Cyber Dreams 2.40 - Infiltration

I find that everything I want to say is some kind of spoiler, so I'll just be quiet and let you all read. Let me know what you think :)

-Plum

Juliet stepped out of the AutoCab Plus she’d ordered in Angela Chaudhry’s name into the cool shadows of Grave Tower’s parking structure. Angel had confirmed that Chaudhry frequently used the premium car service—essentially a standard AutoCab with armored panels and windows, always painted glossy black. She’d instructed the service to drop her at the executive elevator bank, and when she approached, she felt some of her old nerves again; the briefcase handle felt slippery in her moist palm.

Juliet had removed her needler and vibroblade from her person, putting them into the briefcase with her other belongings that might elicit an alarm from the scanners. Still, she tried to keep her face calm and her eyes down as she approached the elevator call panel. “Have they scanned us yet, Angel?”

“Yes, one scan so far, but two different ID pings.”

“Nothing strange going on?”

“Not that I can tell.”

Juliet selected the GARD sublevel on the touch screen and waited for several moments while the three executive elevators ferried other “important” people up and down the tower. When the door finally opened, and a young man in a very stylish gray and lavender suit stepped out, Juliet avoided his gaze and stepped past him into the elevator. He didn’t speak to her, and less than a minute later, she was stepping out into GARD territory.

“Now, I just need to get through reception.” It was only 0530, and Juliet hoped the receptionist wouldn’t be on duty yet. She paused outside the door and, glancing through the glass, was pleased to see the lights were dim and that no one was sitting behind the desk. “So far, so good,” she subvocalized and smiled as she imagined Angel crouching behind her, sneaking with her through the dim hallways. “Step one, guide me to the server room.”

Juliet walked through reception to the door and almost jumped out of her skin when Kent’s voice crackled through the speaker above, “Dr. Chaudhry, you’re in early today. Would you like me to notify your assistant?”

“Angel,” Juliet subvocalized, “Deal with Kent for me; I don’t have Chaudhry’s voice!”

A few seconds passed, and then Angel replied, “He’ll leave you alone now; I just let him know your throat is bothering you, and you do not want your assistant to come in early.”

“Thank you!” Juliet subvocalized, then continued following the dotted line on her installation map. For a moment, she tried to imagine doing a job like this without Angel and decided she’d rather stick to working in the scrapyard. The hallways were quiet, and the offices were dark, but Juliet passed a few labs with lights on and the shuffling movements of early risers. Still, no one passed her on her meandering progress to the GARD server rooms.

“Should I point out that things are going very smoothly, or would that be considered a jinx?” Angel asked as they approached the heavy metal door with its complex security panel.

“Oh my God, Angel, did you just say that?” Juliet couldn’t help the tiny nervous giggle that slipped out of her.

“I was trying to lighten the mood. How did I do?”

“Terrible! Don’t do things like that.” Juliet cleared her throat as she finished subvocalizing, and then, shaking her head to refocus, she approached the door. A camera on the security panel with a broad, thick lens blinked with LEDs as she came near, and the touch-screen lit up with a greeting, “Welcome, Dr. Chaudhry. Place your palm on the scanner.”

“So it already scanned us?” Juliet subvocalized.

“Yes, it appears so. Dr. Chaudhry has very high-level clearance, or the door’s AI might have insisted you leave your briefcase outside.” Juliet put her hand on the screen, it flashed twice, and then a green light lit up, and the door clicked and slid open. Juliet stepped through and was confronted by the beating heart of the GARD division of Grave Industries.

The server room wasn’t large, only about five meters on a side, but the walls on Juliet’s right and left were lined with big, quiet server racks—nine softly humming boxes about half a meter to a side and two meters tall. An ordinary door sat in the center of the far wall with a sign that read, “Backups.”

There was no desk, and she couldn’t see any sort of station to interface with the servers, so Juliet walked forward to the door and pulled the handle down; it opened without any resistance. The room she stepped into was half the size of the server room, and the back wall was lined with shelves, though only one of the shelves had anything on it—eighteen black cubes that Juliet knew were high-capacity data storage devices. She’d just taken stock of them when a man cleared his throat, and Juliet nearly jumped out of her shoes.

