my own trial.” Chief sounded fretful, and his color gained a slightly greenish tint.
“Stop making yourself seem so guilty. Just bring it up.”
“Say please.”
“You damn shiny melon, would you just do it?”
As Kaiden ranted, seemingly to himself, Soni watched with raised eyebrows. She noticed Flynn and Silas looking at him with annoyance rather than surprise.
“Does this happen often?” she asked.
Silas shrugged. “Often enough for us to get used to it. It’s kinda funny every once in a while.”
“A bit bizarre the first few times,” Flynn admitted. “But I guess when your EI is your mental roommate, there’s gonna be some tension every now and then.”
“I suppose that can certainly explain the rise in blood pressure,” she mused, tapping a finger on her chin.
“And shove your damn EI chip into a smart toaster and beat it with a baby sledge,” Kaiden finished with a huff.
“I didn’t hear a single please in all of that.” Chief grunted, his eye half-closed in disdain.
Kaiden felt his eye twitch, and he released an annoyed sigh. “Would you please upload the mission?”
“Well, I can’t bring the full thing up unless I’m in a hub, but I can cast the info into her tablet.” The EI vanished from the display and appeared on the corner of the tablet screen. “Here ya go.”
A page showing a few pictures and several boxes of info appeared on the screen, and Kaiden handed it back to the professor. She took it and began reading, scrolling down the screen as if looking for a particular box before her eyes went wide. “Well, that certainly explains it.”
“Explains what?” Kaiden asked.
“Oh… Good God almighty, no wonder y’all got out of those pods feeling like you were about ten different kinds of fucked up!” Chief exclaimed.
“What did you find?” Kaiden asked again.
Soni returned the tablet to Kaiden. He grabbed it and looked at it, his brow furrowed in concentration. “You see this?” Soni asked, pointing to a box on the bottom right corner of the screen. “These are the connection settings which dictate the level of intensity one may experience in the Animus and help with sensitivity. They are usually calibrated by the advisors during tests and training. For private usage, you are limited to a set number of maps and missions with preset connection settings, usually on the lower end, especially for Initiates.”
Kaiden looked at the options.
Synchronicity: 5
Tangibility: 7
Equilibrium: 9
Kaiden coked his head. “These numbers are pretty low.”
“It’s on a one-to-ten scale, not out of one hundred,” Soni corrected him dryly.
Flynn moved over, and Kaiden tilted the screen so he could see. The sniper’s eyes nearly popped out of his head.
“Equilibrium of nine? What the bloody hell?”
“Nine? Seriously?” Cameron sputtered, leaning up on his bed.
Kaiden felt more than a little dazed—maybe even shell-shocked—as he handed the tablet to Silas, who looked at the screen for a moment before shaking his head. “That’s a pretty damn big puzzle piece.”
“What am I missing here?” Kaiden asked.
“Prep training,” Flynn jeered. Kaiden narrowed his eyes at him.
“While there are more advanced options in the connection setting, synchronicity, tangibility, and equilibrium are the three primary functions,” Soni explained.
“Synchronicity is kind of self-explanatory. It helps with syncing the Animus and the mind, makes the integration easier, and helps with things like field of view and controlling the five senses. It’s usually kept mid-level,” Silas explained. “Tangibility helps with things like object density and the feel of things. It makes things feel more real. It’s not all that important in the beginning, so it’s usually kept lower for initiates. That’s why things usually disappear after we kill or destroy them.”
“Equilibrium is a bastard, though,” Flynn continued. “It controls how we experience the sensations inside the Animus. Synch helps with getting in the Animus and tang helps during your time in the Animus, but equi keeps it all flowing. It’s how we can actually learn and gain SXP, but it also makes the experience more visceral.”
