“How can you lose a building?”
“It’s not the whole building, just a good chunk of it. About a thousand EMEU(*). Do you know how many of those we have over the 500 buildings we own?”
“I don’t care that it’s a small amount. How can we have any unused space like that? We’re leaving money on some table here.”
“The original contractor sublet a big chunk. Who then sublet sections that they didn’t need. It’s changed hands six times in three years, getting divided up and recombined as the sub-leases were sold off. We’ve got several legal teams pouring over the contracts, but they all seem legitimate. Somewhere along the way, one of the middle companies tits upped and pulled out. That collapsed the stack, but the net income was what we were expecting, so we never checked the availability.”
“Shouldn’t we at least have approvals for the remodeling?”
“That’s Ted’s department.”
*Eight Meter Equivalent Units. A standard division of space based on an average office that is 8 Meters by 8 meters.
-- Overheard watercooler conversation at a midsized building management and real estate firm.
***
Corie giggled, a joyous little burble in her childlike voice.
--Yes, you very much are a Vanguard. It is a pleasure to finally meet you. I have so much to talk with you about, but I fear we don’t have the time.
I thought about the prisoners and the danger they were in from the cultists. “Unfortunately, you are right.”
--One quick thing. You don’t have to speak for me to hear you this way. You'll feel in the interface an open channel leading out. That's the link to me, push the thought into it, and I'll hear it. I can’t hear your thoughts, even when you vocalize to yourself, though. It takes you wanting to project it for me to hear you, but it should feel natural to send it that way.
After considering her instructions, I thought at her in my mind, sending my thoughts without forming words but with an extra mental push in the right direction. I realized that communicating this way, with direct meaning, was considerably faster than speech or anything using words. I didn’t usually think of talking as slow, but sharing meaning this way was nearly instantaneous.
--Exactly! Oh, this will be so much fun!
While we were talking (for want of a better word), I had been rearranging several items in the UI for my glasses. I was about halfway through when it hit me that I’d been doing that so easily, but still on automatic. I always customized my interfaces and adjusted them by habit. In the fast-paced games I played online, an optimized user interface which put controls within easy reach went a long way towards bridging the speed gap from not having any augs. I was good enough at it that most of the people I played with had no clue I was a naught.
--Isn’t it great? You can do so much more now, like link to a huge number of drones if you want and monitor all the feeds at once. Speaking of which, I’m going to upload your tablet’s apps and settings to the hind-brain. They are compatible enough, and the hind-brain’s processing is a thousand times greater than the tablet. Oh, and you should give Tara permission on the drone app, so she doesn’t freak out more.
“The drone feed just went dead.” Tara was looking scared, and I quickly set out to reassure her.
“Sorry about that. I’ll get you access here in a sec. I should have thought about it. The upgrade included a lot of cyber-adjacent stuff. I’m now able to have a fully functioning aug-gear equivalent to link up with computer systems. That includes better control for the drones, but I had to move where they were running from. There, that should let you in.” While talking, I had been running a number of commands with Corie's guidance to allow Tara access.
“I think we’re rested up.” I looked around, and they all nodded. “Let’s get busy and break a prison.” We stood and moved to the end of the hallway.
This security door contained a window beyond which was a dark room. The only light was faint, coming from the left. In the gloom, I could make out that the far wall was made of a different material with patches of lighter and darker vertical bars.
“Tara, can you unlock the door?”
She gave a small nod but continued to cling to the wall behind us.
“My plan, generally, is to bring the prisoners into these rooms behind us. But not past the other security door. Tara, you’ll be the door guard here. Have the people move into those side rooms and wait for us. Once they are out and safe, we can organize them for the rest of the evacuation. Let’s set up a conference call, so we can keep in touch.”
“Won’t work. The cultists suppress any signals in the prison area.” Tara said.
“She’s right,” Kaitlyn added. “Even here, I’m starting to get signal loss and dropouts in the chat channel.”
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"Corie, is there anything we can do about that?” It felt more natural to use my voice than to send messages to her directly. And the others were used to it by now.
--We have a bunch of new options now. By doing a combo from the Sensor Drones and your new Cyberwarfare catalogs, we can get a Carrier Pigeon Signal Drone. It can both boost the signal of your augs, and link them to the outside. It will also monitor and detect other EM sources, like the ones used by other people’s augs. Did I mention your hind-brain can handle more drones now? No more limiting yourself to only six birds in the air.
--That will be twenty points.
A larger drone dropped onto my hand. It had a large bulbous body and ducted fans in a standard quad layout. The fans spun up, and it slowly lifted off before moving slowly around the hallway for a few minutes. It seemed particularly ungainly in the air to me.
