Seraph hadn't been early to work in... months. She was almost always late, though she did often leave late as well when she was caught up on a particularly interesting assignment.
She used to think that this would be great for her career as a game designer when she left... now, not so much.
She didn't recognize anyone on-duty at the gate, probably because she was before the shift that covered mid-day; but they simply scanned her badge, letting her through... and she looked around for a moment, briefly lost; she'd had to qualify when she first got the job. Run a 6-minute mile, score at least a 85 on the Marksmanship trial immediately after; they'd actually fudged the numbers for her for a bit because her accuracy had been horrific after the run, and she'd taken about forty seconds too long for the mile. There were optional unarmed combat courses, and, them being optional, she'd ignored them, of course.
After a moment's thought, she remembered where she was going; a massive structure, as big as a typical soccer stadium, with a huge running track surrounding a gym, and three floors of shooting ranges. This was generally only used by 'Spooks' or trainees; the real soldiers did their training out in the middle of nowhere, using drones or.... augmented people... as targets.
When she reached the doorway, and badged herself in, she looked at the level, and then downstairs, frowning. Physical exertion would help the augments take better, help the nanites get into her muscles and do their job... though... one of the advantages of augments was they didn't need to work out to maintain their muscles. She.... should really see how much this had changed her.
Hell... if that Sue guy were lying, and she wasn't really augmented.... then this would be a good way to tell, with no tests.
For the first time in over a year, she checked out a set of athletic clothes, and slipped into the locker room to change; the whole process was automated, she'd return the clothes, they'd be washed and re-packaged for someone else after; and emerged onto the running track, watching people running their laps.
Running shorts and a tank-top. She wasn't used to wearing anything that showed this much skin... and she smiled back at the appreciative looks she got from a few of the trainees. Though... the women among them almost universally had more muscle, and less fat than herself.
She frowned. Or than she used to. She.... no longer had any excess fat she could see. That... wasn't a good sign. She glanced at her wrist, and her comm-unit... and tapped it, setting a timer.... before she took off herself.
Each of the wide lanes of the track was used by people keeping roughly the same pace, and she set herself a good, comfortable one; at first, in the slow lane on the outside... then moving to the middle lanes... and finally into the closest. It wasn't until she was at three quarters of a mile, and had yet to reach the three minute mark, that she realized showing a huge improvement like this might be suspicious.... and dropped back to the slowest lane, pretending to be exhausted.
She crossed the mile marker at five minutes and forty-five seconds... but knew full well she could've done it in less than four. Each stride was easier... her stamina was better... this was..
There were benefits to being an aug. She just needed to get somewhere it wasn't also a sentence to slavery... or death.
Normally, they had people use the range as soon as they stopped running; the idea was to get you in a stressed-out, exhausted situation... and the range was a quick fifty-meter jog from the mile marker.
There were a variety of weapons; slugthrowers, mostly using nonlethal rounds. Laser pistols, both pulse and otherwise, all set to a nonlethal intensity. Nothing for needlers, though... no shooting range was allowed to have railgun-based weapons in city limits. She selected two of them.. a pulse laser pistol and a slugthrower... and stepped up to the line. She inhaled deeply, and focused.
This, unlike most skills, actually crossed over from the sims. The more modern, realistic ones were almost as good as a shooting range.. and while she preferred a bow and a pair of shortswords, she'd played a few of the more modern sims with her friends.
When she first got the job, she'd tested at 87% accuracy; four full clips emptied, less than ten seconds to empty each, only thirteen misses. She set the four magazines on the counter, and examined the pistol for a moment. Alliance standard-issue 10mm light handgun. Used for small game and personal defense, the regular troops never even carried these; they were cheaper than a needle pistol or a laser pistol, and even had more stopping power; where a needle would go right through, making a tiny hole, one of these bullets would explode inside someone and usually be deadlier.
They were also terrible at piercing armor, and the ammo was both heavy and expensive. These four magazines together cost as much as the pistol did... while the laser just used batteries, and a needle either just used tiny metal darts, or the big ones just shaved bits off of an iron block to fire. The standard Alliance uniform would stop one of these... but leave you with nasty bruises and broken bones.
She sighed... and slapped the first magazine into place, raising the handgun... and started firing downrange.
Her focus was better. Her movements more precise. She felt just a little bit better in every way.... and when the final magazine was set on the counter, empty... she'd only missed six shots. Which.... was probably not an improvement. She did better in sims regularly.
She picked up the laser pistol. Accuracy with these was always better; for the beam version, you could set it to a visible light spectrum and literally just trace your target with the beam. For the pulse ones... just point and click. Barely any kick; they vaporized air, yes, but it was still virtually nothing.
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She focused, keeping it dead-set on the target's head.... and just fired away. Audible clicks. Minor pops. The target hit counter steadily climbed; and this time, she got one hundred percent. Not exactly an achievement; she did it in the sims all the time; but in the real world, her best score on that was ninety-five. So... eh.
She collected the weapons, the magazines; and gave a nod at the women beside her who'd been trying it herself; before returning the weapons; the armorer giving her a nod as he added them to the racks to be cleaned and disassembled. It always seemed weird, how quiet the noise-cancelling field made the range... the sims always made guns so loud...
So. She wasn't a superhuman, now. But.... she'd definitely improved. No amount of sim-time would explain that much improvement in running speed... and stamina. Ugh.
