Anyway, a tech got contaminated, and a ventilation duct maintenance crew reported purplish mold-like pods within the air ventilation ducts, pumping out millions of spores.
The tech was later found to be responsible for taking out the power conduit and infecting others. Then in turn stole the battle cruiser and proceeded to destroy a shipyard and any other threats they could find. I can’t see an end to this anytime soon.
Message 17: Federation year 2434
transmission./source./unknown./
Neural_net./mapping./process./
data./successful./data./neural_net./secured.
End./of./message.
I read the message several times and then pass it to Brookes. “I’m guessing that’s not a facility systems report of some kind.”
The professor looks confused at the message. He types a line of commands into the system, noticing that no other messages have printed out since the last was taken.
“I have no idea what that message is referring to. It looks like computer code, albeit a simple one or at least a simple message, but the system says it was transmitted from outside the station about a month ago.”
“Outside? The cryostation maybe?” Taking the message back and rereading it, I remember what was said to me once, what almost seems just a few months ago, but that can’t be here and certainly not sending me a message.
“No, not from the cryostation. Closer.” The professor, becoming excited, runs a set of scans, but after a few minutes, the scans come up with nothing. The commander’s last message was about six months previous to that one. It’s possible that something’s gone wrong with the communication system.
Our speculation of what it could all mean is cut short as another message prints out.
Message 18: Federation year 2434
More bad news, I’m afraid. The discovered a certain research and development location today and destroyed it. They realized its importance. Sam will be very familiar with this place, as he stole their first prototype. The project was never completely halted, and the damage done had set them back decades, but it had not prevented them from starting over.
Message 19: Federation year 2435
This will be my last message. They found out that the first prototype was stolen and was never recovered, and they know where you are. They are coming for you!
“They are coming for us, Sam,” Brookes says, looking concerned.
We both look at each other, dumbstruck, as a beeping starts on another terminal. I’m almost too scared to even ask, but Professor Brookes gets up and looks at the monitor. He reads the screen. “It’s my encryption script. It’s unlocked the quarantine protocol, but the elevators still cannot travel to level one; there seems to be some kind of obstruction.”
I stand and nod, feeling dazed from all the recent messages, the last affecting me the most. “Leave it with me. I’ll handle it,” I say, the words sounding like they are being spoken by someone else as I leave security.
Now alone as I descend within the elevator, something about the odd computer-coded message reminds me of a conversation I had but only a few months ago, and then I realize, feeling rather foolish, that it’s been months for me but years to the outside world: “Neural_net mapping process completed.”
I halt the elevator and stand there in silence for a minute before asking a question to myself in my mind: “Can you hear me?”
Then I hear a female voice, one that’s somehow familiar, and it’s talking to me directly inside my mind. “Yes, Sam.”
Shaken, I reply back with my mind, “Arden?”
“No, Sam. Arden is dead. It’s Sam. Shall we begin?”
9
Sam McCall’s Story
Facility Zero, 105 days online: federation year 2419
Normally when I get hired to do a job, I just do that job, but on this occasion, when a brand-new contract has come my way from a trusted source, I’m a little more curious about what I’m stealing.
You never can tell what is really going on. I was hired to steal a document, some kind of blackmail material that my benefactor required to be returned or destroyed. The security vault was pretty tough—impressive high-tech security but easy when you helped design it, and knowing all the flaws and back doors turns a possible nightmare of a job into a walk in the park.
So when someone like me has a chance to look around, that’s exactly what I do. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for one folder:
Report of Possible Interest
Inner World Project
Code name: Phantom
Top-security prototype
The main problem regarding inner-world jobs is that the information is normally very hard to come by, and you certainly can’t buy someone off. Inner-world citizens are not interested in money—or any other commodity, for that matter. You can’t dig around for information, as that attracts the wrong kind of attention, but when something like this drops into your lap, it’s almost impossible to resist, so I copied the folder and completed the rest of my job and got the hell out of there.
Even with all the boxes ticked—information, location, accessibility and escape route—the heat caused by stealing anything from the inner worlds is not normally worth it, but when I took a closer look at the report, all other concerns were cast aside, this was too important not to attempt.
Report of Possible Interest
Inner World Project
Code Name: Phantom
Top-security prototype
Project proposal:
Multipurpose cloak-capable interstellar vessel.
Primary weapon system: biological nanites with genome-remapping sequencing.
Secondary weapon systems: single dual proton lasers.
The main purpose of this craft is to deliver biological nanites payload to developing worlds that may prove useful to the Inner Federation. Biological life can be remapped to be susceptible to dreamtime frequencies. Worlds that may prove a threat can be neutralized on a biological level without needing to enter into a full-scale war.
Although there are several pages missing regarding the computer system and pilot requirements, the rest of the document is redacted except for the last few lines.
