“Rollo, are you free right now? We could really use your help.”
“Flo? What’s going on?” I put the car back into auto drive to focus on the call.
“An idiot on my team got picked up a few days ago, and we finally located him. The problem is that he is being held in some corp facility, so we can’t just go in guns blazing this time.”
“I’d love to help Flo but I don’t think I can go against some corporation even you’re hesitant to antagonize…”
“Look, they aren’t some big untouchable corp. They are just some fucked up startup specializing in human experimentation that other corps outsource to. If we went guns blazing, they would activate their fail-safes that would dispose of all their ‘subjects’ for some bullshit confidentiality contract. Can you take a shot at sneaking in to disable it?”
“Fine… I’ll try, but no promises. You guys already have a plan?”
“Great, we’ll owe you one. Come on over to Haven and we’ll go over the details.”
----------------------------------------
They filled me in on the plan in one of the private rooms inside Haven. There were glass windows in the room that looked out to the rest of the bar, though we set the windows to be opaque.
By the time we finished, the sun was just setting.
We headed out right away, driving circles around a small but normal-looking office building with only a dozen floors and a loading area in the back.
I ensured I had everything I needed before getting out of the car.
“Test, test. Can you hear me alright?” A woman’s voice rang out in my head thanks to my SAID.
“Yeah, loud and clear.”
“Okay, you can respond by text once you’re in, but our connection will break up once you pass into the jammed area and you’ll be on your own. Once you get in, you should be able to disable it.”
“Yeah, yeah. We just went over it.”
“Just wanted to remind you that once you’re in, you’re on your own. You better do exactly as I instructed, because your shitty intern-level hacking skills ain’t going to do shit in their system.”
I sent a thumbs-up emoji through my SAID and observed the people going in and out of the building.
The girl was a hacker they brought on for the rescue called Lana. She was apparently the one who tracked down our target, her friend, Leo, who was the hacker for Flo’s team.
I waited until the loading area was clear and casually walked as close as I could without entering the camera’s view. Once I was in position, I aimed my Suri and shot right at the base of the camera.
*You should get a connection soon.*
“Okay, I’m in, but as we expected, their security systems are air-gapped from the cameras. I’m looping the camera feeds now. You should be good to go, ”Lana responded almost instantly to my text, with a symphony of clicking and clacking noises in her background. I couldn’t believe someone still used mechanical keyboards when she could do it through her SAID.
I walked up to the door and pried into the panel covering the jack for technicians. Once I plugged in, I didn’t have to do my usual hacking and could sit back while Lana did the job for me.
Before long, the door’s lock clicked open, and I made my way into the building. I headed for the staircase where the call connection I had with Lana started breaking up as I descended.
I went as far as I could until I reached a floor that required an ID card to access, so I made my way back up to the previous floor. I made my way through the mechanical rooms, searching for the one that was responsible for this building’s HVAC.
According to the info we had, the lab where they held Leo was on the bottommost floor, and the security control room was on the topmost restricted basement level, so I had to somehow gain access to that floor.
I eventually found the mechanical room I was looking for and brought out a grenade that looked more like a toy. I pressed the button on it and threw it toward the control panel. After a second, a loud fizzing noise echoed throughout the room.
Within seconds, I heard the machines around me slowing down, making a whining noise that it definitely wasn’t supposed to make.
I picked up the spent grenade, then went to conceal myself in a corner of the room, and started praying the plan would work. If no one came, then we would have to abort the mission and go back to the drawing board.
With no connection to the outside world, I spent my time playing around with the settings of my cybernetics and ensured they were in optimal condition. Right now, I relied on official patches to their firmware, so I was going through them as a reference for the day when I would design my own cybernetics.
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
After 15 minutes, I finally heard someone approach. I watched the door intently while trying to calm my nerves and stay quiet. I watched a man in a dirty technician outfit with a hard hat open the door and walk straight toward the control panel.
I gave it a second to see if anyone else was behind him, but once I was sure there was no one, I made my move. In one swift motion, I covered his face with a cloth I had gotten from Flo and put him in a chokehold. I felt his surprise and struggle, but my cyberarm had him in a tightly locked in place, and soon his struggle weakened until his body completely fell limp.
I quickly dragged his body to the corner where I then swapped outfits. I packed my old clothes into a bag and ensured I had his security card and all my gear before heading back down the stairs.
