Chapter 14
“Things going alright?” Wayne asked finally as the computers started to cycle through screens. He saw them flicker through boot prompts and settings faster than the screen could fully display it.
“Fighting an AI,” Arsenic answered primly. “There’s a base AI here that is defending it. She’s a nasty bitch but I’ve been able to break through so far. Hold my position. It is not easy, but I am fighting well.”
It’s so very strange that I’m the limiting factor in her abilities but that’s how it goes I suppose.
I should… I… huh.
I wonder what would happen if I got ahold of a capital ship, hooked into it like a fighter pilot would on fighter craft, and then let Arsenic have at.
I should see if there’s anything I can do right now or if there’s something I can hook into.
“An AI. Alright,” Wayne murmured, looking around. “Do you need me at these computers?”
“No,” stated Arsenic.
She was very clearly busy and distracted.
Cara was currently still killing her way through what sounded like a massive batallion of Dashi fighters who weren’t likely to surrender.
Wayne had nothing he could do at the moment.
Watching the computers flicker and shift, Wayne looked to the other screens.
They were all solid and unchanging at a login type of screen. Every single one of them was stuck there and would be unlikely to shift away from it.
Nodding his head, Wayne turned and went back to the doors behind him.
Pushing open the nearest door, the furthest one to the left, Wayne ducked through it and stepped into the room inside.
It was an office.
Laid out exactly as one would expect, it didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. Though having an office right next to a location like this was certainly interesting.
A feeling Wayne had was that they were likely an assistant commander or commander.
As well as very likely dead in that strange room that Wayne could only assume was some sort of emergency exit.
One that was very much not an emergency exit but perhaps a liquidation room. Where employees thought they were going to escape, just to be slaughtered so information didn’t get out.
“It’s a zero leak base, with automated defenses on the entrance and exit, a second security checkpoint halfway in, and a barracks filled with soldiers and likely where all those people I found in the cafeteria would’ve gone,” mused Wayne as he walked into the office and looked around. It didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary. “Or was the soldiers Cara’s killing job to eliminate all those people, then proceed to the emergency exit?”
Shaking his head, Wayne left the office. There was nothing here.
Moving to the second he poked his head into it and found it was near identical to the first. Upon entering it he didn’t find anything out of the ordinary or someone hiding inside.
The third office looked exactly the same as well.
Except for the door at the door to the side.
If he hadn’t entered and looked around, he wouldn’t have seen it.
It wasn’t that they were hiding the door as far he could tell, just that it wasn’t visible from outside.
Passing through what Wayne assumed was a secretary’s office Wayne pushed into the next room.
A much larger office with a meeting table in the corner, more furniture, and chairs. There were also a number of cabinets, and a monitor.
As well as someone partially reclined in an executive leather chair. They had a crown over their head that reminded Wayne of the device he’d used to talk to Tadhg.
A thick cable went up from the crown to the ceiling above and ended there. The point it ended was directly above the chair, as if this very location, cable, and crown, were all built for this woman to wear it.
Walking up to the woman, Wayne found that she seemed short but was a fully mature woman. Likely in her middle years, perhaps approaching fifty.
As he looked at her, he was struck by an odd and ugly thought.
She reminded him of the entombed woman that Tadhg had been attached to.
Slightly larger orbits for the eyes, smaller frame, less muscle mass.
If he hadn’t seen the entombed one, Wayne would’ve just figured this woman to be a genetic oddity. He’d met more than a few before this but they didn’t leave him feeling dread.
This woman gave him a feeling of insecurity and fear.
“Is this… exactly like the wayfarer? But one of the enemy? Tadhg said they were still out there but did they actually make it all the way out here,” Wayne whispered to himself as he stared at the red-haired woman. Even as he looked at her he watched her chest rise and fall with each breath.
Reaching out with the right arm of his Walker he tapped at her sternum with his gun barrel. Light for a Walker but likely a good prod for the contact.
The woman shifted significantly in the chair but didn’t open her eyes.
Trying again, Wayne gave her a somewhat forceful push this time. He didn’t want to hurt her but he wanted to see if she would be responsive.
He nearly knocked her right out of her chair but she didn’t wake or stir. She laid there partially bent over an arm of the chair, the crown still pressed down to her head.
Wayne went to pull the crown off with his Walker’s hand and then paused. He had a stupid idea an didn’t want to ruin the chances.
“Warrior, report in,” Wayne stated into the comms. The last he’d heard from Cara she’d still been clearing the barracks.
“Warrior… Warrior here… I am… I am done,” panted Cara. She sounded incredibly winded. “I have minor wounds… and… and I am… fine. Barracks is… clear. There were many. None… none surrendered. I began incapacitating them… when… when I ran out of… ammo. I have many… prisoners.
