Chapter Text
I hate planets. This is a pretty well established fact about me. Unfortunately, now that I'm working with ART and its crew, I'm required to be on planets for missions not infrequently. And every single time one of these missions happen, something goes wrong. Because of course it does. It's a mission, and it's on a planet.
Case in point, I'm a little fucked right now. By that I mean that I'm folded up in the ventilation system of a corporate 'research' (illegal weapons manufacturing) compound, erasing myself from as many cameras as possible. I've hacked into the building feed, but that's about all I have. This wouldn't have been a problem if everything had just gone correctly, because ART was with me in mini drone form, and it had a discreet feed connection to ART-Prime. Unfortunately, ART-MiniDrone got destroyed by being shot.
Yeah, we got found out. ART had done its best with what we already knew about the compound-printed the right uniforms in the right textures, made a language module that mirrored how most employees talked, and we'd even managed to get some of the schematics for the building itself. Which sounds pathetic, I know, but this place was locked down tight. There was a reason it was only me infiltrating- things had the potential to go really fucking bad if one of the crew got found out. Like, kidnapping-torture-ransom-and-probably-murder bad.
This place is heavily guarded. There's human guards armed with powered armor and energy weapons, a lot of surveillance bots, and I'm pretty sure they have Combat SecUnits in the high-clearance zones.
Why no SecUnits, you ask? ART and I were pretty sure that the companies working on this didn't trust the security of SecUnit firewalls, and also didn't like the fact that they would probably have to lease out to a third-party company, which would be a hugely stupid move considering we're basically spyware. So, no SecUnits.
Which... I don't know. I don't like hurting other SecUnits. It's not like they're choosing to fight me, but all the same, they are. SecUnits are largely predictable, too. I guess it's easier to take them down than it is Combat SecUnits. We're disposable anyways.
Still. I don't like it.
At the moment, I'm trying my best to hack into their feed. This compound's feed is pretty tightly locked down, except for a heavily-defended link to a relay that lets them communicate with satellites. If I can hack into the relay, I can tweak the code just a little bit to let me communicate with ART. There'll be a pretty heavy delay, and I'll have to compress my messages down a lot so they don't look suspicious, but it's more than nothing.
It takes about five minutes (why the hell did they make this thing so hard to crack?) but eventually I get access to the feed relay. Commands to the satellites for things like imaging data get sent out automatically every few seconds, so I grab one of those requests and modify the target to be ART. I change the message, too. There's so many satellites that are addressed with hard feed addresses. The feed address gets checked before the request is sent out, so the system won't flag this message as being sent out of network. If a human reviews it, there sheer number of satellite feed addresses should drown out ART's. I hope.
The message has to be pretty condensed, too. The commands are mostly sent in LanguageBasic, so I have to write in that, too. First I'll have to figure out how to write this. Objective=complete, client count decreased, hostiles imminent, assistance requested. That should do it. I do have the data we wanted- ART-MiniDrone and I both downloaded copies in case something like this happened.
Wait. Shit. If a tech reviews this, they'll see the text output was anomalous. I quickly make a cipher using ART's hard feed address as the key so the message just looks like garbage data. Hopefully ART figures it out (of course it will).
I send off the message and wait for a reply. While I'm waiting, I review the camera footage I've gotten. This place is absolutely full of them, but they're split up into different networks based on section, so I have to hack a new encryption and fool a new set of scanners every time I want to look more into the building. I haven't reviewed the intel we collected, but they must be making some really illegal stuff here if they're that concerned with security.
The area I'm in is pretty low-clearance, so there's not a lot of security here. There's still a lot of armed humans (what is their deal with giving their humans energy weapons? The rate of workplace injury in this place must be abysmal) and a decent amount of those security/surveillance bots roaming about, but nothing too terrible. I start running a process to figure out what their routes are. The problem is, I don't have camera access all the way to the exits. I have the schematics ART and I put together, but I don't have anything on the security level in those regions or what the bot patrol routes are like.
There's another pressing concern too, because it's been 4.59 minutes and ART still hasn't responded to my message. I'm starting to worry it got intercepted, or they have another filter for junk data I didn't pick up on and my message got deleted for looking buggy. I'm scouring the data when a response from ART comes back. I snap it up before any of the filtering systems can get to it. ART's encoded its message, too, using my hard feed address. When I unscramble the message, it's about what I expected. Get out of the facility, we're sending a shuttle to pick you up, we'll stay in contact. I check the metadata.
Huh.
It seems like the relay is longer than I thought it was. The sending time for ART's reply is about 2.39 minutes after I sent it. ART's processing power is big enough that it should have been able to understand and reply to that message almost instantaneously. The connection it and ART-MiniDrone had was pretty fast, too. So, I guess the relay time is around 5 minutes. I compose another message, confirming that I received the previous communication, am preparing to make an exit and also that I'm aware of our comms delay. Which is pretty damn annoying. Five minutes is a huge delay, enough that I'm basically on my own if I get into a combat situation. ART won't be able to reply in time for it to make a difference- situations change too fast for that.
