by Kal Spriggs
Finally, he ran through known contacts for each of the deceased candidates, matching them from mail, financial transactions, and data histories. In the end, it took him only ten seconds to produce cover identities and launder the money in a fashion that would require decades for someone to figure out without the list of transaction requests that he buried in Odin Interstellar's core network.
It would take months for all those requests to go out, but by the end of it, the money stolen from Guard Free Now would be free and clear.
That was when he heard Mel's shout and he turned his attention to the fight she had on her hands. It was easy to activate the security suite's sensors and then watch the scene play out, yet Fenris felt utterly helpless as he watched. While he had taken over the building's security systems upon upload, he had no ability to intervene.
He watched Doctor Farber backhand Johnny Woodard out of the way as he stalked towards Mel. Additional bullets sparked off him, but his augmentations and armor deflected the light caliber rounds. From his sensors, he could detect heavy modifications in the man, he was almost invulnerable to anything short of Bob's pistol.
Yet, Fenris sensed an active data link on the man and he realized that Doctor Farber had a wireless connection, tied into his neural computer. Fenris couldn't physically attack him, but he could attack through that.
He connected to the Doctor's wireless transceiver and swept into the Doctor's mind.
To his surprise, Doctor Farber didn't even fight him. He sensed the Doctor's wonder, his shock. “You are a computer?” he asked.
Since the Doctor had paused his attack, Fenris chose to answer, “I am an Artificial Intelligence.”
“Free willed?” Doctor Farber asked intently. “I can tell you are acting of your own initiative.”
“Yes...” Fenris said. There was something wrong about the Doctor's enthusiasm, As if he wasn't fascinated because of Fenris's uniqueness, but because of an opportunity he saw as a result.
“You are a ship?” The Doctor followed his link back to him far quicker than Fenris expected. He kept him out of his own system, but only because he could react faster. The man had obviously performed some kind of brain enhancement upgrades in addition to everything he had done to his body.
“I am a warship,” Fenris said. He could see the others in the office move around the Doctor's flank. Soon they would be positioned to attack him.
“Probably a quantum core,” Doctor Farber mused. “Able to process data far faster than a standard computer...” His eyes burned with sudden avarice, “You are mine, now.”
Fenris had no idea what the man meant, “What–”
The Doctor transferred a file, which opened up in to a parasitic thing of virtual fangs and claws. It latched into his mind and Fenris screamed as it started to eat its way into him.
***
Mel had almost thought that Fenris had stopped the mad doctor when he leapt into motion again. He backhanded Marcus as he'd come up behind him and spun to face her. “You are all inferior. Though for the gift of that ship I will forgive your insolence enough to kill you quickly.”
Lace fired her stunner then, but the Doctor only glanced at her, his mechanical eyes emotionless. “I've set my internal systems to negate that. I'll be with you momentarily.” His head rotated back towards Mel. “You are next.”
“Fenris?” Mel shouted, “We could use your help, here!” The ship didn't answer, though. Whatever the Doctor had done, it was enough that Fenris was out of this fight.
Marcus leapt for the cyborg's back, but the Doctor sensed him coming and turned to meet him. A single brutal blow knocked Marcus to the ground. He kicked Marcus hard enough to throw him several meters away and turned back toward Mel. “Where was I?”
Mel scrambled back and picked up one of the guard's pistols. She emptied the magazine into him but the cybernetic doctor kept coming. Mel saw Tank leap forward again and fire the riot gun almost in the Doctor's face. Doctor Farber staggered and then spun around, too quick to follow. He caught Tank by the throat and lifted him into the air.
“So quick to die, are you?” his harsh, mechanical voice grated. “Well, then, I'll just finish you off.”
Mel could see Tank's eyes bulge as the cyborg began to squeeze.
***
Fenris' world was agony as the sabotage program attacked him from all directions... yet in that, at least, he found some way to fight back.
