Nyx Smith - Fade to Black

The comm cut into his thoughts, first, a beep, then Rico saying, "Beta… time check."

What freaking time was it anyway?

Didn't matter…

Thorvin checked his radar and navcomp, initialized the chopper's autopilot, then flipped the main switch on his remote-vehicle multiplex controller.

No more helicopter.

Instead, he had the body of a Sikorsky-Bell Microskimmer, a kind of saucer-shaped drone the size of a trash can lid. Sensors provided a full, 360-degree global view of everything around him, disorienting, but only for a moment.

Dok and Filly were just then lifting him free of the carrypak strapped to Shank's back and setting him down on the floor, which looked like ferrocrete. The penetration team was to one of the underground utility tunnels beneath the Maas Intertech facility. From a few centimeters above the floor, the top of the skimmer's sensor pod, Shank still looked like a dumb trog.

"Beta," Rico said, "Take point."

No problem.

Thorvin wound up his turbofans and slid forward, weaving around the ankles of Shank and Rico and advancing to the end of the passage. Directly ahead was a cavernous labyrinth of massive conduits and equipment rising three stories from the floor, all rumbling like a roadtrain on a quicksilver run.

This was Maas Intertech's power and water hub. Thorvin shot straight for the ceiling, then vectored right for a quick recon. Security cameras had every service aisle and catwalk under surveillance, but that was Piper's problem. Thorvin's problem was the odd dozen technicians moving throughout the hub.

He contacted Rico via direct laserlink to guide the penetration team through the maze.

The cat-and-mouse game couldn't last. There were too many techs and they never seemed to stay in one spot for more than a couple of moments. Sooner or later, one or more of them would turn the wrong way and see the wrong thing. Rico knew it-it was inevitable-but he played the game as long as he could. The longer he and the team went without putting people down, without doing anything that would rouse 'suspicions, the better their chances of getting out of this alive.

They were moving up a service aisle between conduits at least half a meter in diameter, stacked up two stories on both sides of the aisle, when Thorvin reported, "Contact ahead, passage right, three meters in."

No choice, no alternate routes, ho time to wait for the contact to wander away. Rico tapped Shank's shoulder to get his attention, then quickly pointed and gestured to indicate the new threat, somewhere around the corner of the passage coming up on the right. The instant Shank nodded, Rico turned and motioned Bandit forward. A quick whisper and Bandit nodded, then did something with his hand.

About five meters ahead of them, something banged and clanged. That was followed by what sounded like the sharp, shrill shriek of an alley cat.

"What the frag was that?" a man exclaimed.

A big slag wearing a gray and blue technician's jumpsuit stepped into the aisle just ahead, first looking up the aisle, then back.

Rico saw the man's eyes widen, but Shank was ready, crouching, Ares Special Service gripped and uplifted in two big blocky hands. The weapon thumped. The technician grunted, lifting a hand toward his ribs, then stumbled and collapsed.

"Larry?" a woman called. "Larry! Oh-!"

A woman in the same style jumpsuit stepped hurriedly into the aisle, bending toward the fallen man. Shank fired again. The woman jerked, falling onto her hands and knees, then, head lolling, slumped to the floor.

Here was one advantage of soft ammo. The two techs would be out for maybe an hour, but nothing about them gave any obvious evidence as to what had happened. No damage to clothes, no apparent signs of injury. Nothing that would necessarily instigate a full-scale security alert. The pair could have passed out drunk. Inside this power and water hub, they could conceivably have contacted some toxic substance or even high-voltage electric and been accidentally stunned or knocked unconscious. Whoever found the fallen techs would probably take a long, hard look at the surrounding pipes and equipment for signs of some technical malfunction. That was good because it would waste time, and one man's loss was another man's gain.

Before this was over, they'd need every millisecond of advantage they could get.

Control of the engineering CPU was just the beginning. By manipulating aspects of the engineering mainframe, Piper could extend her control and manipulate other aspects of the Maas Intertech facility that might impinge on the run.

The chief engineer icon, the critical circuits of the engineering CPU, was now working for her voluntarily. In addition to preforming its usual duties, it was monitoring the progress of the penetration team, it was also disabling security monitors and sensors in an ostensibly random pattern designed not only to safeguard the team and prevent discovery, but also to conceal the team's objective.

Abruptly, a warning tone sounded.

"Medic alert," the chief engineer informed. "Automated signal. Sublevel two, section seven, Advanced Water Purification unit."

"Intercept the signal," Piper said.

"Negative. Signal dispatched via radiolink. Facility MedStat responding, E.T.A. three minutes."

That was too fast, because the site of the alert was too near the penetration team's location. Piper brought up facility maps on the big display screens on the walls. The Maas Intertech emergency medical unit responded from a central suite. They would have to enter the Engineering Facility through a ground-floor entrance. "Cut power to all north-facing ground-level entranceways and lobbies for the next five minutes. Advise security CPU that we are experiencing scattered power outages related to the anomalies detected earlier. Also, reroute all priority A, double-A, and triple-A engineering terminals to the database management CPU."

"Acknowledged," the chief engineer replied. "Executing. Except I don't have authority to reroute triple-A priority terminals."

"If you had that authority, which key would you use?"

"The big red one there."

Piper reached over and tapped it.

Utility Passage Nine Main led out of the north end of the engineering building and into a series of auxiliary tunnels leading to the engineering sublevel of Residence Quad One, which was composed of four residence towers rising to fourteen stories. The majority of Maas Intertech's corporate citizens and their families lived on-site in this and other quad condoplexes.

The game of avoiding facility technicians ended at the service hatch for Elevator Three West. The hatch swung open as they approached. That was Piper's doing.

The inside of the elevator shaft was about twelve meters square-not a lot of room for five bodies that included a husky ork and a shaman who didn't seem to be paying complete attention-but they'd all been through this drill before.

Secure hatchway. Secure weapons. Secure kevlar-reinforced web-straps to body harness. Crouch low and wait.

They didn't have to wait long.

Cables along both sides of the shaft began to move. A low-pitched humming carried down from above. Rico's microchip-enhanced vision drew the image out of the darkness. The elevator above them was descending, dropping down fast from something like the eighth floor. It didn't stop till it was just centimeters above Rico's head, about half a ton of metal just hanging there, waiting.

They went to work.

This elevator car, like most, had a solid steel floor designed to absorb impact. Cutting a hole through that would take time, minutes they couldn't afford. The run was already twenty minutes old, fifteen from first penetration. By the odds, they didn't have much time left.

A soft electronic tone sounded inside Rico's headset, followed by Piper's voice: "Time is zero-one-two-eight." That was a warning, and it echoed the warning of Rico's own instincts. It meant that things were happening in the Maas Intertech computers that would inevitably lead to some kind of alert condition. Not right this minute, but soon enough. When it happened, whatever happened, they'd better be on their way out.