She got into the shower, and looked herself over, for the first time since Sue'd injected her... and was glad she didn't shower here regularly. Whatever else it had done, the change had burned off at least ten pounds of fat, and replaced it with lean muscle... the skin was just as dark, but now she had actual abs...she shook her head and rinsed herself off, before drying and changing back into her regular uniform. Time to get to the office, and see what Ericson had gotten her.
***
Part of what she found wasn't surprising. A lockbox sitting on her desk, likely keyed to her own fingerprints and retinal scan; probably holding a handgun. But... there was also a larger briefcase, also locked, and a handcart with four much larger cases on it... that... was just weird.
She checked the handcart; there was a note strapped to it.
~As per your request, we sent over a sample of some of our combat drones, in various conditions, for you to feed through the scanner. Per security protocol, we had to strip the weapons and the computer cores out of them before leaving them; if you need recordings of those, you'll need to return these and do them separately.~
She stared. Each case was big enough to hold a body, if you folded it up. Which meant.... she was looking at four different combat bots. She didn't even remember asking for these until reading the note. This... if she could get the people she had recordings of to cooperate....
Depending on the condition they were in, if they actually had a recorded operator, these things were actually better than a typical Alliance soldier. The brains in them could be tuned to react faster than people, and the only humans stronger pound for pound than a humanoid combat drone were the heavy-grav augments; deceased operators bringing these drones in were one of the ways the Alliance helped even the playing field against their physically superior opponents, though usually by remote control rather than actually built-in.
The standard combat doctrine of the United Worlds was to have a drone operator with each team, usually with implants letting him control dozens of them to augment the team's firepower... and the Alliance loved to mimic their older, more advanced rival when it came to combat operations and tactics.
She wasn't a drone operator. The closest she came was ordering her pet tiger to maul things in-game, and he mostly managed himself. But if she could convince a few former ASU people to help her escape Alliance territory...
Okay. So more options. She still needed to check the legal possibilities.
She settled in behind her desk, and thought for a bit. What would be a reasonable, logical reason for someone like her to go offworld, to an independent world, for the first time in her life?
A vacation, sure. That would be normal for someone who almost got killed, to want to get away for a while. Something work-related? She could take a look at.... Ahhh.
She tapped a few keys. After a few seconds, a display popped up... for Sim Expo 300; the 300th annual collective for Sim programmers, equipment engineers, and gamers, to show off the latest and greatest in equipment and talent. It was in two weeks... and while it was broadcast to all of the settled systems, it actually had a physical location where most of them met... at an independent system, over a hundred light-years away.
They were a big deal, and one she didn't think she'd be able to go to. But if she'd gotten an early bonus....
It was something she would want to go to. Something that would serve as a good vacation... and something she could claim to be work-related; to try to learn more about programming sims, get new up-and-coming data. In-character, not suspicious.
She pressed her eye up to the retinal scanner for a few seconds, and then opened up her bank account... and there it was. A deposit for ten thousand credits. Enough for a car. A down payment on a pre-fabricated habitat. A couple of cats. Or... a ticket to SE-300 and an extremely nice, extravagant, vacation.
Okay. It would work. Was there any good way to bypass security and make sure she wasn't red-flagged for a more thorough genetic scan on the way through? Hmm.
She smiled... and closed the menu, dialing her boss.
"Hey, boss. I saw the amount of the bonus, and I gotta say... thank you. I was also wondering.... the Sim Expo 300 is coming up. Would it be fine if I took my vacation time and went ahead, before I make a decision on the director position? It would both be something I've always wanted to go to... and maybe something I can get some good software or tools for work purposes. There's always some United Worlds and sometimes even Imperial scanner and sim tech there."
Ericson studied her for a moment... and smiled. "You know what? That sounds perfectly fine by me, getting away for a bit, relaxing in a new place.... In fact... we can make it a work trip, especially if you have buying some outside tech on the list. I'll go ahead and authorize it."
She frowned... that would be even better. But.... "...I've gotta admit to... a certain level of paranoia after the incident. I don't suppose there's any way Intel could fabricate an assumed ID for me and get me past security, rather than making it official? Obviously our people should know who I am, but the civvies could be hacked. Or maybe if there was a budget for sending along a guard, or a security drone, for the trip out..."
"Done. I'll go over the specifics later, but either we'll get you there without anyone but us knowing who you are, or we'll get you an armed escort all the way, or both. Any particular tech you're thinking?"
"The dubs have a more advanced, higher-fidelity scanner than we do. Less likely to get artifacts in the results, produces sims with marginally better accuracy; only really matters if you're trying to fool someone who has been to the place you're scanning, felt things. The Imperials actually have an organic scanner that picks up and replicates smells and tastes with amazing precision, something we've always had trouble with, so I've always had to avoid the subject entering... well. Any place that serves food they've had before other than your basic MREs and the like. Its always been a matter of me having to actually eat some of whatever it is, and tweak it in the sims for hours to get it right."
She thought for a moment... "And... the ideal would be if you could do a quick check. See if there's someone who works intel and has already passed on, wants to go to the expo. Could let them pilot a little combat drone I could fit in my carry-on... and then if you just slip me in past security, not let them check my carry-on, nobody should know I'm there, and I've got backup if need."
"We'll see. Don't worry about it, we'll keep you safe, Glass."
This... could work out perfectly. If she played her cards right, she might be able to sneak a carry-on full of Alliance intelligence right out from under their noses without anyone being the wiser.