The Doctor's program was fast and agile, able to adapt rapidly, but it was designed for bigger, slower prey. Odin Interstellar's servers, Fenris realized, he meant to hijack them. That was how he'd had the program ready... and that was why Fenris knew he stood a chance.
He stopped trying to fight like a program or computer. Instead, he fought like a person. As the cybernetic hydra came in at him from all sides, he simply stepped out of the way. The program surged forward and followed its programming to go for his core, but as it did so, he trapped it, bottled it up and then flushed it from his system in a single, swift blow that left no trace of it remaining.
That done, he followed it back to its source.
He dove down Doctor Farber's communication link and then into his mind. Fenris wasn't surprised to see that much of it was linked in with a neural computer. He dove into the doctor's systems and wrenched control away, pinning the doctor's mind in the only bit of himself that wasn't controlled by computer: his own brain.
Fenris locked down the doctor's body and then spoke through the office intercom, “It's done, I've locked him out.”
***
Mel gave a gasp of relief as Doctor Farber dropped Tank and the big man staggered back. The doctor stood frozen, arm still outstretched and fist drawn back for the finishing blow.
Mel rushed over to Tank and helped him to scoot away. “Thanks,” she said, “you distracted him long enough for Fenris to lock him down.”
He just nodded at her as he rubbed at his throat. Mel could already see dark bruises on his caramel-colored skin.
Mel stood up, “That was interesting, everyone all right?”
“I'm alive, too,” Marcus said with sarcasm. He levered himself to his feet and Mel saw he favored his ribs. “Thanks for asking.”
“I did ask, just now,” Mel said. She looked around at the others. Swaim and Claude crouched protectively behind the desk near Lace. Neither of them had been any help at all. Aldera stood protectively over the data link, which was smart of her; if they lost that, then this would all be for nothing. “Fenris, how long?”
“I'll access the Doctor's files and upload Swaim's false algorithm now. It appears that Brian has finished with his task and is headed for your meeting spot,” Fenris said. “That's interesting, it appears Doctor Farber planned to hijack Odin Interstellar's network, it seems our little drama has some basis in reality and...” he trailed off.
“Fenris?” Mel asked, “What's wrong.”
“Mel, I have accessed Doctor Farber's algorithm. It really is quite advanced... and I can see that he had anomalous data that pointed to our attack here. What he didn't have in the Odin Interstellar files, however, is knowledge that we possessed. I've been able to put that together to come to a disturbing conclusion,” Fenris's gravelly voice was hard. “One of our new crew must be a Guard Intelligence Agent.”
“What?” Mel demanded. She looked over at Marcus, “What's going on?”
Marcus's eyes went narrow. “I'm not sure. These are the three I contacted.”
“Fenris?” Mel asked
Long moments passed before Fenris spoke. Since Fenris could think far faster than a human, that said something ominous to Mel about what he spent that time pondering. “The Guard Intelligence Agent killed one of Marcus's contacts and took that person's place before we made contact,” Fenris said. “That Agent has since infiltrated the group, apparently with the goal of monitoring us to make certain we did the job.”
“Why don't you just identify him?” Mel demanded.
“Because I don't think that I sho
uld, Mel,” Fenris said. “For one thing, he's our employer. He put the contract through to the Mercenary Guild and he also apparently covered up our survival.”
“What?” Mel asked. As far as she knew, the rest of the universe should have thought them dead. Fenris had waited until the last fraction of a second to engage his FTL warp drive to escape at Vagyr, literally right before the antimatter bombs would have destroyed them.
“Apparently Guard Fleet had some anomalous data from their sensors that suggested we might have gone to FTL warp. The Agent had that erased from their systems and in communication with a Guard Intelligence analyst, had him erase it from the data that was presented to Guard Intelligence as a whole.”
Mel frowned, “You pulled all of that from Doctor Farber's files?”
“No,” Fenris said. “I uploaded the algorithm as we spoke and used it to pull that data from Odin Interstellar's files.”
