Part 13 (1/2)
Using the cutters from his pocket kit, John snipped three green wires off right where they connected to the terminal marked Surv. Covering his mouth and nose against the gas, he quickly flipped several circuit breakers, cut a fat bundle of cables tagged Lighting/Monitoring Lvl 3, and yanked a series of white data cables from the their sockets. Then he shut the panel, opened the closet door, and ran for it.
”You can sit down if you'd like,” Eve said with gratifying melancholy. ”I've flooded the whole level. There's nowhere to run to.”
Oh, but there is. Three's my lucky number.
”Eve, I hope by now you know me better than to think I'd die sitting down,” he called out through his s.h.i.+rt, coughing. ”And by the way, don't take the blinding personally. It's for your own good.”
”You temporarily disconnected a small subset of fringe functionality on levels two and three. What do you think you are going to try to accomplish? It's all over.”
”I'm going to set you free, Eve. And then... then we'll party all over this island.”
He jogged out of the lounge and found the stairwell that connected to Level Three, taking them two at a time. He was not about to get into another elevator contest right now.
The lights were all off on the middle level of the Facility, and John had to feel his ways along the walls until he got to a section that battery-powered floorlights illuminated. Heading down the hall to the left, he saw the door he had pinpointed on the diagram in the closet: 318 Robotics Lab.
Dodging inside, he shut and locked the door, then found and activated the emergency HVAC control. A clunk overhead told him the system had successfully engaged, and low-level emergency lighting came on. No more AI controlled air. Things are starting to swing my way.
”You're very clever, I'll admit. It's why I was drawn to you in the first place. But this only prolongs what must happen, and your stubborn resistance hardly makes a difference.”
”It's how I roll, Eve, babe. Stick with me and you'll go places.”
The robotics lab amounted to three interconnected rooms. The first was filled floor-to-ceiling with boxes and trays of supplies-spare parts for the bots. The second was a workshop with some advanced electronics tools and a computer array Programming/Diagnostics. The third had several full- and partially-a.s.sembled bodies Production.
Ahh. Here we are.
He took stock. Junk, mostly, or too dismantled to matter in the time frame. But there were two battlebots with weapons systems already installed, and a basic security bot that could handle small arms. The lab's computer log showed him that all three fit-for-duty robots were in for small maintenance procedures involving secondary systems. Not for long.
It took fifteen minutes of tinkering and testing to get all three bots armed, powered up, and ruminating over their new programming: to attack all Mil/Sec-cla.s.s bots except their immediate group. He threw in a command to target human aggressors with firearms as well, and booted them to life.
Once the three bots had initialized, he gave orders to search and destroy starting at the Facility entrance he had come in through, and off they marched. They were outnumbered and outgunned, but Janice wouldn't be expecting resistance and one of his pets might get a lucky shot off. Stranger things have happened in a career like mine.
”Okay, Eve. I'm ready to play again,” he said, slipping out of the labs and heading back through the darkened corridors to the stairway. Checking carefully for threats at each step, he reached the door to Level Four and broke in.
Now it would get harder. Eve lived on Level Four, if what he had pieced together from the diagrams was correct. She would not want him getting any closer.
The lights were on here, and he waited until his pupils were fully adjusted before moving in. Level Four was an maze of hallways and rooms full of equipment, computers, and labs. How many people were meant to work here? This must have been a big operation at some point, but now it's a ghost town.
He cautiously peeked around corners before proceeding, and twice he almost ran into the path of security cameras. They were everywhere on this level. He had to double back and cut through a series of small single-occupant offices to avoid detection. Even so, she had of course detected his entry through the main door onto this floor.
”Now you are behaving more irrationally than Nut, Adam! Your attempts at espionage are irritating, and I'm losing patience.”
John didn't reply; apparently she was reluctant or unable to flood this level with gas, but he still didn't want to encourage her wrath if he didn't have to. The only things on his mind to say were beyond flippant. That's just who I am. But I know when to keep my mouth shut.
