Team leader Bor blinked, and time slew to a crawl. It would give him enough to analyse.
He hadn’t considered that idea. He didn’t fancy it one bit, but he couldn’t deny the arguments. Usually, he would ask Home team for a suitable replacement, as the lost time would be worth the presence of a trained expert, but this specific civilian made him reconsider.
This expert had no obvious mutations, but that didn’t mean much in the dot. He had already proven his relevance and his skill with nanites, his initiative with the simulations, and his humility by not overstepping his role. He gave information and opinions freely, but not orders.
Just that last point made him consider the proposition, but what weighed the most in his decision was how scared and reluctant the trapped man in a dire need of new clothes was. He tried to keep his cool, but he was terrified out of his mind and didn’t appreciate the idea any more than he.
Had he been sure and confident in succeeding the mission, Team leader would have dismissed him out of hand, but this man wasn’t even sure to survive the ordeal. Overconfidence wouldn’t be an issue, so that only left one problem. Or rather, a problematic pair.
The Core would be able to restrain them if they posed trouble, but it wouldn’t care if they managed the rescue or not. In the worst-case scenario, they would be useless but not an active hindrance. Still, better to make sure.
He blinked, and time flowed normally again.
“You have the most relevant skills, so you’ll be in charge.” He answered to the expert’s proposition, then addressed the other two: “You will get all possible merits points just by being present. No need for zeal.”
He wasn’t sure they got the implied “don’t get in the way or else”, but it was the most he could do. Oh, how he hated politics. He really hated having to put the two in the rescue team in priority just because their mutations happened to be more advanced. They were strong, no doubt, but strength wouldn’t help here. His own was even a hindrance. No relevant abilities, no relevant skills or knowledge. And because they came from another level, he couldn’t even chastise them for their disturbances, he was only allowed to file a complaint to their Circle’s enforcers. The ones everybody knew didn’t take the dot’s enforcers seriously.
That being said, they had been suspiciously calm since he had gathered the team; no shouts or bickering, just bored or impatient expressions. Their toady was nowhere to be seen either. He hadn’t expected them to willingly take the pills though, and with less hesitation than some of his men. Maybe he had misjudged them. But regardless, he had no other choice but to entrust this operation to the civilians.
Zax felt confused by Team leader’s decision. Relief, fear and confusion battled for first place. Why put him in charge? He knew advanced first aid, but he didn’t have any leadership training and no mutations to compensate.
Granted, the two advanced mutants were not very up to date about emergency protocols and safety measures, and didn’t seem very reliable, and squabbled a lot, and… okay, that made some sort of sense. Were they really that unruly even their advanced mutations didn’t compensate? Just what had they done before he arrived? And what was he supposed to do?
“Well, okay then…” the human called hesitantly when the pair didn’t react.
He first had the B-box spew a few general purpose nanite balls, way bigger than the earlier pills, still avoiding direct contact. He put them in his pockets, then sent the request, including himself in the rooster. The wall around his hand parted, freeing him and opening a barely human sized passage.
Everybody held their breath; it was the first glance anyone would take of the inside of the mysterious and legendary Core. Even in that situation, nobody could claim not to be at least a little curious.
The opening was a meter deep, barely human sized, and all the walls were uniformly black. Nothing more was visible, and it didn’t take a genius to realise it was just a shell to hide what was further.
“Disappointing, but not surprising.” Zax stated aloud what everybody thought silently. It somehow made him feel less tense.
He stepped in and the opening closed behind him, plunging him in the dark. He used one of his nanite balls to lit up the place, but it didn’t reveal anything new. He didn’t have the place to pace around, and the wall did not give in any direction, not even backward. Then, without warning, a circular hole opened above him.
The roof lowered. Or was it the ground that rose? He couldn’t tell, and he forgot the question when his head passed the hole. He was at the side of a grey room, more than two meters from the closest wall. Way further than where he left Team leader. The trolleys were there, waiting for them, and a curtain hung on the opposite wall. Cat and Dog appeared in the same fashion soon after, on either side of him.
“Whoa, what’s that?” Dog looked around.
“We’ve been moved.” Cat frowned as he answered the obvious.
