More Running Black.

 We entered the control room opposite a wall of monitors with grainy black & white exterior sweeps that had random thermal views winking in every 30 seconds. It was enough to give you seizures. I looked for Poet9 and found him spliced in, cables from the big black neural unit on the side of his head running like IVs into the station terminal. He was talking off hand, distracted, keeping focus in both worlds.
“No increase traffic on their nets - no staff in the labs, just guards, two, three, total - yeah, three inside …….” He closed his eyes for a moment, “ facility patrol - 3 bots and six guards - right where they’re supposed to be - doing routine sweeps in overlapping eights. There’s one Cerberus ‘bot and a guard on the lab doors - looks like another pair on building perimeter.”

He jacked out and his eyes cleared. “ I’m not done yet. I still have to set this terminal to give it’s standard ‘all clear’ reply to the next system security query. They‘re every 30 minutes and next ping is in just over 9. We have 11 minutes until this station’s patrol pair should start walking their loop. This might bluff once, but not twice. We have to be gone before then.”

Tam thought a minute. “The contract downlink gave us floor plans and key codes for the secure areas. We have to access the lab’s defense network and disable the systems. Any chance you can hack from here?”

“Not in a half hour. The entire net is Enigma 3 centralized with top down priority. If I splice in a specific zone I can affect the local grid. I need a terminal, even a key pad,” Poet9 squared off in front of Tam, even lowered his voice a bit . “You want it down, I’ll have to go in with you.”

“Alright,” Tam sighed. “Scan the bodies and dig out their chips. I’ll have Flopsey & Mopsey walk the patrol loop with them - that might buy us a couple more seconds. They’ll need to prep some Aces in case any robots show up and we have to turn and burn off site. Jace and I will drop in, and you will hang back until I say it’s clear.”

Poet9 nodded, his eyes gleaming as he zipped in his data lines and tugged the knit cap back over his misshapen head. Then he patted the oversized Walther 11 holstered on his hip, “We’re good.”

“He’s even got a name for that new hand cannon,” I whispered as we left the room.
A faint smile played over Tam‘s face, “I don’t want to know.”

“Aces” are a nasty piece of work. EMP flash grenades were first developed late in the 20th century by the old Soviet block. The prototypes were gray can-shaped charges with an ace of spades stenciled on them. Refined over time, the name stuck. Miniaturized and juiced up to short out anything but the most hardened system, they’ll snowblind everything in a 40’ radius. Any people caught in the blast are shrunk and shriveled; microwaved to death.

A minute later we headed out the door with two bloody RFID chips from the guards‘ hands. Tam got on his micro-bead redeploying the Triplets and I checked feed from our drones. Still nothing. The action inside had bled off tension, but something still gnawed at the edges. I looked at Tam, but he’d gone into mode and was all crisp. I sensed the Triplets moving, so I shrugged, and sprinted out into the dark plaza towards the tangled geometry of the labs. We were still running black, and the six of us were about to go deeper.

Part Two: SEQUENCE START
____________________

Crouched outside the light cone, I could read the tab nestled between the two surveillance cameras. ‘E.C.I.S. Research, labs 5-7‘. Euro-Cybernetics Integrated Systems is one of a dozen bio-tech fronts owned by the Dawson-Hull Conglomerate. Spanning the entire European Union, the “D-H. ‘Glom’ is one of the Seven: the huge corporate multinationals who dominate Earth now. The Seven’s arbitrators have U.N. seats and maintain offices in every country, space station, and colony in the solar system. This was serious trespass. It got better though; Tam and I figured the Shin-Roh Asian-Pacific Hegemony hired us for this run. Another one of the Seven, headquartered in old Japan, the prospectus came through their usual cut outs. We’d be thieves on this job, plain and simple, because “covert asset acquisition” is just legalese for “breaking & entering”. There was something in this facility they wanted, and Tam Song Associates was sent to get it. That’s why our crew of Chipless illegals, most former military, all with criminal records, were traipsing through a mega-corp’s secure installation looking for a bit of top secret tech in the middle of the night. We weren’t just pulling a tiger’s tail; we were in the middle of two of them, kicking one in the balls. Hell of a way to make a living.
The mission brief alleged that D-H had developed an operating N3: a Nanotech Neural Network. Nanotech had mind blowing possibilities for every facet of life. The one small problem was the human body consistently rejected the artificial atomic machines, so except for the simplest medical applications, nano-research had made nothing but monsters and corpses. This was a biological/cybernetic interface system that operated on the molecular level. Poet9 had a military grade brain box grafted to his head, wet-wired to his cortex, that allowed him to surf the Grid; but a N3 would all be invisible inside a human host. If this was real, it was a quantum shift. One that changed everything. Forever.