This time, with the security card, I could pass through. I casually strolled through the empty hallway while searching for the security control room. The entire floor looped around in a circle, so I eventually spotted the room.
I walked up and stood in front of the door, and pressed the button on the intercom.
“What do you want, techy? You better have good news about the cooling, cuz it’s getting really hot in here with all the equipment running.”
“Yes sir, it should be fixed now, but I need to manually reset each control panel until we get the replacement parts.”
“All right, hurry up and reset ours.” The door automatically opened.
I walked in slowly and a guard soon came into view. I scoured the room; not that large and had only two guards in total. The other guard had his attention on the screens while he fanned himself with a terminal.
“That’s the panel for the AC,” The first guard pointed and then crossed his arms while he watched me. He didn’t seem like he was going to go away, so I guess it was time to pull one of the oldest tricks in the book.
I placed my bag down beside the panel and then pretended to rummage through it as I grabbed my Suri within. I looked back and locked eyes with the man who still had his full attention on me.
“If this is the AC panel, then what is that one for?” I put on the best show of looking as confused as I could and pointed at the one on the other side of the room.
The moment the man turned, I brought my gun up and placed a well-aimed shot right at his head, then unloaded the rest of the 20-round mag into the remaining guard who was still in his seat until I saw the experience notification.
+10 EXP
+10 EXP
I raced over to the terminal, pushed the body out of the way, and searched for the jack to plug into. After fumbling for a bit, I found the jack and inserted the chip the hacker Lana had given me.
I executed the program as instructed, then it automatically took over with no further need for my input. While I let the program do its thing, I started looking over the screens and the layout of the floors that we didn’t have information on.
I could see rooms with about half a dozen people living in them, all wearing simple white gowns. There were also a few rooms with surgical tables, like the one found in Dr. Keyes’s clinic.
Outside in the corridors were a few people in lab coats walking around and a few armed guards.
Before I could find Leo, the person we were rescuing, the console in front of me made a ding noise, informing me of the program’s completion. A familiar voice then spoke out to me within my head.
“Can you hear me, Rollo?”
“Yeah, loud and clear.”
“...I’ve got full control of their system now, but I can’t disable the fail-safes remotely. You’ve got to go to the head researcher’s room and do it from his terminal. I’ll send you the floor layout with real-time information on where everyone in the facility is.”
“Okay, got it, but you do see how many people are in there, right? Do we even have enough transportation to get them all out?”
“No, we’re only here for Leo. The rest of them are going to have to find their own way once they’re out.”
“Really? At least half of them are going to die or get caught again.” I took a deep breath and sighed.
“We aren’t charity workers. They can stay there if they want, but if they do, they’re guaranteed to be dead within a year or two. A slow and painful death too. We’re already giving them a chance to escape. Come on, focus on what we came here for.”
She was right, there was no profit to it even if I could save them all. I could only do so much.
I placed the real-time layout in a corner of my vision like a minimap. I then made my way to the head researcher’s room after I swapped into the guard’s uniform.
With the help of the minimap, it was practically like cheating. I effortlessly hid in the blind spots or avoided anyone in my way. It was really annoying how each set of stairs that led further down was located somewhere different on each floor, but I eventually managed to arrive at the door to the head researcher’s office.
I hate whoever designed this place, security be damned. It must suck, having to go through this maze every day to get to work.
I scanned my security card, but the scanner turned red, denying me access.
Seeing no one within earshot, I called out to my helper.
“Hey, I need help getting into the researcher’s room, plugging you in now.”
“Where’s the please?” She sighed, “Give me a second…and you’re in.”
Entering the room, I found the terminal at the head researcher’s desk. I repeated the same steps I went through in the security room, plugging in the chip, and then waited for the program to do its job.
“Okay, the program is done. Can you deactivate it now?”
“That terminal doesn’t respond to remote commands, so you will have to be the one to deactivate it.”
Following Lana’s instructions, I eventually found the command to disable the fail-safe. Even so, once the test subjects escaped, they would still need to visit a cybernetic clinic to remove the physical chip that was forcibly installed in their heads…
I then searched the files on the subjects within this facility and downloaded what they had into my SAID. The information included a file on Leo and where they kept him.
“Okay, I found him, and the fail-safes are off. It’s time for you guys to do the heavy lifting.”
“Gotcha, Flo’s team is coming in hot now. Go secure Leo before the chaos spreads down to you.”
Within ten seconds of her words, the entire place violently shook, almost throwing me off my feet.