“We could be anywhere now.” Zax concluded. To avoid thinking about the situation he was in, he focused on the task at hand. “Let’s not dawdle, we wasted enough time already.”
He gave each of them a nanite ball, just in case.
“Here, take this. It will make light when pressed. Don’t press too hard.”
“I don’t need it. I can see just fine in the dark.” Cat proudly refused.
More like in low light, but never mind.
“I can orient myself by ear and smell.” Dog refused too, not wanting to be out staged.
“They can have other functions; I’ll add them when needed.”
“Don’t care.”
“I’m not touching…that.” They both insisted.
“How is that worse than swallowing some?” The human was confused, but put them back in his pockets.
“Yeah, about that.” Cat started.
Dog grabbed Zax’s collar and casually lifted him from the ground with a single arm, in an impressive display of might and a reminder of why mutants were on top of society. It would have probably been very intimidating on anyone who didn’t know Kad.
“We don’t really fancy obeying a barely mutant.”
“Especially a filth covered one.” Dog concurred.
“The enforcer put you in the lead but don’t expect us to just do everything you want.”
“Or anything at all.”
“Did you seriously come here to do nothing at all?” The human let his thoughts escape, but quickly went back on topic. “I mean, yeah, I don’t understand his decision either, and I don’t have any leadership training. I can give up the lead if you want.”
The reaction and decision were so laid-back it caught them off guard. Again. How could he give up on that modicum of power so easily? It had to be the most he would ever get. And it was even power over them! He should hang on to it and press it for everything it was worth! Not give it up immediately!
“Exactly.” Dog opened his hand and Zax fell on his feet, a bit unsteadily but he didn’t feel off.
“Glad you understand.”
“So, who’s the new leader?” Zax queried, going for the trolley. They had wasted enough time already.
“Me of course.”
“Me of course.”
The pair frowned at each other, then started bickering. Zax didn’t expect that, but remembered what the Enforcer had mentioned at the start. He had mostly seen them working as one, but it seemed they could only do that to intimidate weaklings like him. And not very well either.
Whua.
Unimpressed, he ignored them and tried to go where they were obviously supposed to go now: the curtains. Tried being the key word, the trolleys were too heavily laden with material. Putting all his weight and grunting under the effort, he managed to move one. By almost three centimetres. Not a viable option. Luckily, there were only two.
He was massaging his shoulders and catching his breath when he noticed his headache had faded. The Core had stopped his controlled pareidolia. Maybe it had nothing to say, maybe it would damage him to keep going, but in any case, it was a relief.
He turned to the pair, still bickering. He was honestly surprised they hadn’t come to blows yet. The conversation didn’t seem to get anywhere, he was sure he had already heard the last arguments.
“Excuse me? We are still in dangerous territory and there are wounded people waiting for us. Can you discuss this on the way? I can’t move the trolleys; they are too heavy. Is one of you strong enough?”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The reminder was more or less effective, as they took a trolley each and went to the curtains. Still bickering, but it didn’t seem to be about who would lead this operation anymore. At least, Zax couldn’t see the relation between that and who was their aunt’s favourite.
The human couldn’t help but sigh at how easily they moved the trolleys. Had he not tried it himself, he would have thought they had no weight.
He chased the thought away and went before them to see what was beyond the curtains. The curtains themselves were adjacent cloth-like panels the same colour as the walls. Definitely made of the same nanites, just laid out differently and not as thickly, by a layman wouldn’t notice. As a professional, he was in awe at the transition between the two states.
Behind was a short, low ceiling corridor with identical curtains on the opposite side. Zax opened the curtain to help the pair through -fortunately it was wide enough to let them pass side by side, they might have fought to be the first- and when he dropped the curtain something very unexpected happened. Silence. The pair had stopped squabbling, just pushing the trolleys without making a noise.
“Something wrong?” Zax couldn’t see anything amiss.
“Nothing.”
“Let’s just go already”
Nobody would believe that, but the human didn’t push the matter. For the first time, the two were tense.
“What’s that smell?” Dog asked after a few steps.
“I don’t smell anything. What is it like?”
“I don’t know. Not poison but… not pleasant either. I never smelled something like that.”
“Dangerous?”
