BEST LAID PLANS

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Will and Becca hurried to the workshop area, where the students had been allocated small working spaces for their ongoing projects. Navigating through the area, they eventually reached their designated corner. There, three mechs in shades of gray and white stood, their chassis exposed and various components awaiting installation. Remy, who had been absorbed in the data on his pad, noticed their arrival and beckoned them over with a wave.

Will knelt beside Remy. "What did you find?"

Becca joined them, looking expectant. Remy grinned and passed the datapad to Will.

Will scrolled through what appeared to be an invoice form. It listed hardware parts along with buyer information, insurance details, and other payment particulars.

"What is this?" asked Will.

Remy replied, "It's a billing statement. I thought they only did mass orders, but they also provide basic repair and maintenance for specialty clients. There are more invoices like these on the chips."

"Okay," said Will, not yet seeing where this was leading.

"I spotted the same data embedded in all these files. They all use the same program. Turns out, Milton's is a franchise. There are multiple storefronts all over the place; this is just one of them. So, they don't store most of their data locally. Getting proper shielding outside the tower is a costly investment that they are unwilling to make."

"How do they store the data?" asked Becca.

"I'm guessing it's probably inside the Tower," said Remy.

"I see," said Becca.

"They are paying to get a connection to the tower network from out here?" Will whistled. "That must cost them a fortune."

"Most companies probably have them. It's just us plebs that don't have access. Can't have corrupting foreign influence," Remy scoffed.

Will clasped his hands together in a thinking pose. "Okay, their main database is in the tower. How does that help us?"

Remy leaned in closer. "So, every other day, the Milton branches send their data to the tower database, around 4 pm judging by the timestamps in the files, and that's our ticket. If we could get access to the shop's computers, we could request old files from the database."

Will paused. "You want to install a program in the shop PC so that at 4 pm, it uses the window when it updates to query information about our ship?"

"Bingo," replied Remy.

Becca interjected, "This still doesn't solve the problem of them getting inside the shop and getting access to their computers. How are we going to do that?"

"We can't just break into the shop. This has to be done quietly," said Will.

"Actually, that is the easiest part."

"What?" questioned Becca.

"We just need a man on the inside," Remy explained.

"You can't mean Marvin," said Will.

Remy shook his head. "Nah, not him," he grinned.

"Then who?" asked Becca.

Remy told them, and they sat in silence for a moment.

"Oh boy," sighed Will, and rubbed his stinging cheek. "Yes, it has a very good chance of working."

"So, what are we waiting for?" Remy grinned. "Let's get to work."

▼.▼.▼

Will grimaced as he trudged through the snow. The morning training still had him sore, and his right leg twitched at random intervals. Remy and Becca were close behind him as they made their way towards Milton's.

The shop remained as unpopular as ever, its windows dark from afar, and its door tightly shut. Will let out a nervous breath, watching it steam in the cold air.

"You ready?" asked Becca beside him.

"As I'll ever be," muttered Will as he opened the door to the print shop. The familiar sound of an arena battle filled the store. Will stepped in, finding it a little odd that the match was playing at full volume.

Becca followed Will inside, and Remy discreetly fell behind the duo. Will gave a quick glance around the shop.

"Do you see it?" Becca murmured. Will shook his head and approached the counter, where Marvin was seated, leaning back in his chair.

"Come on! Come on! You have him!" yelled Marvin. He was so engrossed in the game that it took a full minute for him to notice Will standing there.

"You three?!" he looked surprised. "What are you doing here?"

Will shrugged. "We were in the area and thought we should drop by."

Marvin rolled his eyes. "Listen, kid, I thought I made myself clear last time. We don't do small orders. You'd have better luck at the other shops."

"Maybe, but since you are the biggest supplier here, you could put in a good word for us," Will suggested.

Marvin chuckled and shook his head, then turned back to his game. "This is our second meeting, and you already want to trade in my name?"

Becca shifted beside Will and nudged Remy. She jerked her head towards the far wall, and Will spotted the tiny robot dog scratching its ears with its front paws. Remy slowly backed away from the group, and Becca slid to the side to hide him better.

