Promethean Files 1: The New Prometheus

by Andrew Dobell

  1.09

  Frankie’s breaching software worked furiously, and using the knowledge she had gained from the Agent, she broke down the Dolls firewall in seconds and directed it to stand down.

  In front of them, the Doll lowered its arm, the weapons that had sprung from within it, folding back into place and disappearing from view.

  ‘Did you do that?’ Gibson asked her.

  Frankie smiled back at the Detective. ‘That was me, but you can thank the Agent in my apartment for his access codes, I wouldn’t have been able to hack it that quickly otherwise.’

  ‘Good to know,’ he said.

  ‘Okay, let’s get this show on the road,’ she exclaimed as she walked up to the ramp and towards the Doll. ‘We’re heading back to where the Agents just came from,’ she said to the Doll.

  ‘Very well sir, please proceed to strap yourself in,’ it said and moved towards the cockpit through the inside of the flyer.

  Frankie sat on the bench inside the belly of the craft, opposite Gibson and did her best to compose herself. She was about to walk into the lion’s den on a mission that felt way out of her league, but somehow, somewhere deep down inside her, a part of her felt like she could do it, and bring Gibson and Xenox out unharmed too.

  ‘I have a bad feeling about this,’ Gibson said.

  Frankie smiled back at him and then closed her eyes; she needed to concentrate.

  ‘That doesn’t inspire confidence,’ she heard him grumble, but ignored him and focused on her hack into the Doll. She chose to dive in again, and sent her consciousness into the VR world of Cyberspace, appearing as her shiny skinned Avatar once more, floating in the sea of information. Before her, she could see the Cyberbrain of the Android that she had hacked. She floated forward and passed through Doll’s breached Firewalls and found herself surrounded by information. Reaching out with one hand, a Holographic Terminal appeared before her as a VR representation of her accessing the Dolls mind.

  Firstly she opened up a map of the city and overlay the course the Doll had plotted onto it to see where they were heading. Their destination was one of Psytech’s main buildings and their biggest here in Neo-London. Information about the building appeared next to it, documenting, in broad terms, the personnel and the main unclassified activities that took place here. It was one of their leading research facilities, and it seemed likely that Xenox had worked here, at least for some of his employment.

  The flyer would set down on a landing pad part way up the building, about forty floors above where she needed to be. It appeared to be the closest landing space as well, so it would have to do. Closing the map, she looked at the Dolls external connections and found its data connection to the Psytech buildings Intranet. Frankie smiled as she opened up the Doll’s access passwords and copied them over to herself. She then ran another program, cloaking her digital self in the Doll’s identity and floated over to the access port into the Psytech Intranet. Pressing her hand to the virtual terminal, it asked for identification, so Frankie used the Doll’s access codes, and hoped for the best. The circular holographic lock scanned her, then turned and flashed green, the connection opening up.

  She was in.

  Moving into the vast repository of data that made up the Psytech internal network, she opened up a terminal in here and started to hunt for the location of the Doctor, but the data request was blocked. The information she needed was, predictably, classified, which meant she would need to resort to some hacking to get to it.

  Using the terminal, she navigated to the server that held the data and unleashed one of her more subtle programs to break into the data storage vault she was interested in. Luckily, this information didn’t seem to have high-level security measures placed upon it, and within a few moments, she had broken in. She ran a quick filter to find the information she needed. It appeared they hadn’t moved the Doctor yet as it registered that he was still on the same floor that the Agent had seen him on, but she needed to get confirmation of this.

  Pulling herself out of that storage vault, she used her terminal once more and used another hack to access the security feed from the buildings internal cameras. She flicked through the feeds on the floor where he’d last been seen and within a couple of moments found herself looking at the video feed of Doctor Xenox locked in a lab.

  Wanting to know more about what she would be getting herself into, she looked up the blueprints for the building and opened up a display of this level's floor plan, quickly seeing the room the Doctor was in, and it’s location relative to the lifts.

  Continuing her research she found a feed from the corridor outside and noted the security guard at his door.

  With a few more minutes of digging, she had all the data she needed. Leaving the connection to the Psytech Intranet open, she pulled herself out of the VR dive and found herself back in her new body once again.

  She felt elated. Diving into Cyberspace like that felt like some sort of out of body experience like her soul was floating free of her body and ascending to a higher plane. She loved it.

  Hacking seemed to come naturally to her in much the same way that the other new skills she had gained with this body did. She wondered if she really did know these things or was it just data and if her brain was transplanted back into an organic body, would she forget them maybe?

  She had no way to know, but, what she did know was that she did enjoy these new experiences.

  ‘Hacking again?’ Gibson asked.

  Frankie focused on him where he sat opposite her.

  ‘Yeah, just making some preparations to make our lives a little easier. I have access to their internal network now, so getting inside should be relatively straight forward,’ Frankie answered him.

  ‘That new body of yours is capable of some amazing things.’

  ‘I know, it’s incredible, it amazes me more each day.’

  ‘So, what’s the plan?’