“… no. No, I don’t think so. But it’s getting stronger.”
“Let’s keep going. Tell us if there are changes.”
The mutants nodded to the command without making a fuss.
A few more steps and they were at the curtains of the opposite end. Behind them was another identical corridor going left. Then another one. And another one. In the next, Cat smelled it too. Zax had an idea of what it was, that was confirmed when he smelled it too, a few airlocks further.
“That confirms it: sanitization. Seems we’re being decontaminated.”
“What?”
“We’re not filthy.”
“Or sick.”
“It’s a normal protocol to go in a sterile environment, and it is required for any nanotechnological production. For some reason, the Core doesn’t want us to bring in foreign particles, but I don’t know why it wants us to do it now. The targets will not be spotless either. Maybe it’s part of its access protocol?”
“So, what, we bathe in smelly gases and we’re good to go?”
“No, that’s just the first part. The concentration will keep progressively increasing to ease us into it, then we will be exposed to radiations at specific wavelengths and ultrasounds. Maybe we already are too. That will destroy or separate the impurities from us, and the chemicals in the air will neutralise and get rid of them. Then we wear a full body suit, to not put our own particles around.” Zax glanced at their clawed hands and digitigrade feet, more like paws really. No way they could use standard suits. “I don’t know how it will work for you, maybe it’ll have custom suits? The Core didn’t seem adapted for small scale work though…”
“Wouldn’t suits get in the way? Y’know; to save the targets.” Cat interrupted his musing.
“Good point. Depends on the quality of the suit and what type of intervention they need, I guess. Or maybe it planned something else and I am severely mistaken. We can only wait and see.”
“I get the smells, but why all the twists and turns!? I’m getting a headache, turning around and around like that! I’m sure it could make us go in a straight line, that’d be a lot faster.” Dog didn’t look well.
“That’s why. To disorient us. We’ve made more than four left turns in a row; we should’ve been back in the first room many times already. Also, to slow us down and make sure the chemicals have enough time to act.”
After too long and too many turns for comfort, they arrived at a new type of room. The size and shape were similar, but there were shelves and cupboards along the walls. They all had an electric padlock, but none were closed. The only locked door was the one leading to the next room, and it wasn’t moving a bit.
“Now what?” Cat asked. “We’re stuck.”
“At least the smell is bearable here.” Dog noted.
“If we follow the logic, there should be protective combinations here.” Zax pondered aloud, finally noticing that his clothes and he were all clean. The decontamination had done it job perfectly.
They opened a few cupboards and inspected the content of the shelves, but they only had unknown bracelets, belts and protective briefcases. The only things that could count as protection were gloves and glasses.
On a whim, Zax took a bracelet an inspected it. It was normal technology, but not one he was familiar with. At all. He put it on and pressed the one button on it, activating the ancient device.
A holographic screen appeared, with a simple message:
Scan in progress: 1%
Please wait…
A loading screen if he ever saw one. The progression reached 100% in a few seconds, the message updated and the frame of the bracelet glowed white. The new message was unexpected, but very clear:
Protection Field: ON
Stability: 100%
Energy: 100%
Connection: 0/2
A three-dimensional figure of him surrounded stood on the right of the screen, surrounded by a grid close to his body but without touching. He could zoom in and out and rotate it around and even change the density of the grid, but not the distance to his body.
“No way…”
Zax quickly understood what it was, but it took a while for his mind to accept that new information. He touched the device everywhere, but it only turned the projection on and off. No other functions appeared.
“This is incredible.” He muttered, then continued normally. “We have found the protective gear. They produce a force field, or a magnetic field, or something, around us. Try them, let’s see if it will work on you.”
It did, but the initial scan took much longer, the Stability was lower. Zax postulated that the energy would run out sooner too, but it was too early to tell. The abnormal shape of their not-feet and claws was not an unsurmountable problem, but the fur gave it trouble. The force field didn’t know how close it could or should be, making the grid around their limbs blow up and down erratically.
They tried a few things, and it appeared that they could move normally without problem, and they could touch things, but it took a lot of energy, lowering the charge at a visible pace for the human, and alarmingly fast for the mutants. Less so when they touched each other. It was a serious problem, because the ground counted as an object.