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Will leaned forward on the counter, blocking Marvin further. "We are just doing our final year project," he explained, pointing at the screen. "Thinking of adding on a dual-core engine like Romanof."

"Dual on your first build?" Marvin whistled, his eyes still fixed on the game. "Ambitious."

"Hey, go big or go home, right?" Will recited Romanof's tagline, and Marvin perked up. A smile tugged at Will's lips; it looked like he found a fan.

"If you're going for the dual-core, I hope you're not going to cheap out and go for T12, 'cause that would be disappointing," said Marvin, now more invested in the conversation.

"What do you take me for, Sprint-1000 or nothing," said Will.

"Hey, my man," Marvin offered him a fist bump. "So, what's your take on the match? Reckon Romanof got it in the bag?"

"I don't know," Will shrugged. "He is against Tremor. He has been on a streak of late."

"Come off it," Marvin scoffed. "Tremor has nothing on him."

"Tell that to Romanof; looks like he's in a bit of trouble," Will remarked.

Marvin cursed as the fight on the screen got more intense. Will sneaked a peek at Remy, who was squatted beside the tiny robot dog. The little pup yipped in delight, and Marvin glanced over Will's shoulder. "Where is that dog now?"

He made to get up when Becca gasped and pointed at the screen.

"What?" asked Marvin, jerking his head back to the monitor. "What happened?"

"Romof nearly had Tremor," Will explained. The match intensified, and Marvin was back to yelling encouragement at the screen. Romanof brought down Tremor in a flourish, and the crowd erupted in cheers.

Marvin smirked at Will. "See, what did I tell you?"

Will sighed and raised his hands in defeat. "Alright, you got me. Romanof is indeed the best."

"Damn right," Marvin grinned.

Will glanced behind and spotted Remy striding towards them. The robot dog trotted at his feet with an adoring look on its metallic face, and Remy flashed Will a grin.

Will breathed a sigh of relief. He turned back to Marvin. "I heard there was a print shop two blocks down."

"Yes, Scan Emporium," said Marvin.

"Yeah, I'll be sure to tell them that you sent us their way," Will replied.

Marvin chuckled. "You do that then." He turned back to his game, and Will silently gestured to the others to leave the shop.

They followed Will out of the store, and Becca gave Remy a pointed look, who made a zipping motion with his lips. They didn't speak a word until they were well away from the shop and had put a considerable distance between them.

Impatiently, Becca turned to Remy. "So?"

Remy brought out his slate, and on it was a camera feed. It was close to the ground and tiny excited yips sounded from the other end. The robot dog entered the shop proper and headed into the back office.

Through the camera feed, Will saw the rows of computer hardware.

Remy grinned. "We are so in."

The trio quickly made their way back to the fort. Remy had the robot pup connect to the cluster and discreetly install his program. It was primed and ready to go. Fifteen minutes later, they were back in the quad, jogging in formation in their mech suits.

"When do we get the info out?" asked Becca impatiently over the CAD.

"Would you relax," said Remy. "It's not even 4 o'clock yet."

Will placed his hand over the metallic chest plate, trying to feel his rapidly beating heart. Consulting his HUD for the time, he noted it was quarter past two. It wouldn't be long before they obtained their answers.

The drill master had them march at double time, and they entered the BUA. The abandoned city battle zone was rundown as ever, with the recently collapsed building only adding to the aesthetic.

Instructor Yacob was waiting for them at the base of the watchtower, in his customary ivory CAD suit.

"Alright, you baby birds," he addressed the class, his tone light and a lot less formal than their other instructors. "You know what's coming. Split up into teams of three, and we can start your arena battle."

Will, Remy, and Becca stuck together, and for the next hour, they fumbled through their mock battles. Of the five matches, they had won three. By the time they were done with the final match, their mechs' outer plating was smoking.

Instructor Yacob finally announced their match over, and Will slumped against a dilapidated wall, panting heavily. Remy and Becca fell in beside him, both equally tired.

