“You’re telling me she can’t?” Erik asked.
Emma snorted. “I’m saying if you want efficient manipulation of the system, I’ll need direct internal access, which will require me to accompany you physically. This isn’t unprecedented in our encounters. Remote access always requires a certain set of assumptions on behalf of the initial system designers.”
Erik’s gaze dropped to the core matrix protruding from an IO port below the main control panel. “They’re not going to let us walk in there with you. It doesn’t even matter if they know what you are. They’ll get that you’re something that might be trouble, and if anything, they’re on higher alert now.”
“Then there’s little I can do for now, Detective Blackwell. I could potentially access the docking clamp and override locally, but they would know immediately.”
Erik shook his head. “We don’t need that when we’re running under fire or from a horde of weird-eyed hungry freaks.”
“Things would get boring if we only dealt with regular criminals, I suppose,” Jia muttered.
“Emma, Cutter, stay on standby.” Erik cracked his knuckles and looked out the front window at several prison guards waiting near the security door. “I have a feeling by the time this is over, we’ll be bringing in more extra goodies than just Emma’s matrix.”
An hour later, Erik, Jia, the warden, and the prison doctor, Matthews, stood in the infirmary. Esposito’s body was quarantined in a storage locker. The middle-aged doctor had brought up various data windows showing different scans and images from the body. He pointed at a gray graph.
“I think this might be the cause,” Doctor Matthews explained. “It’s not a pathogen, or at least not in the conventional sense.”
The warden squinted to read. “Average nanite concentration?”
The doctor nodded. “Esposito’s serum nanite levels were very, very high. Much higher than you’d expect, even for someone who’d had several medpatches applied and was being actively treated in a medical facility, and he had none of that. Not only do we have that concern, but I isolated some of the nanites, and they’re like nothing I’ve ever encountered, let alone any medical nanite I’ve ever seen.” He shook his head. “I don’t have the necessary equipment to begin to figure out what they are or where they came from.”
Warden Harris closed his eyes and took several deep breaths. “Was this some sort of attack?” he asked. “Is it contagious?”
“I checked the guards, including the one who was bitten. There are no detectable nanites in the wound or their blood samples.” He nodded at Erik and Jia. “Nor were nanites present in their blood samples.”
“Then it was just Esposito,” Jia concluded. “Conners did something to him during their meeting. He must have injected him with the nanites then. There might have been an incubation period or even something Esposito was doing to keep them under control until he could release them. We need to see the footage of their conversation.”
“What’s the point?” Warden Harris stared at the nanite concentration graph. “I told you already; they weren’t doing anything like that. They didn’t even touch each other. We didn’t have a guard stationed in the room, and maybe that was a mistake, but this isn’t something he could have spread through the air.”
“This is all you speculating.” Jia pointed at the doctor. “He just mentioned he doesn’t have the equipment to identify the nanites. You’re operating blind and ignoring the most obvious clue.”
Warden Harris scoffed. “And you have the equipment to figure it out?”
“No, but we do have equipment that would tell us if the footage was altered,” Jia insisted. “If we can reconstitute the original recording, it might shed light on what happened.”
“Even if what you’re saying is true, there’s no way I’m letting you bring outside devices into this prison, especially after what just happened. I’ve already got one dead guard because we were lax.” Warden Harris looked to the side for a moment before returning his attention to Jia. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Detective, but I need to get this situation under control, and adding more variables to the problem isn’t going to do that. Once I have a better idea of what’s going on, then we can call for outside assistance.”
“I get that you don’t want us bringing equipment in here the prisoners might get their hands on.” Jia furrowed her brow, frustration obvious on her face. “But you must have spare data rods. Copy the footage to one, along with the relevant access logs, and we’ll take it out and examine it with the equipment on our ship. If we fail, we fail, but if we succeed, we’ll have a better idea of what is going on here. That helps you, it helps us. We’re not just investigators. We were the obvious targets.”
“How do I know this isn’t about you trying to get away? It’d make sense for you to run if you were the targets.”
Jia glared at him. “You control the docking clamp, right? I’m just trying to do what a detective does best: figure things out.”
Erik was glad he’d told Emma to wait on trying to hack the clamp. The warden was more with it than he’d anticipated. He nodded at his partner, smiling at her confidence. A woman who would stand up to her captain wasn’t going to be cowed by a warden.
“She’s right,” Erik added. “Your job is to keep criminals inside this place. Our job is to figure out how they do things. Give us the footage. If we find nothing, we find nothing. We can’t get out of here without you releasing our ship, and we both want to figure out who juiced that con up on experimental nanites to try to kill us.”
Warden Harris turned to Doctor Matthews. “Is there anything more you can figure out?”
“I can send my results out and ask for help,” the doctor replied.
“We’re not sending anything out to anyone until we know what the hell is going on,” the warden insisted. “They could jump to the wrong conclusions.” He grimaced and turned to Jia. “All right. You win. It’s not like you’re just anyone. You’re two of the top detectives in the NSCPD. I’ll give you the footage, but if you start showing any symptoms, you need to come back here immediately to be restrained.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
“This is one of those situations where I have both good and bad news,” Emma declared. She lowered the external forward shutters, blocking the windows.