Test flights have been successful up to this point, but issues have occurred over training time of pilots due to the unique interfacing between pilot and craft, replacing *** REDACTED REDACTED REDACTED *** the current test pilot had suffered major injuries while off duty and will need to be replaced in the event of said pilot’s death. Research team requires suggestions on how a suitable candidate may be trained in the time period suggested.
The project’s location was a little tricky to find, but I had some help from the molecular tagging, by which each document’s point of origin is registered and authenticated. Every federation document has this kind of tag in case of theft; it helps prevents copyright and intellectual theft. For example, if someone writes a book or designs a new invention, that media will be tagged and registered, and any copies made will copy the tag. The only way the creation could be copied without the tag would be to copy it by hand.
The tagging led me to the registered Inner Worlds Division for Federation Expansion. Sounds harmless, but expansion is just another way of saying invasion.
Knowing the division name, I could then obtain a list of holdings that are owned by that particular federation division. The list included various federal buildings deep within inner-world space and one particular suspicious moon. No prizes for guessing where I would have a top-secret weapons-projects base, but as they are not me and they have strict rules for such things, the moon it is then.
With a few more searches, I soon discover that they are hiring workers. Advanced societies still require manual labor from time to time. So now I know my location, and I’ve got a way in, and as long as I refrain from searching for information specifically regarding the moon and special projects, I should not attract unwanted attention.
I catch an overnight shuttle to Mars. It’s a ch
eap and inconspicuous way to travel—cheap because the shuttle is not warp capable and requires the usage of a warp-generator gate. It’s a perfectly safe way to travels these days, but the experience is still rather terrifying due to the insane acceleration and deceleration at the start and end of your trip. In the earlier days of the warp generators, the deceleration gates would lose synchronization with the sending gate, resulting in the shuttle not decelerating, with the majority of shuttles involved in such mishaps never being seen again.
I arrange a meeting with a tech contact while in midwarp. The job will require some specialized equipment, the cost will be much higher due to the shielding and high-grade materials each item will require. Inner-world security does not like its visitors to bring in gizmos and gadgets for nefarious reasons.
Jack is a great guy I’ve known for years. I did him a few favors a while back, and ever since then, I get discounted prices and no questions asked. But this time, due to the shielding and special materials, it will still cost me an arm and a leg, maybe a kidney or two, but this job is worth it.
Next I arrange for new identification and travel documentation along with above-average qualification for working with heavy machinery. I’m able to produce my own reasonable background and a good reason why I would take such a job away from home. I send Marcus my picture and background.
With all that accomplished, it’s just a matter of lying back and resting until we arrive at our destination, preferably without exploding or flying through warp space forever.
I have fond memories of Mars, not just the days when I accomplished my first scam. For being so far from Earth, the laws here may be more severe if you are caught, but if you have the money, you can get away with anything. Mars has no plans of toeing the line with the inner planets, that’s for sure, so nothing is too hard to arrange, and if you wish to vanish for a few days, or even a month or longer, it’s possible on Mars—for the right price, that is.
My next big purchase, if a bribe can be described as such, is of the Mars recruitment officer, to have my name placed near the top of the recruitment list for the workers required for whatever their current project is. Judging by the number they are recruiting, it’s a big job.
But for now, until the items I have ordered are ready, it’s time to keep my head down and enjoy some of the sights. Maybe I could go visit the fabled Face of Mars. The original was just an optical illusion, but years after the colonization of Mars, a resourceful entrepreneur financed a fake face and made millions.
After a week of going over my plans, I receive my ordered items and get a confirmation as a successful candidate for the current intake of workers. I’m given my boarding time for my newly acquired contract. Everything set, I just have to wait a few days for the trip to a secret, currently undisclosed destination, except I know exactly where we are going. It’s not really surprising that every worker heading out only cares about the thirty-six-month contract they now have and how, once the contract has been completed, it will give them enough money to pay all their bills for the next twenty years. Money talks, and the needy or the greedy do not ask the difficult questions.
The inner-world transport barge is of a pretty high standard, and each passenger has access to his or her own multimedia system, a reclining chair that doubles as a bed, and a food and drink dispenser.
Upon boarding, I waste no time trying out the first of my new gizmos, a set of biogel contact lenses. These lenses contain a nanites factory for making self-contained microhacking drones with the ability to hack into media and security feeds, isolating alarm systems and circumventing sensor nets and feeding all the info back to my lenses. It takes a lot of practice to use such items, but after a sufficient training period, it becomes almost second nature; plus, if you are lying down with your eyes closed, it makes it much easier to hide the subtle head nods and eye movements.
At least now the transport is a warp-capable ship, and the journey time should be short—four to six weeks, give or take.