“Can I help you, ma’am?” the tech wearing a white coat over a blue Grave jumpsuit asked. Juliet steadied herself and turned to glare at him.

“You startled me.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am.” He was thin, probably tall if he were standing, and had a severely receding hairline. His eyes were clearly cybernetically enhanced—bright golden irises and off-putting black scleras. He raised his eyebrows with an open expression, though, and seemed genuinely apologetic.

“It’s okay. Do you recognize me?”

“Um, no, I’m sorry. I don’t really meet with the doctors much. I’m just here to perform backups.”

“I’ll need you to reschedule your work for tomorrow. I’m sorry, but there’s a data corruption issue that I need to straighten out. It’s a bit of an emergency.” Juliet made her best impression of a self-important executive and stepped forward, gesturing to the door as though the matter were settled.

“Ah,” he scooted back his chair but didn’t stand. “I’ll need to tell my supervisor why I didn’t finish. Can I get your name, ma’am? Your PAI isn’t speaking to mine.”

“The nerve.” Juliet shook her head, a frown of disappointment on her face. “I’m Dr. Chaudhry. Get going now; didn’t you hear me say this was a critical issue?”

“Right. Sorry, ma’am.”

“Feel free to have your supervisor ping my PAI, and I’ll confirm the order. Get going now.” Juliet moved to the seat as he stood and hurried for the door, acting as though she had already considered him gone. She sat quietly for a minute, listening for him to exit the main server room. When the outer door clicked shut, Juliet plugged into the server console and subvocalized, “Angel, clean up your old daemon that was monitoring references to me in the database, then set up the new one to delete everything today at noon.”

In only a few seconds, Angel announced, “I’m finished, Juliet. Their security hasn’t changed since our last intrusion.”

“Good.” Juliet lifted her deck from around her neck, and set it on the desk next to the terminal, plugging its cable into another open port. “Now, copy everything you can find on the GIPEL project, especially anything about the bio-silver.”

“We have most of that data from Kyle’s drive . . .”

“We don’t know if that was complete or up to date—get it all, Angel.”

“Working.” While Angel went through the data, Juliet lifted her briefcase onto the desk and opened it, taking out the shape charges and their detonators. Still tethered to the terminal, she had to stretch out an arm but managed to place one of the charges behind the center of the blocky backup drives. She inserted one of the detonators and touched the pairing button.

“Do you see the charge?” she subvocalized.

“Yes. I’ve taken control of it. Shall I set a detonation time?”

“Yep. Like we talked about—1205, so we can make sure your daemon did its deletion work before we blow things up.”

“I’ve copied the data you wanted,” Angel said by way of response.

“And the charge?”

“Set to go off five minutes after noon.”

“Good.” Juliet opened the door and looked into the server room, confirming that no one was present. She subvocalized, “No cameras in the server room?”

“None I could detect when I was on the camera network last week.”

“Okay,” Juliet said as she, one by one, placed the other three charges behind the server racks.

“Juliet, there’s more explosive in these two rooms than you’ll need to destroy these servers. It’s possible some damage will escape this room.”

“They’re concrete walls, right? We’ll just have to hope the nearby hallways aren’t crowded and that the tech won’t come back until tomorrow as I told him . . .”

“He won’t. His supervisor already messaged you, and I responded that the servers will be busy until at least midnight.”

“Oh, good. Thank you, Angel.” Juliet glanced at the clock on her AUI, saw it was 0618, and decided it was about time she made her way to Angela’s office—she was expecting company. “Guide me to Dr. Chaudhry’s office, please.” As a new dotted pathway appeared on her AUI, she went into the backup room and packed her deck and briefcase; she didn’t take out her weapons yet because she knew the scanners at the server room door would give her another once-over as she left.

Before leaving, Juliet stood in the doorway of the little backup room and slowly turned in a circle, confirming that none of her explosives were visible. Satisfied that they were well hidden, she exited the server room and followed the dotted lines to Chaudhry’s office. She made good progress, only passing a couple of lab techs who avoided her gaze, and when she turned down the last stretch of hallway, she was moving quickly, which almost spelled disaster for her—Gordon was pacing back and forth outside the door.