“Why are you doing that?” Erik asked, eyeing the closing blinds. “Is that part of the news?”
“Partially.” Emma appeared. “It cuts down on the possibility of someone reading lips or realizing you’re talking to me, even without my holographic form. I assume we want to minimize that information, especially given the events now unfolding and potential links to other bad actors.”
Jia folded her arms and tapped her foot. “What about the good and bad news?”
“I always like hearing the bad news first,” Cutter interjected. “That makes everything after it seem better in comparison.” He nodded, the tip of his tongue poking out of the corner of his mouth.
“The bad news is I can’t reconstruct the original footage,” Emma explained. “Not based on the recording, at least, either the video or audio data. If I had full access to the system, I might be able to do it off the backups, but not from the data provided.”
“There’s no way they’re going to let us plug anything into their system.” Erik grunted and kicked at a seat. “Damn it. So we don’t know—”
“No,” Jia interrupted. “Did you hear what she said? She couldn’t reconstruct the original footage. That sounds like she confirmed it was altered. That is useful to know.”
“That would be the aforementioned good news.” Emma smirked. “It’s definitely been altered. It’s an impressive bit of work, and I can see how a human analyst would miss it, even with good algorithmic tools. However, there are many subtle clues that confirm my conclusion, both from the data and the logs they provided. It’s always nice when my opponent is worth my effort.”
“That gives us the who and the when, and we already know t
he how,” Jia mused. “It’s enough proof for a follow-up. Hadrian Conners flew all the way here. He had to have left a trail we can follow.”
“There is more bad news.” Emma shrugged, something approaching an apologetic smile on her face.
“Of course,” Erik muttered. “What is it?”
“Given the nature of the alterations and the time series data associated with it, I’m dubious this was an outside hack,” Emma explained.
“Conners smuggled something inside to pull it off?”
Emma shook her head. “The required level of familiarity with the system on top of the technical skill makes it unlikely. Note it’s not just a matter of spoofing the feed, but also of changing the supporting logs and backup data.”
Erik gritted his teeth. “You’re saying Conners had inside help.”
Cutter clapped, eyeing the two detectives. “Man, this is better than watching a cop drama. Usually, it’s just like, ‘Cutter, take us to this remote location so we can kill all these terrorists.’” He pointed to his head. “No inside-the-brain thinking, you know. The cool stuff.” He withered under everyone’s glares. “Just saying,” he muttered. “It’s a good thing.”
“Setting aside a certain annoying fleshbag’s comments,” Emma continued, “that’s exactly what I’m saying, Detective. Without knowing more about the personnel stationed here, I can’t give you a better direction than that, but it’s highly likely this mysterious Mr. Conners was aided by someone on prison staff with systems access.”
“I don’t think it’s the warden.” Erik rubbed the top of his lip and frowned. “We’ve both looked into the eyes of a lot of criminals in the last year, and I dealt with terrorists and other killers for decades in the military. Those weren’t the eyes of a man who knew he was sending men to their deaths. It also doesn’t make sense to send a guy in there. The fewer people in there, the easier it would have been for Esposito to try to kill us.”
Jia dropped into a seat. “It could be anyone with systems access, which is basically most of the prison staff. And we’re well outside of our jurisdiction. Even if the warden was willing to let us examine the footage, do you think he’s going to let us question everyone, just because we say our mysterious equipment tells us the data has been altered?” Her brow furrowed, and her jaw tightened. “The Esposito incident is forcing him to be a bit more open, but that’s very different than saying he’s got someone working for him who is a criminal.”
“It’s not our job to investigate corrupt prison officials,” Erik pointed out. “You heard the doctor. Whatever this was, it sounds like it was a one-time thing. There are no nanites in anyone else. It was a targeted assassination attempt. But…”
“But if they went through all that trouble, and they have someone on the inside, would they really give up that easily?” Jia raised an eyebrow. “If this is the conspiracy, they’ve got something else up their sleeve.”
“Exactly. Shit.” Erik glanced at the control panel. “We could contact the captain and try to get him to send CID agents. The attempted assassination of two detectives on a prison station is worth their attention, even without our evidence. The warden can only stonewall them so long.”
“Internal alarms are now sounding inside the prison,” Emma announced.
Jia jumped out of her seat. “What?”
“A short-range transmission is coming in,” Emma reported. “I’ll connect it via the cockpit comm.”
“Detective Blackwell, Detective Lin, are you there?” It was Warden Harris’ panicked voice.
“We’re here,” Jia replied. “What’s going on?”
“That damned idiot doctor was wrong,” the warden yelled. “There are more like Esposito. A lot more.”
“The guards who were attacked?”
Jia and Erik exchanged annoyed glances. There was nothing worse than an enemy who didn’t know when to quit, especially when it was a hungry enemy who wanted to bite your neck or hand off.