But after only a few hours, the transport exits warp and enters sublight speeds. Having already hacked the security feeds, both external and internal, I’m able to see all over the ship inside and out. With only a few hours in warp, we should still be well within the sol system. So dropping out so soon is unexpected, but a bigger surprise is seeing an inner-world supercapital ship just seemingly floating motionless in space. This ship is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and what makes it more impressive is the quantum gateway set like a precious gemstone within the center. I can see other ships entering and leaving the gateway almost constantly. There were always rumors of a mobile gate, but nothing this impressive and deadly. The whole of the inner-world federations could come streaming through, and even the most sensitive deep-space monitoring station would not be able to detect a fleet in warp in time if the inner worlds decided to destroy Mars.
Within another ten minutes, the transport has passed through the gate and is back in warp again. The transition is fast, but I just glimpse a second mobile gateway before space around us vanishes into lines, and then there is nothing but darkness, the only illumination from the transport itself. This time the warp only lasts a week’s worth of tedium, but certainly better than six weeks.
The moon is impressive, not as big as Earth’s moon but still very similar, and at least tonight I’ll sleep in a bed. The reclining chairs on the transport are nice and all, but you just can’t beat a good bed.
The workers’ accommodations are impressive, and the standards for the food are good, but nothing compares to real food like lamb, which is my favorite, but, within a utopian society, eating flesh is scowled upon.
The best of all is a nice, comfy bed that has a privacy screen that allows each worker a semblance of a private alone space, and which also allows me to send off my hacker drones. The accommodation block is easily hacked, and within no time I have all the security surveillance feeds, but then I notice a slight issue. Each section of the base is isolated from the others, and as soon as I send my drones into the other sections, the base alarm sounds, sending the entire complex into lockdown. The noise is quite astonishing, but calmly I shut down the other drones to ensure that any sweeps fail to lead back to the accommodation block.
Checking my system logs, I find that the base’s security lockdown was tripped by my drones passing through the ventilation ducts. Again, pretty impressive security, and I’m starting to feel that this is far too easy, but with this new bit of information, I realize now that every step I take from here on in must be carefully planned. Also, as this is a high-stakes job, I decide to initialize a backup plan for such occasions. A mess-up now is good to a point—at least I get to see their reaction times—but this must be the last one or I won’t get past much here, let alone anywhere near the prototype.
Within five minutes, security personnel enter the workers’ blockhouse and begin to scan every inch. I knew that at some point my gadgets would be tested, but I didn’t expect it so soon. With my heart in my throat, I stand up from my bed as the guards call for everyone’s attention.
The whispers of concern murmur up and down the line as security scans each of us in turn. One of the workers standing next to me—he’s called Joey—is scanned, and the handheld device starts to beep urgently. A rescan is carried out with the same result. Joey starts to protest but is led away and out of the room. My turn to be scanned, and after what seems an extralong phase, I pass, thanking my backup plan for being so effective. We are dismissed and lockdown is cancelled. Sadly for Joey, he won’t be back for a few days; the fake information I placed in his file will be discovered as a mistake, and he will be returned, but unfortunately the two to three days will seem like a nightmare. High stakes means I must evade at all costs, or I might as well hand myself in now.
The next day we are all led into the conference room and given a full rundown on what is required of us, the work to be carried out and the shift patterns we will be working to. With the help of memory juice, a synthetic
cognitive memory enhancer, I’m able to understand and use the skills that are required of us. It’s a banned substance but well worth the risk in cases like this. Also, it won’t last forever, but for at least the next two months, I’m an expert in industrial earth movers, construction methods, and structural design.
The plan for this site was to make subterranean hangars with surface access—reinforced structures to withstand rocket attacks and bombardments. This wasn’t just an extension to the current hangar; this was to allow installation of a further nineteen of these first-strike weapons of war.
It was obvious to me that the prototype was nearing its end phase of testing and about to enter its final phase, mass production. I took a calculated risk after the conference and activated a dozen hacker drones and attached them to the various security personnel dotted around the room as we departed for a break. Two of the guards accompanied us while the others stayed behind. Just before we returned for the second half of today’s talk, the guards in the conference room had a shift change and returned to the security barracks—a bit of luck at least. By hacking the room, I’d gain full access to the area and best of all, the rotas.
I’m nudged by a colleague next to me. “Hey, bud, you’re nodding off.”
I do my best yawn. “Oh boy, this is dull. Thanks, man. It must be the food after the break.”
“I’m Cohen,” he says, offering his hand.
“Mathew,” I reply, shaking it.
“I know what you mean. It normally does the same to me, but these guys are strict on paying attention.”
“Thanks for the warning,” I reply, and we both turn back to the instructions from the foreman of the project.
Prototype: The Lost and Forgotten Series Page 14