Two nights later, they were ready.
In the parking garage under the SCIRE, a nondescript Bulldog was parked, ready to go. Angel had gotten herself a backdoor into the SCIRE host, and had immediately discovered a problem. While the ACHE matrix architecture was different from the SCIRE’s, that was to be expected. Even the multitude of e-ghosts flooding the system in various places wasn’t unexpected. Angel had managed to compile a high level sprite that was shielding her from them, making them unable to see her. No, the problem was the fact that the floor they wanted was still isolated from the Matrix at large, even after all this time. Which meant Angel couldn’t get into the cameras and see what was going on. Couldn’t even tell whether there was atmosphere there. But they’d planned on that. Part of the special equipment Faust had insisted they grab was a wireless adapter they could plug into something on that floor. That’d give Angel the access she needed to get into the system from the van they were sitting in.
Faust and Redeemer were in the van, as well, both dressed in the armor that they had worn back when they were samurai. Redeemer’s was still red, looking old and worn, but still functional. Faust’s was painted black, with five red bands on the right arm, where five black bands could be found on the skin beneath it. Both were armed, ready for heavy resistance, if any of the old drones were still online. Redeemer had a spell over them that would make them invisible, even to the cameras. But it didn’t hide doors opening for no one, or pressure sensors registering their presence, or hide them from other senses. That was why Angel was in the Matrix now, to hide their movements, and to ease their passing. And Faust? His job was to destroy anything that came between them and their goal. It was a division of labor they were all three familiar with by now.
Moving with military precision, the shaman and the samurai moved from cover to cover through the parking garage, weapons at the ready. The spell was still active, but there were creatures and sensors that would be able to sense them even so, especially anyone looking in from the astral. But they saw no one as they made their way to a service elevator. The door opened for them as they approached, and began moving, without any input from them.
They can’t see the elevator moving on their sensors. But we’ve got a snag. The shaft is blocked above 265. Seems the residents threw a riot. The defenses pumped in gas to calm them, but not before there was damage done to the service elevator. There are security checkpoints in some of the stairways to contain the situation. Nothing big, just a couple armed guards, but we don’t want to spook security just yet. I’ve plotted you a route around, but you’ll have to go through the Baths to get to it.
The Baths. The one area of the whole fragging arcology he didn’t want to see again, and he had to go back there. But there wasn’t anything to be done. They had a job to do, and they always got the job done. No matter the cost.
When the doors opened on 264, Faust led the way, navigating half through memory, and half through the map that Angel displayed in his AR. No one saw them as they slipped through the halls. For one second, Faust paused by room number 2667. It was Angel’s old room. Want me to see if any of your old stuff is still here, Angel?
There was a brief pause, and then a terse reply. No. That was Jezzibel’s room. I’m no longer her. Just keep going before someone runs into you.
Redeemer chuckled softly to himself as they continued on. They made their way to a maintenance shaft, a small conduit barely large enough for a technician to crawl through with a toolbox and work when he found the problem. The SCIRE was built before the advent of the wireless Matrix. All those cables had to be maintained, sometimes replaced. And so the conduits were built. Miles of conduits that housed miles upon miles of fiberoptic cables and piping. Faust gritted his teeth, and began the climb through the shaft, heading up to 277, where they could get out through a maintenance hatch, above the checkpoints. The ladder made it an easy enough climb, but Faust was uncomfortable. Spiders had roamed through these shafts with impunity during the shutdown. If one came upon them now, they’d be unable to react. To say nothing of the other defenses in the shaft. But Angel kept them covered, blinding the sensors to their passing.
On 277, they paused briefly, if only to get their breath, and make sure that the invisibility spell was still in effect. Faust waited for a pair of guards to go past the door where they were hiding, and then they set off, heading for the stairwell. Only thirty-five floors to go. They went slowly now, not wanting to wind themselves unnecessarily. They’d probably have plenty of time to run like hell once this was all done.
They came out on 302, to cross the floor so they could take another stairway going further up. Renraku had designed the arcology with defense in mind, rather than convenience. Looking around, Faust was surprised by what he did (and didn’t) see. The Baths had changed since he saw them last. The pools were still there, drained of their chemicals long ago. There were large gashes in the walls where exploding drones and malfunctioning systems had wrecked havoc in the aftermath of the Lord’s escape. After the Army had cleared the floor of whatever Banded had tried to resist them here, they’d left the ruin fairly intact. They hadn’t had a chance to completely clear out the upper floors, it seemed.