Hopefully it has some way to bypass the relay system? I'm really hoping it does. Otherwise I have to wait another five minutes for it to get back to me, and staying in this position any longer is going to get pretty dangerous.
Speaking of which, it's about time to get moving. I've charted a course through what I think the compound looks like. Right now, I'm on the fifth floor. There aren't any exits on this level and I don't have explosives or projectile weapons to make one (plus this building is strong enough to stand up to that, and blowing a hole in the wall is a pretty good way to get everyone in the building coming after you at once) so I have to get down to where there are exits. There's a hangar for upper-atmosphere crafts on the third floor I think I could get to without crossing any high-security areas. Of course then I have to get down from there, but I'll deal with that later.
I'm staying in the ventilation system as long as I can. Keeps me out of the way of most of the cameras. Unfortunately for me, the vents get small fast and I stop being able to fit, so I'm stopping at an enclosed hygiene station to get out of the vents. From there, I'll spoof some directions from a supervisor and get down the transport tube to the third floor. Once I'm on the third floor, I have to make it halfway across the building. The fake orders I'll make will only get me so far, so I'll probably have to doctor some scans and camera footage.
The biggest issue I'm going to run into is also the main reason we decided to go for this location at all. There's a fuckton of employees. The problem with this is there's nowhere people aren't passing through, so I have to look non-suspicious at all times. The benefit is that the human supervisors and other workers don't really give too much scrutiny to someone they haven't seen before, so I can pass as an employee. I do have to trick the system into accepting me as a worker, but that was the first thing ART-MiniDrone and I did when we got here, so I'm not concerned.
When I get to the hangar, all I should need to do is trick the authorization system into letting me pass, and then get down to ground level from there. Without getting caught.
Okay, this plan is getting less plausible the more I avoid thinking about it, so I set up a background process to run so I can figure out how the hell I'm getting down.
I've made it to the hygiene station. Twisting myself out of the ventilation system quietly proves to be a lot more of a challenge than I initially thought it would be, but eventually I'm on the floor. I replace the grating on the opening as fast as possible and check the hallway outside. There wasn't anyone waiting for this one that suddenly found it occupied, so I think I'm safe to go.
Before I leave I catch a glimpse of myself in the small reflection surface they have in here and. Hm. The uniform is pretty messed up from crawling around in the ventilation system, so I have to spend another few minutes in the hygiene station making myself look as normal as possible before I can go out. I've pulled up some authorization codes from the parts of the database I have access to and I'm deleting my footage as I go. I need fake identification, fake supervisor instructions, fake communication records and a fake employee history.
Oh fuck.
I need supervisor credentials. The pieces of the database I have don't give me supervisor names, stations, or sign-off information. The encryption on the higher-level parts is hard enough that I can't crack it, not while still looking like a human and still removing myself from scans and cameras. ART-MiniDrone was able to, but I don't have it right now. So, I have to go get the information myself.
Now that I have employee credentials, I can use those to get a better map of the facility. Some areas are still blanks, but helpfully, supervisor offices are marked with the name of the sector they work for. The offices themselves serve >20 supervisors each, so there's a lot of names to choose from. I'll probably have to go to the offices and request permission. So how am I going to get them to sign off on my fake orders?
I keep walking down the hallway. I'm not really going anywhere but I'm walking confidently enough that no one asks me what I'm doing. The feed flickers for .29 seconds, for some reason.
I've got it.
If I say I'm a third floor employee checking in on the status of work in the fifth floor for something that connects to whatever I work on, I can ask for confirmation of my inspection and transit authorization to return (in this building, if you want to move between floors, you have to get your use of the transit tubes authorized. It's pretty common practice. They say it's to maximize productivity, which moreso means 'separate the employees as much as possible so they won't talk to each other and leak secrets'). It's a human supervisor, and they're each managing hundreds of workers, so they're all probably exhausted. Audits and checks like this are pretty common in workplaces, and I've heard clients complaining about the latest pointless check and how their superiors are breathing down their necks. Usually, they just want to sign off on whatever it is and get back to work, so I should avoid scrutiny. I just have to hope they don't care enough to check.
First, I have to find a discipline on the third floor that 1. Has reason to be checking on something on the fifth floor and 2. Has some kind of authority over the fifth floor workers. That's easy enough- there's a lot of parts manufacturing on the fifth floor, and the third floor has one of the software testing sections. I can probably make something up about faulty parts that my supervisor wanted me to go report on. Then, I have to pick the supervisor I think would be the most exhausted and/or have the least patience for my bullshit. Checking through disciplines, I think I have a good chance with one of the Microprocessor Manufacturing Unit Supervisors, Supervisor Minya. They have to oversee about 1,057 workers, and they probably get a lot of shit from other sections that use their parts.
I review my fake identity. It says I'm Taina Antilt, they/them, working in Software Testing under Supervisor Lume, hired five Corporation Standard Years ago. I throw in some information about sexual/romantic preferences as well as some other typical feed details like languages to make it more believable.