The solution was obvious enough: the rest of the devices were a support for the bracelet. Each took a connection slot. While it could generate a functioning forcefield by itself, the belt more than doubled the available energy and added enough slots for the rest, the glasses replaced the more complex grid around the eyes, the gloves did the same around the hand, allowing them to touch things without straining the field, and slippers to put around the shoes did the same for their feet.
The mutants grid ended up looking like a skinny man with huge arms and legs but small hands and feet. Hilarious, but irrelevant.
“How strange.” Zax noted as they loaded the trolleys more pieces, both for the rescue targets and as spare parts, just in case. “They can connect to each other, but I can’t detect any port or access point.”
“For a so-called expert, you look very surprised by all this.” Cat noted. There was no mockery in his tone, only curiosity.
“Yeah, you didn’t even know what this place was.”
“To be fair, we don’t use those anymore.” Zax defended. “I had heard of forcefield suits, but I thought it was only a theory or a legend in the profession. That level of protection is only useful if you go in a room fully dedicated to working on nano-technology. And not just producing nanites. No one in the dot work at that scale, we just use glove boxes. A simple particle filter and ultrasound-radiation sanitiser are enough.”
“Uh? How did you know about the decontamination then?”
“And you knew we would get suits too. Even if they were not like this one.”
“My teacher was very thorough, and when I learnt about that I didn’t know it wouldn’t have any practical use.”
“You must be very excited by whatever is behind that door.” Dog smirked.
“I dare not hope." the human sighed. "Who knows what the Core led us here for? It’s unexpected, so it can’t be good.”
“Uh?”
“What?”
“What?” Zax didn’t understand the pair’s confusion.
“I’d expect a dotter to say things like “Trust the computer” or “it can only be good” or… er…”
“Or “if the computer wants it, we’d better give it without question.” You don’t even mind being constantly watched either.” Dog completed.
“Yeah! That to.”
“… I don’t know where that came from, but we trust the computer because it will always ensure the dot keeps working. As long as I am a productive member of society, it will not turn against me and it will protect me how it can. And if we have doubts, we can ask the reasoning behind decisions related to us.
It is true we are constantly watched, but never in the intimacy of our homes. The general, anonymous information and archives are publicly available, including by ourselves, and the private ones can be set so only some people would get access, or nobody at all.
The Core though, it doesn’t care how much I contribute. Just like it doesn’t care how mutated you are or who your family is. It may even find it a problem, and it could turn against us at any time. We have no other choice but to play along for the mission, but I’m not going to blindly trust it.
Also, even people struggle with concepts like morals. Don’t go and expect computers, that are made and programmed by people, to understand good and evil. Seriously, if you ever hear someone say “this program means well” or “computers are evil”, it’s time to stop listening and question everything they ever told anyone.”
It was food for thought for the two mutants, and they finished loading the trolleys in silence. They also kept a few inactivated spare pieces on their persons, and Zax filled a briefcase, just in case.
The door finally unlocked, hopefully closer to their targets. They had lost way too long already. Zax had a last thought before passing what was hopefully the last door before the people waiting for their rescue.
The enforcers must have gotten my message by now. I hope they understand.
***
After watching the civilian away team disappear in their holes one after the other, Bor re-organised his own team to secure the area for longer term with more members than expected, organising turns and preparing for a fast unexpected evacuation and other worse case scenarios. The current situation was unprecedented and would definitely be scrutinised, he couldn’t afford any misstep. Not sending a single enforcer with the civilians was already terrible enough.
He was just done with his last report to Home team when one of his agents signalled an unusual activity, not in the wall, but the so-called Big-Box the nano-technology expert had left behind. He had already elected to leave it be, at least until the expert came back or it became a problem. Standard protocol.
If it started acting up, he would have to destroy it. Too bad for the expert, but he should have known what would happen when he left without instructions.
Turned out he did know, and he did leave instructions. The Box produced a small sheet from a slit just below the pill giving hatch, with something written.
NANITE PAPER - DO NOT TOUCH
Box may be hacked.
Best course of action: quarantine
Will blind Core
DO NOT DESTROY
May release content.
-
No doubt the away team was planned from the start.
Goal unknown.