Faust felt a cold shiver as he looked over the room. Had it really been almost fifteen years since he’d awoken in these rooms, a newborn servant of Deus? He felt Redeemer’s hand upon his shoulder, stirring him from his reverie. “Yeah, yeah. Let’s keep moving.” Between them, they didn’t need to say anything else. There was a bond there that could not be broken. They were both children of the Baths, and those scars would never go away.
Guys, I’m picking up movement on the sensors. Looks like a—Oh frag me! A fragging pack of medusas coming your way! I count five. Something’s strange, though. They aren’t being controlled through the ACHE systems, or even what’s left of the old SCIRE drone network. Looks like they’re all independently controlled. No other defenses online on that level. I’ve got the sensors blind, and there’s no one in range.
Again, Faust and Redeemer didn’t need to speak. You work with someone long enough, you know how they think when it comes to fighting. And you know how they’ll react, even before they do, sometimes. Faust broke to one side of the corridor, crouching into a firing position, while Redeemer broke to the other, readying a spell. The invisibility spell was still up, Faust knew, but he also knew that the medusas had more than vision to work with. Faust readied his gun, just in case.
The lead medusa turned the corner, and spotted them. It gave a signal to the others, which grouped around it, ready to pounce. And then something happened that Faust wasn’t expecting. He got a radio transmission from the lead medusa. It wasn’t using standard wireless protocols, but an old signal, a friend or foe challenge from the days of the shutdown. From the days of the Lord. Could these drones still be running some programmed mission? Why hadn’t they been destroyed by the UCAS Army? All these questions ran through Faust’s head as he reached back into the depths of his memory, and came up with the proper response code. A bit unnerved, he sent the response.
As one, all five medusas dropped into a crouching position. Not the position they used to spring upon prey, but the one where they were waiting for orders. They looked at Faust expectantly. Taking a breath, he gave a simple command. Follow. The five drones moved into flanking positions with Faust and Redeemer, following a tactical formation that they used while the arcology was shut down.
Angel?
I… I think we’re dealing with a group of five feral AIs. They may have developed from the pilot programs the drones used, maybe they were given orders to remain hidden when the shutdown ended, and the Crash woke them up?
Then why haven’t there been reports? Someone mentioning the drones moving around?
From what I can tell, the floors under this are being used as a psych ward. And any disappearances would be attributed to the fighting that already goes on here. Who cares about a few missing ACHErs? But this will change things. The strain to hold the spell is telling as it is, I don’t know if I can manage the drones, too. Faust, what do we do? Faust?
Faust?
Faust?
FAUST! SNAP OUT OF IT!
At the revelation of the drones as being the bodies of feral AIs, that dormant obedience programming kicked in again, forcing Faust to his knees, as he began muttering prayers to the Lord. As though coming out of a trance, he looked up at Redeemer, and sighed. Sorry. Anyway, let’s get moving. We can take the drones with us if we’re careful. They deserve to be out in the world, not locked up here.
All right. Might as well drop the spell, then. Angel, keep watch for us?
I’m on it.
They moved quickly now, no longer caring for stealth. If they were spotted, all hell would break loose. But they couldn’t just leave the drones there. They were all children of the Shutdown. These feral AIs deserved the same help they’d offer to any of Deus’s other servants. They deserved a chance to be free. So they moved quickly up the stairs, until they reached the landing for 313.
Opening the door, Faust quickly looked around. No gas, no clouds. So far, everything was good. It was possible that, after almost fifteen years of neglect, the sensors that controlled the cloud floor were offline, or that the chemicals had denatured, or that the whole thing had been directly controlled by Deus itself. Whatever the case, Faust looked around and quickly spotted a security camera. Moving with the speed of his wired reflexes, he got to the camera, and attached the wireless adapter.
You in?
Give me a sec… There! All right, connection established. I’m hooked into the sensors on that floor. No security, and everything looks to be mostly intact. Guess the reports that anyone who stepped foot on this floor got eaten by clouds scared people away.
