Rescue (The Stork Tower Book 4)

by Tony Corden

  "Please tell security that when he next leaves the Pod, they are to block all access until he talks with me."

  Gèng went to the security door and knocked. A small window opened, and Gèng showed her ID and then passed on the information. As soon as she finished talking, the window closed and the door opened. A faceless figure in a security uniform exited; it was neither male nor female and ignored both Gèng and Leah. It went to stand near Kyle's multiverse access point. Leah nodded, and Gèng pointed to a door marked ‘RWAN:Brisbane_Metro’. One step and they arrived at the door which opened automatically this time. Across the door was an optical turnstile which recorded their passage. Standing beside the door was another faceless figure in a security uniform—this one had various devices hanging from a utility belt. Leah knew from the discussions with Gèng and Akia that entry to the 'LAN:Guàn_Enterprises' involved more than knowing a key-code. The room was huge and busy with thousands of AI moving through the place every second.

  From the regional WAN for Brisbane, several directed steps took them through the even busier Australian Central regional WAN. Then, instead of entering the virtual world’s state of the art ‘WAN:Multiverse’, Gèng led Leah to the edge of the room where there was an unlabelled door which looked like a fire escape. Descending a short flight of stairs, they came to a partially open unlabelled door. This was the WAN that had once been called the 'Internet’, but was now used primarily by AI and hackers to travel quietly beneath the virtual multiverse. Beyond the door was a long corridor along which she could see numerous branches to the left and right, and even some going up and down. Occasionally they were labelled, but most weren't.

  Gèng took Leah through the maze quickly, each step moving them to the next junction. Finally, Gèng slowed and pointed to a grille on the floor and then placed a finger over her lips. Here they had to be quiet. This was an old entrance to the Secure Network that had served the International Court when it was located at The Hague. Lifting the grille, they dropped into the large cavernous room in which Leah could see thousands of doors. Most were boarded over, though some of the spaces were vacant and opened into emptiness. There were a few doors, here and there, which looked like they were still active even if seldom used.

  With one step, Gèng moved to a door at the far end of the room. This door was closed and locked. The lock, however, was an everyday pin-and-tumbler cylindrical lock. Gèng said, "This is the closest I can come and have any meaningful input. This door leads into a small and archaic home network that belongs to one of the men on the International Virtual Security Board. He is almost eighty, and despite every piece of advice he has ever been given, he's connected his home network to the International Security's Secure LAN. Because the connection is used only for archaic text email and because he simply refuses to either have a new address or to use his AI for communication, they have let him keep it."

  Leah nodded, she'd known this and knew that from here on, she was on her own. Gèng stepped backwards and faded from view.

  Leah removed her set of picks, and with practised ease, she opened the door and slid through. The room she entered into looked old. The tiles only flickered occasionally, and she could see the footprints where the security guard walked. There was only one door in the room and it was labelled ‘SIMPOD:William_Somnerball'. The rest of the walls were covered in vents. Each had a small screen over it and a label. Carefully, she studied the different labels and finally saw 'Will.Somnerball@IS_Secure.net' with ‘Wii:John_Somnerball’ and 'HTCVive:Ellen_Somnerball’ on either side. Most of the vents opened into emptiness, but she could see a tunnel through the vent she wanted.

  Suddenly there was a flicker of light, and a small hum began as the router prepared for a security check. Leah stepped to the vent and quickly removed the hinge pins with a nail punch. She'd just closed the vent behind her when a tired looking form in a security uniform walked carefully along its preset path before disappearing back the way it had come. Leah wasn't sure it would have seen her even if she'd been in the room. She sealed the vent with some wire and then carefully crawled along the downward sloping tunnel.

  There were no quick steps here. She could have let herself slide down, but most likely she wouldn't be able to control her entry into the IS Secure LAN. Even so, it was only a matter of minutes and she was looking through another vent into a large, brightly lit room surrounded with doors of all sorts of sizes and materials. Some were open and had turnstiles, but most had key-locks. Almost half had a security guard standing beside them, and several looked like the door of a bank vault, including multiple guards. Most of the guards were like the ones she had already seen, faceless and unremarkable, but some looked human, and they peered around, looking with intensity at whatever caught their interest.

  Leah was good at patterns, and Akia had said that almost all AI, even the most developed, would fall into patterns—it was their nature. After watching for almost ten minutes, she thought she had the general patterns of both movement and observation mapped out, but it took another ten before she found what she thought was a possible pathway. With that decided, she turned to the vent. Just like the previous cover this had a simple hinge, but this time it also had an electrical current running through it. Leah's skills at burglary came in useful once more and she had the vent rewired within minutes. Once she’d run a length of copper wire around the frame, she removed the hinge pins. They were marginally more difficult to remove from inside the tunnel, but she'd brought a pair of bent needle-nosed circlip-pliers for this exact purpose. As soon as the pin was removed, she waited. When the guards reached the part of the pattern she considered the most opportune to remain unobserved, she quickly exited the vent and returned the pins. Then she kept moving. She needed a particular door, but first, she had to keep moving ahead of the roving guards. She needed to stay out of sight until she reached the one area of the room she thought was free of scrutiny.