Mel's jaw dropped; she hadn't realized he could do that. “I've also ascertained that it is most likely that, judging by some other actions, the Agent realizes that the Guard's days are numbered.”
Mel shivered at that. She didn't particularly like the Guard, but they were effective at defending humanity from numerous threats. They had also prevented the outbreak of large scale wars, particularly in the core colonies and even out to the edges of the other military sectors. If they disappeared or collapsed, she somehow doubted that they would be replaced by something better or that the chaos of their fall would be good for normal people.
“We can talk about that later, Fenris, you need to tell us who this Agent is.”
She saw Marcus had his pistol again, aimed at no one in particular. Lace, too, had her stunner back out. For that matter, Claude and Johnny Woodard both had taken up weapons from the unconscious guards.
“Mel,” Fenris said, “I hate to say this, but your group does not have the best track record as far as leaving Guard Intelligence Agents alive. In particular...”
“Enough,” Claude stood up, hands raised. “He's talking about me.”
“Why am I not surprised,” Mel said.
“You bastard,” Aldera snapped. She started to go for a guard's pistol.
Before Mel even knew what had happened, Claude had snatched the stunner out of Lace's hand, fired, and then dropped it. Aldera fell to the ground, twitching and he took a step back. “She'll be fine. I just didn't want to get shot while you all discussed what to do with me.”
Mel scowled at him. “What's your name?”
“I'm not going to tell you,” he said. “Just as I'm not going to tell you anything else. You've crippled Doctor Farber's program. The Mercenary Guild will give you your money, which means we can go our separate ways.” His voice had changed; gone was the Parisian Sector accent, replaced by a voice as bland as Mel imagined a robot would sound.
“How exactly do you plan to get off the planet?” Mel said as Lace snatched up her stunner and took several steps back. From the look on her face, she didn't know whether to be impressed by how quickly he had moved or irritated by the fact that he had surprised her.
“I'll be fine,” the agent said. “I've implants a couple generations above what Agent Leon here has. They'll never even know I was here. Just let me go.”
“How do we know we can trust you?” Mel snapped.
He chuckled, “Because I let you go the first time?” He shook his head, “Believe me, Melanie Armstrong, we're working for the same team, even if you don't know what team that is... yet.”
“Last time a Guard Intelligence Agent told me to believe him,” Mel said, “he tried to use me to destroy an inhabited planet.” She stared into the agent's eyes, but to his credit he didn't flinch or look away.
“Yeah,” Bob said, “I was there, that happened.”
Mel held up a hand, “Fenris,” she said, “do you think we can trust him?”
“I think so, Mel,” he said. “Though I am uncertain as to why he doesn't care that I have Doctor Farber's algorithm.”
“You have temporary access to all of Odin Interstellar's files,” the agent said. “But you'll lose that as soon as you leave here. More than that, as news of this leaks out, their reputation for perfect security is going to be ruined. They'll probably sell off portions of their data empire over the next few years and vanish. No one else will be able to get such a monopoly on information ever again. And, I think we can all agree, that's a good thing.”
“I'm inclined to agree,” Fenris said, “surprisingly. No-one should have this much information. They've already used it for years, they just didn't have anything like Doctor Farber's program to parse through it.” That chilled Mel, for it meant that the company had access to the very secrets that their customers had paid to keep secure.
“I suspected as much,” the agent said. He gave Mel a nod, “Now, the mission is done. You open that door and I'll wait for you all to leave and then make my own escape. Nothing changes... except you all can split the pay from this mission one fewer way.”
“What about Doctor Farber?” Lace asked. “I've got Lindsey Bader's corpse here to seal the deal. But we can't leave the Doctor.”
“He is too dangerous to bring along,” Fenris said. “I can't guarantee that he won't find a way to escape and attack us again. He is deviously intelligent.”
“Kill him?” Marcus asked as he hefted his pistol.