As her heart nearly stopped, Juliet turned on her heel, took two steps, and rounded the corner out of sight. Gordon’s back had been to her when she spotted him, and she hoped he hadn’t turned in time to see her. “Dammit,” she breathed softly, then waited, holding her breath, listening. His steps weren’t approaching. “Angel,” she subvocalized, “can you message Gordon as Chaudhry and tell him to make sure Vance isn’t in his office? Tell him the news she has about him is explosive, and she wants to confirm he isn’t in the building yet.” Thinking about it, she added, “Tell him not to alert Kent!”

“Done,” Angel said. Juliet stood there, back against the wall, and cranked the gain on her ears, waiting to hear Gordon’s retreating footsteps. She got better than that when he cursed vehemently and then started to stomp away.

“Phew,” Juliet said, then peeked around the corner. When Gordon’s back turned down the next hallway, she hurried to Chaudhry’s door and let herself in. “Leave it to a guy like Gordon to be half an hour early.” She closed the door, made sure it was locked, then looked around.

Chaudhry’s office was well-appointed. She had a small meeting table with three chairs and a charging pad, which reminded Juliet to turn on the jammer on her deck. She took it off and set it up to charge, then finished looking around the room. A large desk filled the other half of the space, two faux-leather chairs before it. A large-leafed, bio-genned plant sat in the middle of the room, against the wall, its vines climbing a bamboo lattice toward the ceiling, and that, combined with the soft lighting, made the office a rather comfortable place.

“Chaudhry has pretty good taste; I’ll hand it to her,” Juliet said as she moved around the desk to sit down. She placed her briefcase on the wooden surface, opened the lid, and placed her vibroblade into the sheath on her arm and the needler and extra magazine inside the holster under her blazer. That done, she pushed the briefcase to the side, still open, her MP5 variant waiting, ready. Then, she folded her hands on the smooth, engineered dark-wood desk and slowly concentrated on her breathing, focusing her thoughts and visualizing what she would do when Gordon walked through the door.

“Angel, can you unlock that door remotely, or do I need . . .”

“I can; I have the access code from Angela’s PAI.”

“Good,” Juliet said. “What are the odds Gordon has nanites that will neutralize the botu-needles?”

“He’s a high-ranking commander for an elite combat squad. It would not be unlikely for him to have a nanite suite. Even so, it should take several seconds or, depending on how robust they are, up to a few minutes for the nanites to counteract the nerve agent.”

“Will it take longer with more toxin?”

“Yes,” Angel replied immediately.

“Good.” Juliet had no qualms about shooting Gordon twice, despite the risk of an overdose. Several minutes passed while she envisioned her plan, and then a forceful knock sounded on the door three times. Juliet glanced at her clock, saw it was 0647, and smirked. Gordon was an impatient bastard. She stood up, drew her needler, then turned her back to the door, leaning over the small bureau Angela had behind her desk. She kept the high-backed chair between herself and the door, then subvocalized, “Unlock it, Angel.”

The door clicked, and Juliet heard it open almost immediately. Gordon’s voice said, “So, what’s the latest crisis?”

“Sit at the table, please,” Juliet said, trying to sound calm, speaking from deep in her throat, hoping Gordon wouldn’t think her voice was too suspicious. When she heard the chair slide over the carpeting and Gordon sigh with a grunt as he sat down, Juliet spun, pointed her needler at the side of his head, trying to aim at his neck, but not really caring if she hit his skull, and fired twice.

The gun’s hissing *click* was drowned out by Gordon’s startled exclamation, “What the . . .” Juliet’s toxic needles hit him, though—two in the neck and two into his shoulder as he started to surge to his feet. The toxin was fast, and he fell back onto his rump with an explosive exhalation. After that, he was still, eyes staring ahead, and Juliet sprang into action. She snatched Chaudhry’s older deck from her briefcase and hurried over to the table.

She’d already put two cables into the deck, and she took one of them and quickly but gingerly, grimacing the whole while, peeled back the skin covering Gordon’s data port. Juliet saw his squat, black, clearly shielded PAI chip and wondered what brand it was but didn’t pause to try to find out. She shoved the cable into the slot beneath it, and then the deck started running the dreamer program from Vykertech.