Every couple of years the Newsnets would flash some geek team of lab coats claiming to have found the Holy Grail, but it always flatlined. But someone at Shin Roh had gotten wind of this project and converted into a true believer. This one had no Net specials or glossy PR packages; just hints between the lines of looted data still sticky with the blood of another team. Whatever it was spooked them hard, because they were gambling everything; hemorrhaging hundreds of millions in credits, providing detailed schematics, classified security codes, authorizing huge completion bonuses, even risking global exposure and UN censure. This time someone high up figured it was real and hired us for this little smash and grab.

The downlink went on to say that the D-H Conglomerate was in final test phase and they’d selected this smaller, inconspicuous facility to complete their research. They made a big show at their main labs in Brussels locking them down tight in a classic misinformation game. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary here - just the standard security for a class 9 complex. Inside the labs might be a different matter, but the report suddenly became sketchy there. And that’s where Tam and I headed, clambering up the heating units onto the roof to the access panel some informant tagged as unprotected.

We crouched unmoving in the darkness, two knots of nothing, when the patrol pair passed beneath us. Sensor lights on the hulking Cerberus drone winked steadily as it shuffled by and the guard never even glanced up. We were up and moving as they turned the corner, and in a few quick motions, the panel was off and we quick slid into the interior gloom.

Once in the Maintenance crawl, Tam got on the micro-bead. “Poet? We’re in and moving. We’ll secure the hall into R & D. Give us a minute, then we’ll need you right behind us for the override.”



“Loud & clear. I want to set some spider mines. Pop goes the weasel on these ’Glom bastards if they come a running.“ his voice crackled back.

“No, leave the mines - that’s what the Triplets are for, remember? Just wait there until I say. Tam, out.”

A grunt and double click cut off. Tam peered at me for a second then shook his head. I just smiled back. “At least he tries.”
“At least he’s good in the Grid.” He tapped the display on his forearm pad, “Let’s move.”
We fast crawled along the ceiling struts following cable bundles and vent ducts toward the restricted area making sure to leave IR marks for Poet. I kept switching between the drone feed over the facility, and the building blueprints on my left eye HUD. Not that it mattered really; we were running to the end no matter what now. No more worry, just focus. Poet 9’s data hack back in the guard station put two badges at the only junction leading into the Restricted area. The third was making rounds checking doors. We’d have to cross them off and get him in to bypass the security and seal all other access. We had 27 minutes left.

Light filtered up through the grate into the cramped darkness as we approached the point marked “D wing” on our displays. A quick drop, then 14 meters down a hall to the main and only entrance to the secure labs. If there was trouble, here is where it’d be waiting.

On cue, Poet9’s voice whispered in our ears. “Problem. Datastream from the security node shows a bio-ware link in that zone net. And it’s mobile. I’m guessing the lead guard on each shift is wet wired to the security system - probably linked to heartbeat or brainwaves and coded to his RFID. Pretty smart for the ’Glom. That guy goes offline for any reason and it’s total lockdown, with every drone & clone in 100 klicks maxing on full auto. You have to find him. And keep him alive.”

“Great. Just. Great.” and we lifted the grate and dropped down onto the hall carpet.