“Tara, Please unlock the door. While she’s at it, can you join the phone conference, Corie?” Out of curiosity, I tried to follow Tara’s work. I was able to link up to the door’s control systems, but from there, she flicked through options faster than I could read. Suddenly the door clicked, and I cut the net connection. Growing up without augs had left me ignorant in many ways.
--You should be able to pick up those aspects of cyber warfare pretty quickly. We can look into ways to get you any training you want. I’m in the phone conference. Now that you have an interface, I can do a lot more with your connections, including access the phone services.
I pulled open the door and checked both sides, finding that we were clear. The room was six meters by twenty-five. We entered in the middle of one of the long walls, with the other one being a tall fabrication of corrugated metal. Other than the windows on the left wall, the only light in the room spilled from the door behind us.
I went over to the window and saw the cafeteria below still filled with Anti’s. A few more bodies had been added to the rotary. I leaned to the side but could not get an angle on the balcony. What a pity. This would have made a great sniper perch if I were only interested in assassinating the leader.
Ginny called to me from the other end. In the farthest corner, Kaitlyn was kneeling at a small hole. As I approached, I saw that a part of the metal had been bent up towards us, and some of the room’s wall next to it was dug out to allow more space. I subvocalized into the phone conference. “Let’s think about this for a minute. Corie, are you on this call?”
“Yes, I’m here. It’s so nice to finally talk to you, Tara. You too, Kaitlyn. I love what you’ve done with that so-me post. Hello Ginny!” Corie’s phone voice had the same high-pitched, childlike tone as her mental voice, delivered at the rapid pace of a hyper-caffeinated tween.
I rolled my eyes. “Not now. Is the metal enough to cause the EMI? Or is there more to it than that?”
“Three sides are covered in this metal. There’s fine mesh over the windows. And the roof, too. The last side points to them. Some kind of active jammer covers their space.” Tara said.
“If you put another Pigeon on the other side, they can link up via laser. That would get you a solid connection through the prison.” Corie added.
“If we make this hole larger, but not so large that the cultists could see it, could we sneak everyone out? How long until the cultists notice, do you think?”
Ginny answered this one. “They don’t have cameras in the prison, but there are walkthroughs. Usually in groups of three or four. While they are sloppy about the timing, I don’t think we’d have more than twenty minutes without being found out.”
“And the worst case is that there’s a patrol when we go in. I think we need a bigger exit.” I said.
“That would be better.” Ginny gestured to the small hole. “There’s... a few who would have trouble getting through anything smaller than a full doorway.” She held her hands out well away from her sides.
“Corie, you mentioned a way to break through walls before. Are there any that do not involve explosions and flying shrapnel?”
“Definitely. There’s an electrically activated acid that can cut through this in seconds. For five points, you could cut through a bunch of the cells all at once.” Corie’s voice reflected her excitement at my buying something new.
“Once the way is clear, is there a way to ping the prisoner’s augs and let them know not to panic and that we’re here to help?”
Tara hesitated. “I can send out texts one by one. And only to the people I know about.”
Corie responded. “I can use the Vanguard channel to broadcast something. That would get them all, but it might catch a couple cultists.”
“Then I’ll need to get to the door into the cultist’s area as quickly as possible. We’ll make two doors, one here.” I gestured to the wall over the hole. “And the other down at the other end.”
Ginny moved a few meters over. “More like here. And the same from the other end. See this row of scorch marks running up and down? That’s the cell wall. And you want a path that is straight through. The corner cells have smaller doors into the corridor.”
“That should work. If the evacuation goes too slow, you can open a third hole. Anyone else have any ideas or concerns?” I asked. When no one had any, I continued, “Corie, I need another of those Pigeons, and the cutting stuff.”
"Purchased: Centofir Signals Drone, the “Carrier Pigeon”
Cost: 20 Remaining points: 440
"Purchased: Kniesen Wallcutter with 10 triggers
Cost: 10 Remaining points: 430”
Corie sent the purchase info to text in my glasses. Another bulbous drone appeared beside a squeeze gun commonly used for caulking. Attached to the long barrel of the squeeze gun were several nails with a foil flag on one end.
“Squirt the goop where you want to cut, then insert a nail. Leave the flag out. When the time is ready, you can set off one or more rings of the goop.”
--Jonnie sent a text message asking if you had figured out a way to get the prisoners out. I’m gonna send a reply that we’re about to make our attempt.
We laid out the goop for the openings. “I want Ginny to concentrate on the prisoners unless I call you. Kaitlyn, with your heavier rifle, I want you to come through with me. Most likely, you’ll be helping prisoners too, but if a firefight breaks out, I want you to help with that while Ginny herds people for as long as possible. Keep in contact through the phone conference. Here’s the wallcutter in case you need to make more openings.” I looked at them and saw concern on their faces, mirrored by Tara, who was peeking around the security doorway. “We’ve fought and killed Anti’s by the dozens; a few cultists shouldn’t be a problem. We’ve got this.”