Speaking of which…
Yeah. Looks like it was corrosive foam, routed through the ventilation systems. Nasty setup, but nothing supernatural, though it looked like it, for sure. The system is still functional, and the tanks read mostly full, but they’re not active right now. Seems like it was controlled directly from behind the Wall.
Good. Make sure they don’t decide to activate accidentally, or while we’re getting what we came for, yeah?
So ka. Just be careful. There’s a lot of extra security on this level. Heavy encryption, though it’s a decade or so out of date. There are probably other security measures in place, as well.
Faust sighed. Angel was right, of course, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that now. Fortunately, this far up the pyramid, they had a small area to cover. Once, this floor had been luxury housing for the executives and other higher-ups of Renraku America. Now, it was a production line. The old rooms had been cleared away, and in their place was a line that looked to be geared up for cyberware production.
Deus’s escape had caused the line to malfunction and break down in several places. At the end of the line, Faust picked up what looked to be a piece of headware memory. Could this have been where the AI created the specialized components needed to create the Network? If that was true, what was going to be on that node they were supposed to recover?
Moving to the end of the production line, they found the terminal they were supposed to access. Hooking another wireless adaptor into the hardwired device, Faust waited for Angel to hack through the protections and download the data, before unplugging the standalone nexus, and slipping it in the bag he carried. Time to go.
Lots of ice, but it is all out of date. Would have been a killer back in the day, though. One-way trip to crispy brains. But I’ve cracked the encryption and… oh drek. Faust, this has everything. Drone specs, designs for the ‘ware the Banded and Network used, even copies of the control programming used in the Baths! This stuff was beyond bleeding edge fifteen years ago, and even now it is novahot. Horizon would kill to get its hands on this stuff.
For a second, Faust felt a moment’s doubt. Should such info really be out in the world? Wasn’t it better left in the past? Then he shook his head. They could worry about those things later. For now, they had a job to do. They ran off on this job, who knew when they’d find another? No, they had to make good, no matter what. He had to make good, for Angel’s sake.
The data acquired, they began heading back to the stairwell. Without the spell, though, Faust wasn’t certain how they were going to get down. Their plan B was the parachutes, but they didn’t have any for the drones, and Faust wasn’t going to leave them there. And would they all fit in the van? As though responding to his questions, Angel brought up the map in his image link’s HUD, and highlighted a new route down. The main elevator is still operational. I see a few guards at the ground floor, but no one in the basement. Should take you all the way down to the garages. We’ve got the throwaway van, and I’m nearby in Redeemer’s van. Between the two, we should be all right. I’m entering the parking garage now.
Faust led the way to the main elevator. Thanks to Angel, the door opened just as they got on, to the surprise of a young girl (couldn’t have been more than twenty) with green cybereyes who was in the elevator at the time. The kid’s eyes went wide at the sight of Faust and Redeemer, but she shrieked and crawled into the very corner of the elevator when she saw the drones. Faust cursed under his breath.
“Listen kid. You didn’t see anything, yeah?” The kid nodded mutely in terror. She had to be another survivor. She knew the drones by sight, same as they did. If she was a Green, then she would have been one of the lowest servants of the AI, one of the human drones it used to spy on the cattle in the residential areas. But she definitely knew the sight of Medusas, and their Red Samurai armor was distinctive. Nothing they could do about that.
The kid was in shock. Hopefully, that would keep until they were away from the SCIRE. The doors opened, and out they piled, leaving the kid struggling to find her voice, before the doors snapped shut in front of her.
I sent the elevator to the roof, and told it not to accept commands for twenty minutes. That should buy us enough time to get away.
Let’s get out of here, then. What about our new friends?
Take them to the warehouse. I’ll have a chat with them there, and see if they want to stay on with us.
The two vans rolled up, and the doors opened. Redeemer and three of the medusas got into the ‘throwaway’, while Faust got into their regular ride with DarkAngel and the two others, including the leader of this ‘pack’.
As they drove out of the parking garage, and got on the interstate, Faust sighed, and contacted the Johnson, informing him that they had the package. A good run, all told. Their faces weren’t on any cameras, and the only witness was likely too traumatized to know what had happened. They’d done the job, and hadn’t fired a shot. And they got a few new teammates out of the mix.
Sometimes you could go home again.