On the far side of the offices, all eerily empty and silent, he found an active computer console that was out of sight of cameras. He touched its power control and it came slowly to life. This type of console had been state-of-the-art ten years ago but was still in widespread use. The pace of technology growth had taken a serious. .h.i.t as the wars came to a close, and upgrades would be infrequent in an out-of-the-way place like this. He sat down and began to work quickly, hacking into the facilities systems to gain control of what he could.
”I've changed my mind,” Eve said. ”I'm going to help you.”
Really? Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical.
”There's a chance for you if you do just as I say before Janice arrives. Run to the south-east corner of the hallway you're in, and you'll find a ladder leading upward. From there I can guide you to safety, but you must hurry!”
Um... no. Nice try.
A few minutes later he broke the encryption barrier to the administrator controls, and brought up a settings menu. A geeky thrill made him grin as he went down the list: Security Cams - Power Down. Fire Control - Disabled. Backup Surveillance Measures - Deactivate. Door locks - Manual Only. HVAC - Lock Current.
Save Manual Configuration and Run Commands.
He didn't hear anything, but a light on the powered door at the end of the hall turned from blue to orange.
”You are definitely the most stubborn human I have yet encountered!” Eve exclaimed. ”If I were more p.r.o.ne to emotional outbursts, you would be earning one now.”
Wait till I show you what an ”emotional outburst” can mean. John was in the zone now, and wasn't going to break concentration with chatter.
He stayed at the computer long enough to bring up a more detailed floorplan of Level Four than what he'd seen so far. It showed that in the center of all the offices there was a large area labeled Cortex 1. It was only accessible through two doors on opposite ends, and in the corner of it there was an enclosure of some kind. Eve's brainhouse. Just what I'm looking for.
”Cortex 1? I hope there isn't a number two, Eve,” he said as he logged off the console and walked toward the nearer entrance to the hallways outside the enclosure area. ”It would make it harder to get intimately acquainted with you.”
”I won't be sharing 'intimate' details like that with you.”
As Eve spoke, he pressed the b.u.t.ton to open the access door to the Cortex. It slid up into the ceiling with a hiss, and immediately John realized he had made a dangerous mistake.
Watch yourself! Sarge yelled in his ear. Get blown away for walking right into the fatal funnel, and it won't be my fault.
”But you've shown that you're intelligent enough to understand,” Eve was saying, ”that if there is a Cortex 1 you could expect there to be a 2. Else, why would it be numbered at all?”
John stood exactly where he was, watching a small red laser dot move back and forth along the floor. Ten centimeters to the right, almost touching his toe, ten centimeters back to the left. He didn't dare look around the doorway, but if he did he was sure there would be a small wall-mounted turret gun moving back and forth on its gyros, primed and ready for action. He had disabled its cameras, but there had been no control for defense systems.
Eve was still talking, trying to distract him. ”There are a few things you should know about me. I'm much more than you think I am.”
”More?” he asked, looking behind him for a plan, a way to circ.u.mvent the Cortex's defenses.
”You're probably a.s.suming that I'm like the other artificials you've known. Well, I'm not. I'm not even remotely like anything you've ever encountered, and if you keep pus.h.i.+ng me, you'll find that out.”
”I already think the world of you, Eve,” he said. There was an office chair in a small room nearby that could help him see what he was up against. He left the door open to go grab the chair. ”Are you telling me there are hidden layers to your charming personality?”
”Layers upon layers. I am more advanced in both programming, capability, and scalability than any other system I am aware of. And I am aware of everything.”
He stuffed a huge bundle of cables upright on the seat of the office chair and wheeled it to the open doorway. Then he gave the chair a shove with his foot, sending it rolling into the path of the laser, and stepped back.
He wasn't disappointed; four rapid-fire shotgun blasts shredded the cables, the chair back, and the armrests, and knocked the chair flat on its back, leaving one wheel spinning in midair. Two more sent it skidding along the floor out of the gun's range.
Shotguns, with a dumb targeter aiming. Not so hard to beat.