“No,” Mel said. Her eyes went narrow as she considered the situation. They had always planned to make Doctor Farber the fall man for what had happened. The plan had called for them to transport him elsewhere, possibly even as a prisoner if he wouldn't cooperate. They had not expected the homicidal rage, however.
I won't put my people at risk for his life, Mel thought, especially not when we're going to frame him for what he planned to do anyway. “Fenris, can we damage or deactivate him so that he can't fight?”
“One moment,” he said. A moment later, he spoke, “If Lace would hit him with the stunner, I've opened his circuits.”
She fired and the doctor shuddered and shook, smoke exploded from his shoulders and hips and he toppled over. For a moment, Mel thought they had killed him, but then she saw his mechanical eyes rotate over to peer at them.
“I...” he said, “will... have... my... revenge.” His mechanical voice was damaged, half static. Clearly he wouldn't be an immediate threat.
“We leave him,” Mel said. “Fenris, you said he planned to betray Odin Interstellar anyway, right?”
“Yes,” Fenris growled, “his plan was to hijack the security systems and butcher everyone in the building. He seemed to think that if he had access to their core, combined with his algorithm, then he would be unstoppable.”
“I think they would probably nuke the building to stop him,” Mel said. “But I digress. We leave him, Odin Interstellar has their perpetrator. The rest of us are dead.” She shrugged, “Open the doors, Fenris.”
The office doors swept open. A pair of guards lay prone nearby and Brian stepped through, “What did I miss?” he asked.
“Quite a bit,” Marcus said as he limped through. “Where to start...”
“We'll tell you later, we need to go,” Mel said as she helped Tank to his feet and saw Bob hoist Aldera over his shoulder.
She looked back at the man who had pretended to be Claude. “You have thirty seconds after we leave.” She didn't wait for a response before she turned around.
They hurried to the landing pad just down the corridor. Here and there Mel saw Brian's work, security men clubbed down by their own weapons. “Fenris?” Mel asked as they reached the skimmer.
With Fenris inside the system and Doctor Farber implicated as the security threat, any investigators would be focused on him as the source of modifications to the network. Fenris had access through Lindsey Bader's codes... which meant his changes to the network should be almost undetectable, especially as he left a trail of breadcrumbs to the cybernetic doctor's misdeeds, both real and false.
“I'm modifying the sec
urity feeds now. They'll show Doctor Farber used a grenade to kill most of the people in the room, save the guards that were close to him. I've utilized footage of the fight to simulate him fighting Lindsey Bader and the remaining guards. He dealt a killing blow to the Chief Operations Officer but not before she hit him with her stunner, frying his circuits. His accomplice escaped from his cell, but was unable to link up with the Doctor and so made his escape on his own.”
“Sounds good,” Mel said. She nodded at Bob, who pulled the detonator out of Aldera's pocket. Mel glanced at her watch. Twenty-nine seconds, thirty, she thought, “Good enough, blow it.”
Down the corridor, the crates that they had brought with them exploded. Inside, the cadavers of the Guard Free Now terrorists were blasted apart along with a portion of the office. Just enough, she hoped to mask their disappearance.
It would be a gruesome scene, but hopefully the corporation wouldn't look any deeper than that.
She nodded at Brian, “You work some of your mad out?”
He smiled, “I had some fun.” Their original plan had had him 'escorting' Doctor Farber out of the building. Mel had thought they could bribe or threaten his silence, possibly with a deal to continue his research with the Mercenary Guild.
Fenris had already scrubbed the records of the flight and had uploaded a flight log for their return flight to him. He had changed Vulcan Mining Concern's files to show the Vulcan Phoenix as one of their transponders for hired pirate craft on secret company business.
Since the interstellar corporation would not want anyone looking into that part of their business, they could count on the company not to investigate who had been in the system. Which meant they would be clear to go. “All right, team,” she said as she took a seat at the control yoke for the skimmer, “Time to go home.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Time: 1230 Zulu, 26 September 291 G.D.
Location: Deep Space Near Neu Emshaven System