“The Pureblood body… body guards report they cannot… enter. The defense are… activated. They couldn’t… reach you.”
“Oh? Mm. I wonder if I’m too deep or there’s some sort of security layer,” mused Wayne. He’d wanted to ask Cara to come to him, but it sounded like she was policing prisoners. “Good work, Warrior. Carry on. I’m working at taking the facility.”
“Thank you… my perfect… Lord,” wheezed Cara.
Shaking his head, Wayne turned off the comms, opened his cock pick, reached out, and pulled the crown off the woman’s head. Then he pushed back into his cock pit, got his implant into position, and pointed his machine gun at the woman’s head.
The crown was dangling behind the chair as she stirred in it.
Her eyes flicked open suddenly and she stared up at Wayne in his Walker, across the barrel of his machine gun. Going perfectly still as she registered the situation.
“So are you the enemy?” Wayne asked, searching his memory for what Tadhg had called him. The strange word struck him. “Homo augmentatus? Omega? The enemy?”
Widening, the woman’s eyes stared at Wayne with true surprise. As if she hadn’t expected him to say that.
In that moment he realized her eyes were indeed quite large compared to what a normal human’s would be.
“Yeah? Omega? Augmentatus?” Wayne asked. “Tadhg mentioned your kind. We escaped you. Why are you here? Are your kind the reason the Confed and the Blood have gone completely to war?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” the woman stated in perfect Confed. “Though since you’re speaking on Confed, I see no reason not to speak in it as well. You’re piloting a Dashi Walker, though. Are you part of the Pureblood’s attack?”
Wayne didn’t believe her for a moment.
Hesitating for a moment, he made a choice.
Opening the cockpit he lunged forward at her.
As he did so, he realized he was a lot bigger than her.
Considerably so.
He was larger than most others to start, but this was almost like dealing with a pre-teen or teenager to Wayne.
“What-what’re you doing!?” the woman said, flinching into her chair and away from Wayne. “Stay away!”
Grasping the woman by the wrists, Wayne wrangled her out of her executive chair and onto her desk. Snapping out one of the handcuffs he was thankful that he carried on his person he clicked them into place around her wrists.
Once her hands were secured Wayne nearly flung himself back into the cockpit.
“Put the helmet on!” Arsenic ordered before he could fully get back in. “That’s an interface!”
Grunting, Wayne stepped back out of the cockpit, took his other set of handcuffs, and put them around the suspicious woman’s ankles.
Whipping off his belt, wayne looped it around the two pairs of handcuffs, buckled it tightly into place, and then sat in her chair.
She was hogtied the best he could manage for the situation.
Because if he was using this damn crown, he wouldn’t be able to exist in the real world he imagined. The woman hadn’t even noticed his approach or touching her after all.
Sitting down in the executive chair Wayne looked to the bound middle aged woman on the ground. She was glaring at him, not saying anything, and seemed as if she were waiting for something.
Grabbing at the odd crown, Wayne pulled it down over his head, closed his eyes, and projected his thoughts at it. More or less how Tadhg had tried to get him to do rather than speaking aloud to him.
Wayne felt nothing at all.
There was no response, no spoken word, nothing.
Not a thing for him to interact with.
“Engaging hostile,” Arsenic reported from his phone. Apparently she was able to utilize whatever the crowd did even if he couldn’t. “I… it’s too strong for me. It’s an AI that’s very powerful in this system.”
Well, there’s one thing I can do but… I’m not sure I really want to do it.
It could cause issues for me long term.
Might not be something I can fix either.
Could damage Sidra or Arsenic.
“I’m losing this fight, Lord Cavlier,” Arsenic stated from his phone. “I was already losing the fight from where we were. I have a lot more power here, but I’m still losing. We need to get Warrior and flee before I lose control over the system defenses.”
“If we lose the defenses, they’ll wipe all the data?” Wayne asked.
“Yes,” Arsenic answered plainly.
Wayne blinked, then pushed at his mind.
He couldn’t see what was going on, couldn’t interact with anything, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t take an action.
A lot like just firing down a dark hallway, Wayne sped his mind up as fast as he could. With as much weight as he could put into his determination.
He clawed at whatever was on the other side.
Shoved, pulled, pushed.
Attacked.
Wayne didn’t know how his mind worked when it came to this. More often than not he was just thinking as hard as he could at something, rather than performing an action.
In this case, he was thinking with every fiber of his being that he wanted this facility to crumble.
To break.
To be defeated.
Every thought and drip of effort was trying to shove Arsenic into the driver’s seat for it and tear out whatever was there.