“No,” the warden answered. “It’s all prisoners, but it’s not a riot. They’re showing the same symptoms and immunity to stuns. We’ve lost a couple of guards, and I’ve pulled a lot of them back. I tried to send bots, but the system isn’t taking my commands. I can’t even lock down the prison. I tried to flood the cells with gas, but I can’t do it. The damned system is just not accepting the commands.”
“Not sure gas would work on those things,” Jia mused.
“Do you have anything better than stun rods?” Erik asked. “A weapon that doesn’t require the system? Something with some actual bullets? I’m assuming a station like this can take a few bullets without risk of a breach.”
“Yes, we have rifles and shotguns in the emergency armory, but we’re cut off from that room right now by the infected prisoners,” the warden explained. “I’m with a few of my men in my office. The damned doors won’t close, but we’re holding them off with furniture while we try to work the manual override.”
“And the prisoners? Can they get into the armory?”
“There’s no way they’re getting into it without me, but I don’t think these prisoners care about guns,” the warden replied. “I’m trying to transmit a request for external assistance, but I can’t—”
The forward shutters started rising.
Emma pointed out the front. “The transmission is being jammed. It’s also affecting my ability to transmit. If we could get out of the docking bay, I could align the ship with a repeater beacon and perhaps use a laser signal.”
Cutter patted the control panel. “We’re not getting out of here with the docking clamp in place.”
“We don’t have time anyway.” Erik headed toward the back. “We need to arm up. If there are more like Esposito, we can’t hide here and wait for the Fleet to show up. Everyone might get their throats ripped out in the meantime.”
“No offense, but I didn’t sign up to fight crazy nanite-infected prisoners.” Cutter folded his arms, offering his best laid-back version of defiance. “I’m just the pilot.”
“Jia and I will handle it.” Erik reached into the IO port. “And we’re taking Emma with us.”
“What if we can’t get through it?” Jia asked.
“Then we test the missile launcher on a security door.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Cho swallowed as he watched the carnage unfold on the data window.
Rabid prisoners rushed to other prisoners and guards, biting and clawing, shrugging off stun rods and blows like they were machines. He’d never seen anything like it, and he’d been in the thick of riots before.
Everything had gone to hell in under twenty minutes.
The maximum-security breach alarm continued to scream, the red lights flashing. Most of their feeds were dead. The current horror show had lasted only long enough to see a prisoner tackle another prisoner and bite his leg before the feed died. Cho didn’t know why the feeds were failing. It wasn’t like the cameras were exposed.
Cho tried to connect to the warden. They’d lost a feed earlier that showed a corridor where Warden Harris was running from crazed prisoners, along with some guards. It didn’t make sense. The prisoners, crazed or not, shouldn’t have had freedom of movement, but most of the doors in the prison were open and systems errors were popping up all over.
CONNECTION ERROR. PLEASE RETRY.
He tried different commands. A thin transparent barrier rose inside the security checkpoint. The shrill cry of the alarm died, now sounding like a distant noise. Cho and his partner were safe for the moment, but that didn’t fill him with confidence.
“This is crazy,” muttered Rich, the man beside him. “What do we do?”
“We wait for the warden,” Cho insisted. “That’s what protocol states since the damned system isn’t working.” His fingers flew as he entered commands, but the system spat back more error messages. He slammed his fist on the control panel so hard it throbbed. “I can’t access anything in the main system anymore.” He pointed to the lone data window with
a camera feed. “That’s all we’ve got left, other than what we can see with our two eyes.”
The remaining feed showed the area in front of the entrance checkpoint. The Rabbit remained parked there, but ever since they’d closed their cockpit shutters, the guards couldn’t tell what was going on. Had the warden told the detectives to escape? Should the guards try to leave with them?
Rich shook his head. “The warden’s dead, and we both know it. We need to figure out some way to call for help. We need the Fleet to drop off a bunch of badass soldiers in exoskeletons.”
“Without main systems access, we can’t do that. And we need an official override order.” Cho groaned. “Crap. There are no patrol flights out right now. One was supposed to launch fifteen minutes ago, but the pilots never came. I flagged it, but they were still within the window. We’ve also got no scheduled deliveries today. No one’s going to know what’s going on here.”
“Nothing’s going on,” Rich insisted. “It’s just a riot with a few crazy prisoners. The other guys will get it under control.”
“Just a riot? People are trying to eat other people, man! It’s some damned Orlox bioweapon making people crazy, that’s what it is. I read about this kind of thing on the net. The government doesn’t want anyone to worry, so they don’t admit how vulnerable we are.”
“How is an Orlox going to sneak a bioweapon all the way into the Solar System? To a prison station?” Rich looked at Cho like he’d lost his damned mind.
“But what if it is?”
Rich closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He blew it out his nose. “It doesn’t matter what it is. We can’t let anyone in or out.”
“We shouldn’t be letting anyone in or out until the warden gives the order anyway. There are pilots among the prisoners, and we’ve got two decent-sized ships out there in the docking bay they can take, not to mention all the patrol craft.” Cho stared at the Rabbit. “No, we protect this place, and make sure none of those prisoners get out until we get official orders.”
Cabal of Lies Page 34