  ‘We should be able just to walk inside, use the lifts and head down to the floor the Doctor is on. He has a security guard, but we should be able to deal with him and then break the Doctor out. Hopefully, if we’re unnoticed, we’ll exit the same way we went in,’ she explained.

  ‘And if we are noticed?’

  ‘I’m working on that,’ she said, a wry smile on her face.

  ‘You fill me with confidence,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll be fine, you watch,’ she grinned.

  ‘I certainly will… it looks like we’re nearly here,’ he said, looking out the window next to her. She turned and looked behind her through the small window, recognising the huge monolithic building that belonged to Psytech.

  A message popped up in her field of vision.

  - Doll Pilot: Making final approach, landing in twenty seconds –

  The text was accompanied by a timer that counted down the seconds until the flyer bumped down onto the landing pad. The Flyer’s engines quickly powered down with a gently deepening whine that settled into a low rumble as the ramp on the back of the flyer levered down.

  ‘This is it, are you ready?’ she asked her companion.

  He stood up next to her and checked his gun. ‘As I will ever be,’ he sighed. ‘Let’s do this.’

  Frankie nodded to him and strode down the ramp into the blustery air that whipped about the building. They were quite high up now, and the view over the surrounding city was breathtaking. Flyers buzzed through the air all around them while cars moved along the elevated highways like ants deeper down into the city.

  Frankie pulled herself away from the impressive view and walked around the flyer to see the entrance to the main building guarded by two Doll Security Androids. She wasted no time and walked towards them, ignoring the landing pad crew who were moving to refuel the flyer.

  She looked up at the Doll Pilot and sent it a message.

  - Refuel the Flyer, then lift off but stay close and be ready for emergency extraction from a hostile location –

  - Doll Pilot: Acknowledged –

&n
bsp; Frankie felt satisfied and continued towards the pair of security Doll’s. She figured the best way forward was to look like she owned the place and just to walk in confidently, ignoring the security detail.

  She still had access to the building’s Intranet, and quickly located the control nodes for the doors, ready to trigger them to open as she approached. The two guards noticed her, though, and stepped forward, blocking her path.

  ‘Halt. You are not authorised to enter here. Please stand to one side…’ they started to say in unison, but Frankie continued to walk towards them. Once she was within a few feet of the first one, she sprang forward, taking hold of the closest Doll’s gun and tilted it vertically, her finger over the Doll’s trigger finger. She pulled the trigger once the end of the barrel was under the Doll’s chin, blowing the android’s head apart in a shower of metal, circuitry and wires. She spun the Doll she had a hold of around her, freeing the rifle from its grip as she did so and let the limp artificial body fall away. Continuing her spin, she kicked out, knocking the other Doll’s gun out of its hands just as it levelled it towards her. By then she had also brought the gun she had just liberated from the first Doll to bear on this one. She fired three rounds at the second Doll, planting all three into its head and dropping it to the concrete floor.

  With the gun up and ready, she glanced around but saw no one else coming for them. She glanced back to the landing crew, who had paused to look at the commotion. They saw her looking back and quickly returned to their task of refuelling the flyer.

  She doubted they would be much trouble, but, she had probably alerted the building's security to their presence.

  ‘Awesome job Frankie, let’s move,’ Gibson urged from behind her, his gun tucked into his shoulder and ready.

  Frankie nodded to Gibson while sending a command into the buildings Intranet, and the doors of the building slid open. She walked through the two sets of doors that helped to keep the heat inside the building, finding herself in a mid-sized lobby with a reception desk and waiting area with soft seating. The woman sitting at the reception desk stared at Frankie and Gibson, wide-eyed. Frankie walked forward towards the doors at the far side of the room but looked at the girl. The girl slowly raised her hands into view and above her head.

  Frankie smiled slightly, so far so good. She used her access to the buildings net and with a few quick commands, locked out the receptionist’s terminal. She wouldn’t be able to call it in now.

  Frankie reached the door, and with another command, heard the lock disengage and walked through. They were in a corridor that continued forward before it split diagonally, in a Y shape. Doors to other hallways and windows into meeting rooms and offices lined the hall, and just before the corridor split she saw what she wanted, elevators on both sides of the hallway. There were a few people about, most of which paid them no mind. A few did give them both some curious looks, but they weren’t challenged by them at all. Reaching the elevator doors, she tapped the call button and waited for the doors to open. It took maybe ten seconds for one of the lifts to get to their floor and the doors to open, and as they moved into the carriage, Frankie suddenly spotted a three-man security team approaching along one of the corridors up ahead. Their guns were up and ready, and without warning, they opened fire with their automatic rifles. Frankie pulled Gibson into the elevator car and ducked out of sight as the ear-splitting noise of the guns filled the corridors.

  ‘Holy shit,’ Gibson yelled.

  Sparks flew as the rounds slammed home into the walls and elevator. Frankie didn’t try to fire back. Instead, she stayed hidden to the side of the door and sent a command into the Intranet to close the elevator doors and descend to the level they wanted.

  In her vision, red warning icons flashed up. It appeared that the building's security team were now aware of her hack and were trying to boot her from the system.