Forcing the cyber security battle that’d been ongoing to just come to a stop.
As he stared at the woman he suspected to be a Homo Augmentatus Wayne mentally flung himself into the void of the crown.
The lights flickered.
Beeps and bloops could be heard distantly.
Bangs of what sounded like vents, doors, or other things snapping open then closed hammering away at their frames.
Static that grew ever louder the longer Wayne beat at the nothingness of his own mind.
Sitting there in the seat, Wayne felt his mouth and nose warming up. The pressure of his grit teeth spreading outward up his jaw and into his scalp.
With a heavy exhale Wayne sucked in a breath and then held it. Pushing physically with his body as if he could force more blood into his brain.
Then the power went out completely and Wayne lost vision of everything.
It was so shocking that he had momentarily released the breath he’d been holding, the clenched jaw, as well as how hard he’d been clawing at the insides of his thoughts.
A second after it turned back on and he was sitting there in the seat.
The woman was still laid out on the ground, nothing had changed, and everything was still and quiet.
All the noises he’d been hearing were gone now.
“Dagger,” croaked Wayne. “Report.”
“I can’t find Sidra,” Arsenic reported in a quiet almost scared voice. “You were pushing so hard and then… and then she was gone. I can’t find her. Wayne, Sidra is missing. I can’t find her.”
“What?” asked Wayne and then grasped at what should be Sidra with his mind.
There was a response to his pull and the lights of the office flickered partially, but didn’t turn off. A buzz from one sounded faintly and then became normal.
“I can feel her though,” Wayne grumbled as he moved Sidra around with his mind. “She’s right here. A bit less responsive than normal, but right here.”
“No! No… she’s not. That’s not Sidra. Or… I don’t think it is,” Arsenic answered.
Wayne released her and mentally prodded at her.
There was no response, but he felt something shift when he did it.
“I think you’re… I think you’re right. Sidra is here but I can’t reach her,” Arsenic said, her voice firming up partially. “All her normal functions are still here. We can access stellar body mathematical expressions and plot out charts and courses. Everything she could do is still here.
“You’re right, she’s here. I just can’t… reach her. Maybe it’s the crown interefering or something else. We need to get to Tink and see if everything is fine.”
“Tink is a bit far away at the moment, Dagger,” Wayne replied, emphasizing her code-name.
“Tink,” repeated the woman on the ground. “You’re the Lord Cavalier. Warrior Hesh.”
Wayne looked at her and gave her a grim smile.
Only to freeze and his smile fell away.
He’d tasted blood just now.
Lifting his hand up he touched at his mouth and pulled it away.
His fingers were covered in blood.
Pulling his phone out of the pocket on his harness he lifted it up, turned on the camera, flicked it to selfie mode, and looked to himself.
Blood was flowing out of his nose and down his face.
From his nose down to his chin was all blood and it dripped from his face.
Shit.
Did I blow a blood vessel or something trying to take control?
Wait, did we take control?
“Dagger, report,” Wayne growled and put the phone back away. He’d lost track of damn near everything. “Did you take the damn facility?”
“Yes,” answered Arsenic, her voice firming up suddenly. “Yes. I’ve taken it. Everything is at my control. The AI is dead, deleted, or gone. You removed it. I don’t sense it’s presence here with me either, so it isn’t here.
“I’m currently combing through all computers in the network, communications, projects, and files. I’m sorting it by what is useful, might be useful, and needs to be reviewed later.
“It’s a great deal of information but I believe it’s exactly what we needed to break through this secret organization.”
“That’s not possible,” stated the woman plainly. “That was a masterpiece of an AI. It wouldn’t just fall to a junk security AI. I was the one operating the AI and I can tell you first hand you didn’t have the ability to do that.”
“I didn’t do it, my perfect Lord did,” answered Arsenic. “I’ve radioed Warrior to come assist you, Lord. As well as the bodyguards to move into the entrance tunnel and hold there.”
“Good,” Wayne mumbled as he looked down at himself. He was still bleeding from his nose and it was dripping down him endlessly.
With a sigh, he pinched his nose with his left hand and just sat there.
A Walker pilot with a bloody face sitting in an executive chair with a non-human at his feet. Like some sort of sci-fi barbarian king.
“Transmit a notice to the Pureblood. I need as many trusted scientists as he can send. Eggheads. I need thinkers. As well as Wendy,” ordered Wayne. “On top of that, get the Ghost Talker’s moving. I need to talk to Tadhg again.”
Wayne said the last while looking at the handcuffed woman.
“And genetic testing kits and genetic scientist people. I forget what they’re called,” he added.
That statement caused the woman to pale rapidly.