  Leah had one more move and she could stop, crouch down, and figure out the next step. As soon as she approached the place she thought was safe, she realised the guards were aware of the blind spot and had taken steps to protect it. In the corner was a sensor. Gèng and Leah had given forms to as many of the sensors as possible and discussed different ways to deal with them. Leah had insisted that although some sensors would take the form of an animal she might recognise, they needed to change the appearance so she wouldn’t hesitate. Lying in front of her was a hairless, pale-skinned Japanese Akita which had been transformed with red eyes and a skull for a head. Leah reacted quickly and struck before it could either give a warning or attack. Her knife went through one eye and then she knelt down and made sure it was deactivated with a thrust to the heart. She quickly searched for the dog's sensor chip and found it hanging on the collar. She'd practised this with Akia, and in no time had connected a small battery to the chip which continued to send a signal indicating the security device was both online and active.

  Now safe, Leah crouched down and scanned the room. So far, it seemed, she was unobserved. Now she just had to find the secondary access panel to the Vault. Akia had described the Vault entrance as the one with the biggest door in the room. It would look like a bank vault and would have three or more guards standing guard. Leah identified it immediately, but she needed to find the secondary access panel. Everything hinged on there being a second access point into the Vault. Akia said Security always had a smaller access panel to use if the primary access was compromised or locked. They always had a backup and so there had to be a way to reboot the access, as it were, if the primary access was compromised. For a moment it reminded her of her mother, and she had to take a deep breath. Her mother had very little patience with technology and her solution to almost every perceived problem was something she'd learned from Leah's grandmother. If it didn't work, turn it off, wait for a minute, and then turn it on again. Lin was adamant that it almost always worked and would, on the rare occasion, turn something on and off multiple times in the hope it would solve the problem. Thi
s was similar; Akia had said there would be a crawlway or vent to use in emergencies.

  It took another ten minutes, but finally, she noticed that the gap between tiles was slightly larger on one section of the floor just in front of the Vault. Now that she knew what to look for, she tried to find a similar gap in the tiles near her. She eventually found it just a metre out beyond her place of safety. Again she watched the patterns unfold, and when she was sure the area was unwatched, she scuttled over and investigated the tiles. The entryway had an electrical sensor and most likely a pressure switch as well. Two more cycles of the pattern and she had rerouted both and was ready to enter the crawlway. At the next repeat, she gently lifted the hatch which was just below the tiles, and after crawling in, she gently lowered it behind her.

  She was on her back, and the crawlway was barely wider than her body. It was a squeeze, but she finally rolled onto her front and began to shuffle along in the direction of the vault. In each hand, she had a weapon, and her eyes were constantly moving. She was on the lookout for plague-carrying insects or vermin, small viral packets of data which scurried through the network, killing anything foreign. She'd struggled at first with the speed of the various creatures, but Akia and Gèng had helped her increase her sensory sensitivity until even the slightest change in current or the smallest package of data was felt, seen, or smelt. Between entering the access way and arriving beneath the Vault's secondary access point she'd killed ten cockroaches, four mice, a rat and two trapdoor spiders.

  When she reached the access point, she could see a short tunnel heading under the main vault door, and at the end, there was a door similar to that on a wall safe. As she traversed the short length of tunnel she had to disarm a range of sensors. Eventually though, she reached the locked access door. Based on the type of lock, she knew it needed both a password and valid biodata to open without an alarm being set off. Akia had presented Leah with numerous samples of biodata from her records, archived over the years she had worked in Security. Akia had lost the most recent data but had been able to pull together enough to fool most sensors. Leah would have only a single attempt. She took a small spray bottle they'd prepared and applied a thin coating of silicone mixed with a bio-glue over the bio-pad. Then with another bottle, she added a light layer of silicone-dioxide. She waited for several minutes and then using a small suction cup, gently lifted the now solid 'glass' plate from the pad. The glue had lifted multiple small particles from the surface of the pad.

  She quickly scanned the particles and discovered she had information on four technicians or agents who had accessed the door. She read through the data and settled on a woman by the name of Lolanda Moore. Akia had explained that most AI would choose the one most likely to still have access. Leah had crossed one off her list because she knew he had been promoted recently and unlikely to deal with a security issue personally. Of the remaining three, she'd chosen Lolanda on the strength of a simple, visceral reaction to the photograph and short description.

  With this type of lock, she had one attempt, and that attempt was timed. She paused and closed her eyes, then she reached out with all her other senses. Slowly, but without hesitation, she began to turn the dial. Three minutes later she felt the lock's lever-nose drop into the cam-gate. She pulled on one of the fine gloves Akia had provided her with. This one was labelled ‘Lolanda Moore’. She placed her hand on the bio-pad. There was a faint click and Leah was able to pull the door towards her and slide onto a small ledge at the end of the tunnel. Now all she had to do was to navigate the maze.