“A little something I’ve been saving for occasions like this, Gordon, you dirty creep,” she hissed into his ear as the deck's display counted out its progress. His eyes fluttered, and he wheezed out a whine on a pent-up breath, but other than that, he didn’t move. Juliet watched his hands carefully, aware that his fingers would be the first to come free of the toxin, but they never twitched, not even when the deck said 100% and the dreamer program launched.

Juliet sat across from Gordon and watched his face as the program began to corrupt his PAI, watching the faint luminosity behind his irises as the program became his new reality. She didn’t feel guilty; in fact, if she did, it was because she’d let him off so easily. He’d never be the same, true, and he might die soon if someone didn’t take care of his body, but in the meantime, he was scot-free, living in the weird program’s alternate reality.

An image of Delma cowering before this man as he turned off her watchdog crossed Juliet’s mind, and she frowned and said, “Screw you, Gordon. I hope it’s a goddamn nightmare for you in there.” Then she stood up and returned to the desk to wait for Vance. A part of her, filled with morbid curiosity, wanted to close her eyes and concentrate on Gordon, wanted to see what his mind was thinking at that moment, but she denied that part of herself—she didn’t want that man’s thoughts in her mind, no matter the circumstance.

Instead, Juliet closed her eyes and concentrated on Vance. She imagined his face, his eyes with their too-smooth flesh, and his mouth with its youthful, out-of-place, plump young lips. Nothing came to her for a while, and, in the quiet of Chaudhry’s office, Juliet sat, listening to the quick, shallow breaths coming from Gordon. His breathing began to distract her so much that she gave up, opening her eyes and frowning at the man. His jaw had grown slack, and drool was running out of the corner of it, dripping off his chin.

She glanced at her clock, saw it was 0718, and said, “What do you think, Angel? Is he going to be on time?”

“I could ask Kent for his location.”

Juliet frowned, considering. The jammer was blocking wireless activity in the office from devices that weren’t on its exclusion list—Juliet’s cybernetics and her deck. Still, if Angel sent a message to Kent, what if the tower AI got curious and tried to look into the goings on in Chaudhry’s office? No, better to keep Kent out of the loop. “Patience is key,” she said, drumming the fingers of her free hand on the desk. She jumped and almost squeezed the trigger on the needler as the door handle twisted.

“Chaudhry? Are you in? It’s Vance,” the doctor announced as he pushed the door open. He took two steps in, turned toward the desk, and saw Juliet looking like a strange knock-off version of Chaudhry, pointing a compact but serious-looking pistol at him. He frowned, confusion twisting his expression as the door swung closed behind him. “What’s going on?”

“Sit down, Doctor, or I’ll shoot you in the face.” Juliet gestured toward the table where Gordon sat, stupefied. Vance licked his lips and turned his head toward the door, clearly contemplating running for it, “If you run, I promise you, I’ll have two shots into the back of your head before you clear that threshold.”

“Now, hold on,” Vance said, turning back to her, “No need for violence! Who are you?”

“Sit down.” Again, Juliet gestured with the gun. Vance finally turned toward the table, saw Gordon sitting, slack-jawed, eyes open, and literally hopped backward in surprise.

“What’s going on here? Gordon?”

“Sit. Down.” Juliet said again, putting some steel into her voice.

“You’re running a jammer!”

“Of course. This is the last time I’m going to ask you. Sit down.” Vance moved over to the table, taking the seat against the wall across from Gordon so that he could face Juliet behind Chaudhry’s desk. “Very good.”

“Who are you? Why are you impersonating Doctor Chaudhry?”

“Quiet now. I’ll ask the questions. The more honest you are, the less severe your fate will be, though I have to say, I’m already leaning toward something rather extreme considering all you’ve done.” Vance gulped, his hands fidgeting and twitching on the table before him, and Juliet stood up, stepping around the desk, so she stood between it and the little round table. “Carefully consider your answers, Vance. You’ll only get one shot at honesty. I’ll know if you’re lying.” She reached up, tapped her forehead with a wicked grin, and winked at him.