  As the elevator dropped, she concentrated for a moment and set up some countermeasures in the Intranet to keep her from getting booted. As she finished up, she opened her eyes while the elevator car slowed down.

  ‘They’re onto us in the Net as well. They haven’t booted me yet, and I have a few tricks up my sleeve, so hopefully we can still make this.’

  ‘Hopefully?’ Gibson said incredulously.

  ‘I’m cautiously optimistic,’ she smiled.

  ‘Well, that’s good to know…’ he sighed, rolling his eyes.

  ‘Keep to the side,’ she said as the lift stopped, and with a ping, announced the floor they had arrived at while the doors opened.

  They weren’t even half way open before there was a hail of gunfire that sprayed into the car. But Frankie and Gibson were pressed up against the side of the elevator and safe for the moment.

  ‘What the hell have I got myself into?’ Gibson muttered to himself.

  ‘I’ve been wondering that for the past couple of days,’ Frankie answered, before leaning out briefly with her rifle to lay down a quick burst of covering fire in the general direction of the shooters. She needed to know where and how many of them there were.

  She counted three, and her enhanced vision could now track them having located them. The security team fired back but missed again.

  ‘Gibson, I need to you jump across the elevator to the other side, draw their fire. Can you do that?’

  ‘Sure, why not,’ he sighed. ‘You only live once right?’

  ‘On three,’ she said and readied her gun. ‘One, two, three.’ As Gibson shot across the interior of the lift car, the security team fired on him, their shots tracking across the lift trying to hit him. As the gunfire moved away from Frankie, she leant out a fraction, just enough to see the three assailants, and fired off three rounds over little more than a second, dropping all three men with a headshot on each.

  Frankie didn’t wait. She moved quickly to the edge of the elevator door and glanced down the corridors. They were clear. Bringing her gun up, she ran a subroutine that she had been preparing, using her access to the cameras on this floor, and the map she had to give her a real time view of the movements of people on the floor around her.

  The map appeared in her vision with people on the floor clearly marked as they moved around. They had a few corridors to get through, and there were a few different routes they could take to get to the Doctor. With that setup, she tapped into the comms channel through the buildings Net and started to monitor the chatter there. They knew where they were, so Frankie used her access to isolate the floor, stopping the feed from the security cameras on this floor from reaching the Security hub and cutting off all communication into and out of this floor.

  After all, why make it too easy for them.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Frankie said and moved out of the lift, her gun up to her eye as she trod along the corridors. As she moved, her subroutine tagged the people on her map that were members of the building's security. Moving along a second corridor, one of the teams moved towards them.

  ‘Stay with me Gibson, we’ve got to move,’ she said, and hustled along to a door to their left and moved quickly through it and along the corridor beyond. They passed some shocked office workers who quickly got out of their way with their hands up, but they were no further trouble.

  As they moved, from the corner of her eye she saw one man sat behind a desk in an adjacent office pick up his Pad to make a call on seeing them. Frankie smiled as she saw his frustrated actions at not being able to call security, and continued on her way.

  They managed to dodge a couple more security teams before they reached the end of the captured Doctor’s corridor.

  Frankie spied the Doctor's security guard on a video feed in her field of vision, stood in the hallway with his gun out and ready, looking around.

  Glancing at the map again, she saw a team of guards making their way to her as well. They would be sandwiched between them and the guard on the door in just a few moments. It was now or never.

  ‘We’re going to have company shortly, coming from that way,’ Frankie
nodded.

  ‘And we have a guard down there?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Just one yes, but he’s ready for us. So we have to do this quick, the moment the guys back that way hear gunfire, they’ll be on us in seconds. You ready for this?’

  ‘I was born ready,’ Gibson quipped.

  ‘Really?’ she said, mocking him.

  ‘Let’s just get it done, okay? This isn’t my idea of fun.’

  She nodded at him and brought her gun up, and in one smooth motion, leading with her weapon, rounded the corner and fired. She didn’t try to do anything fancy; she just aimed for his center of mass wanting to drop him as quickly as she could. Blood sprayed, and the guard fell to the floor without firing a shot.

  She didn’t stop moving, she just kept on walking, her gun ready as she strode down the corridor towards the door. Simultaneously, she issued commands to the buildings Net to open the door, which unlocked with a click.

  A second later it locked again, making Frankie frown. The buildings online security team were fighting back it seemed, so she launched more software countermeasures and issued the unlock command into the Net once more as she and Gibson reached the door. For a moment, it did nothing.

  ‘Shit,’ she muttered, ‘form up, this might get messy.’

  ‘Problem?’ Gibson asked.

  ‘Gimmie a moment,’ Frankie hissed.

  The pair of them went back to back, their guns pointing in each direction in the corridor as she checked her map again.

  Gunfire from where they had just come from rang out and hit the wall closest to them. Gibson fired back as Frankie issued the command to open again to the door. The lock made a strange juddering noise as if it were fighting the command when another man entered the corridor from the other direction and fired a random burst of bullets at them, apparently surprised to see them. They both backed into the recessed doorway as Frankie shot back, making the man disappear back round the corner.