Becca sounded breathless over the CAD coms. "We almost had the last one."

Remy, for once, didn't have any quippy comments; he was too tired to even speak.

"What's the time?" asked Will, breathing hard.

"Half past three," said Becca. "Thirty minutes to go before the print shop updates itself."

Will gave a small nod as he glanced around at the other recovering cadets. Instructor Yacob was standing between them. He gave them a couple of minutes to clear their heads before speaking.

"Well done, cadets. That was an excellent showing for your first match. We will have many more mock battles tomorrow. You are going to need all the practice for your certification exam."

Will perked up at the mention of their course credit. Remy finally stirred beside him, and Becca sat up straight.

"Speaking of certification, I have an announcement to make. Due to unforeseen circumstances, your exam has been rescheduled to take place two days from now."

"What?" Remy exclaimed. The cadets broke out into surprised chatter at the pronouncement.

Yacob raised his hand placatingly. "I understand that this change may come as a surprise to you, but I have no doubt in my mind that every single one of you will pass. You have shown excellent improvement over the course, and you are more than ready to take the certification exam."

Remy whispered, "That's a translation; they are willing to nudge the results if they have to. What is going on?"

Will frowned. Their instructors had sped up their training ever since Kade's reneged on their training day. Something had come up that caused the military worry, and now it was trickling down to their training.

"Wait a minute," said Will suddenly. "Doesn't this mean that we have only two days to get the info out of the shop? They are going to ship us back into the Tower after the course, and we would lose access to the outside network."

"Lucky that we made it just in time," said Remy. "In half an hour, we will have our answers one way or the other."

"Yeah," said Will.

Yacob dismissed the class, and Will, Remy, and Becca retreated to their workshop once again. Will adjusted the shielding on the central chip housing. The calibration was a little off, and it would take several hours of fine-tuning to get it into an acceptable state.

Becca appeared at his side and examined the mechs. "How's it going?"

"Nearly done," said Will. "We can install the chips tomorrow."

"That's good," said Becca as she placed one hand on her mech's chassis.

Will glanced at his slate; it was two minutes to four. "Remy?"

"On it," said the brunette, and he brought out his slate. "We should be receiving a ping any minute now."

They waited together, their gaze fixed on the slate. Seconds passed, with Will silently counting down to four o'clock.

When the clock finally struck four, Will looked expectantly at the pad, but nothing happened.

Becca looked confused. "Is something wrong?"

"Give it a minute," muttered Remy. He checked for the connection, and it was still there. Will felt a growing sense of unease as the minutes ticked by.

"What's happening?" asked Becca. "Is something wrong with the code?"

"Nothing is wrong with the code," said Remy.

Will brought out his slate. "Remy, the program that gave me that masks calls is still operational, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "Why?"

"I'm going to call the shop."

"Whoa, whoa!" Remy protested, but Will had already dialed the number. Marvin answered the call.

Will lowered his voice by an octave. "Is this Miltons?"

"Yes," said Marvin uncertainly.

"I had an order of precision servo-actuators from you all a few months back," Will continued. "We had a bit of an accident, and there are a few blanks in our records."

"Right," Marvin acknowledged.

"Yes, I need a duplicate of our purchase invoice. I have the order number with me right now."

"Um... you've caught us at a bad time, Mr...." Marvin prompted.

"Neeson," finished Will.

"Neeson," Marvin confirmed. "Our head of procurement is away at the moment. So it will take a while for me to get back to you on that."

"How long?" asked Will.

"No more than two days," said Marvin.

"Wait, what? Two days!" Will's eyes went wide, and Remy and Becca looked stunned.

"Yes, no sooner than that. He will be back definitely before four. So you can contact us then. Anything else I can help you with?"

"No," said Will. "Thank you for your time." He ended the call and looked at Remy and Becca, who looked equally stunned.

Two days from now, they had their exams, and from the looks of it, they would have to hack Milton's in the middle of an arena battle.

"Well, shit!"