  Before going any further, Leah changed her clothes. The backpack she wore was similar to hers in Dunyanin and was bigger on the inside than the outside. Leah put away the modern overalls and utility belt and changed into leather trousers and a linen shirt. Over the top, she buckled on some hardened leather armour. Next, she slung a quiver on her back and a sword around her waist. A change of shoes and she was ready.

  The vault didn't allow data to flow through its infrastructure. It was a lifeless place, a place where things were left to stagnate, to become obsolete, to rot, before finally being wiped when they could never be made use of. It had shape because it required energy to ensure the cages were kept locked, and to power the various sentries and security features, but everything was rationed and measured. Leah was standing on a small metal ledge. Above her was a slightly larger ledge and an orc was standing guard. This was Akia's way of showing a program built to attack rather than stop. It was designed to deal with problems before reporting to central security. Almost every security item in the vault was designed this way.

  There was a thin ladder from Leah's ledge to the one the guard was on. This wasn't Dunyanin, there were no levels here, and no discussion would change the mind of the AIs or any of the lesser security features, so she used her bow and put an arrow through the back of the orc’s head. Before it hit the ground, she was beside it and making sure it was dead, though deactivated was probably a more accurate term.

  Leah stood and looked out over the vault. She could now understand why Akia had described it as a maze. Hanging in space were thousands of cages and boxes. Each was surrounded by emptiness, and each had only one point of access along a steel walkway. There was no recognisable pattern to how the walkways connected with each another. Sometimes a cage was accessed via a ladder which rose from a walkway several hundred metres above it, while at other times three or four boxes all branched from a single node at the end of a long straight section.

  Boxes represented an archival protocol which completely isolated the entity from any and all possible stimuli—data, current, sound, light, magnetic interference, etc. Cages weren't necessarily a lighter protocol but rather represented those entities whose continued viability or sanity involved some form of stimulus. Akia was unsure of her classification but thought she was most likely in complete isolation.

  Scattered through the space, Leah could see the three highly specialised and powerful Security AI. Each had been given the form of a dragon, with searchlights for eyes. Nothing escaped such intense scrutiny. In addition, there were orcs, slimes, goblins, midnight wolves, and different kinds of vermin scattered randomly throughout the maze. Each was designed to seek out and destroy intruders.

  Leah checked her time. She'd already been active in the cyber-verse for just over three real-minutes and she had seven remaining. She still had to find Akia Prime if she was going to extricate her. Keeping an eye on the three dragons, Leah began to systematically scan the whole room, letting her eyes pass over every box and cage. Just as she could see the label on every door in her LAN, so she could see every tag on every storage container. It would have been great if the labels said who or what was in each location but instead they were generic, anonymous and coded—Akia was hopeful they hadn't changed the system. Leah was looking for a label beginning with ‘73–’, these were archived this year. Following the year was a five digit code which identified a specific type of archived material. Akia said that anything below 80000 was documents, audio, and video. Anything with a code ‘8####–’ was likely a program, a backup, dangerous malware, or confiscated codes. Anything with a code ‘9####–’ was an archived AI or an archived world. Akia had nothing more specific within that number range but explained that there were a whole range of AI who ended up being archived—from PAI's whose owners had died but they had information that was too important for them to be deleted, to military AI that weren't supposed to exist. The final section of the label identified the particular security case file which confined them to the vault. Akia said hers should contain the letters ‘ISO’ for International Security Oversight, although the letters would be scrambled for security reasons. So Leah hunted for a box with the label ‘73–9####–’ with the letters I, S, and O.

  If she'd had to process the information she would have been there for days and still not finished. As it was, it took her ten cyber-minutes. The small subroutine Gèng had added, or more accurately that Reed had given to Gèng to add, allowe
d Leah to sort through the data and mark each box which fit the criteria. Altogether there were 658 boxes or cages which fit her criteria.

  The three dragons continued to circle the Vault. At any stage, only a fifth of the cages and boxes required more than a simple turn of the head for the dragons to see everything that was happening. It was from these boxes and cages that Leah needed to choose one to start her investigations with. She had to choose, based not only on where the dragons were, but also where they would be at a particular time. Leah then needed to choose a path which allowed her to stay out of their sight. She decided on a box that fit the criteria and was close-by then she set off at a run.

  She ran, rather than instantly step, because Akia had warned her that cyber-motion drew the dragons’ attentions, or more correctly, she had explained to her that the Security AIs were programmed to note when a file was directly targeted. So instead of stepping to the file as she could have, she ran. In her right hand was her sword and in the left, a knife. Cockroaches she stomped on as she ran past. A rat or mouse earned a slowed half-step to ensure it neither touched her, nor was alive to communicate anything. For spiders, Leah slowed to a walk and double checked the kill while making certain no webs were touching her. Goblins, orcs, and wolves she shot from a distance. The slimes took longer as she had to hack into them until she destroyed their core and they disappeared. Fortunately, there were not many slimes.