It doesn't take long to get to the supervisor's office where Minya I is. There's a feed interface that lets you choose which supervisor you want to ping, and it takes a few minutes before Supervisor Minya makes it out. I was right about them being overworked- they look like someone punched them in the eyes. "What is it?" she asks me. I prepared for this conversation! "Supervisor Lume had me come up here to review your products. We've been having some issues during testing that don't seem to be linked to our code, so..." She sighs and rubs at her eyes. "Yeah, I know. You need a statement or something?" I nod. "Statement, and then tube authorization." She pings me and I almost respond with my usual timing, but I catch myself and set up a 1.5 second delay. I send the faked documentation over and hope my work holds.
I did well, or maybe Supervisor Minya is so exhausted she doesn't notice, because she sends me the file back in about 15 seconds. I don't really care about the statement, but it'll be useful if anyone tries to confront me. So I hurry out of the supervisor's station and head for the transit tubes. The feed drops again, this time for 1.49 seconds, which is worrying.
Then, it gets even worse. The feed is flickering on and off at random intervals. The humans can't notice it, but the lights are also flickering slightly. This is really, really not good. I speed up until I'm pretty much running. Pulling up schematics, there's a hallway nearby where I can try to hack into the systems and figure out what's going on. Once I get there, though, it's pretty apparent what's happening.
See, the planet I'm on is not the most habitable of worlds. The atmosphere is technically breathable, but it wouldn't take long for a human to die. Most of the world is pretty dry and dusty- there's not much life here. Pretty much all of it is microbial. As a consequence of the loose dust everywhere and some unfortunate atmospheric qualities (I don't really know what-ART tried to explain it to me but I gave up when it started talking about molecular physics) large dust storms are a pretty common occurrence. The wall of this hallway is full of weather monitors, all displaying flashing severe storm warnings.
I don't really know much about storms, but if this one is bad enough to wreck the feed and apparently power sources, I can presume I won't survive out there. So, change of plans. There's hoppers on the first floor that I could commandeer. Now I have to get there. The main issues with this are 1. that with the feed off, most identification and permissions are done analog or require more extensive certification I don't have, and it's not like I can hack some object. 2. that travel between floors and zones is heavily restricted 3. that I can't cover my tracks. All of this put together means that escaping from here subtly is not an option. Oh, I forgot one- I can't communicate with ART now.
I think this situation has escalated from 'a little fucked' to 'oh shit'.
For now, I keep walking. No reason to cause issues early. Once I get to the transit region, there's a crowd around the entrance, which is basically nonfunctional due to the loss of the feed. The tubes are still functional (for now) but the system that operates the part checking for permissions relies on the feed, so no one can get in. The tubes spit out whatever passengers they had and then stopped moving.
As I get closer, I start walking a little faster. I'm approaching from the side, and there's a lot of people coming over, so no one looks my way. Good. I get to the right distance and now I'm sprinting. Just a few strides, and then I use my hands to bounce off the scanner and flip into the air. When I'm vertical I quickly use my energy weapons to disable the gate. The buffer disappears just in time for me to sail over, catch myself, roll, get to one of the empty tubes, and force the door open. They work mostly by a pulley system (because those are cheaper) so it's not too difficult to jump in and grab onto one of the metal cords.
The friction of my hands and feet against the cord slows my descent somewhat but I'm still going much too fast. The inorganic parts and clothing that are pressed up against the cable get shredded pretty quickly, and my inorganic parts are getting damaged too. That part is more of an inconvenience compared to the fact that if I keep going this speed when I get to the first floor I'm going to break a lot of myself, and absolutely get caught and maybe shut down permanently. So, I need to slow down. I'm tightening my grip intermittently but I'm going too fast to stop, and I'm stuck in this unfortunate position of needing to not completely wreck myself and also needing to get down there as fast as possible so word can't spread as fast about the intruder getting into their compound.
The tubes aren't that wide, which gives me an idea. I'm able to twist myself so I'm somewhat horizontal, and brush my heels against the wall. It tears through my shoes pretty quickly and starts making this terrible screeching noise when it gets into contact with my heels (they're mostly metal), but I'm slowing down, so I just turn down my hearing and pain receptors and keep modulating my speed.
The fall down to the first floor doesn't take that long, but it's long enough for me to get some of my processes together and scrape up something that bears a vague resemblance to a plan. It basically is just 'get down, run as fast as you can, fight anyone you have to, commander a hopper, get the hell out of here, and contact ART'. Of course, this relies on ART not figuring I'm a lost cause and cutting its losses, which is a situation I am firmly not thinking about. Also the storm needs to not kill me before I can get to ART. So. Not a great plan, Murderbot. Risk/threat assessment is freaking the hell out.
After about two minutes of friction slowly shredding me while I frantically make up and discard plans to get the hell out, I'm low enough to let go of the cable and drop onto the bottom of the chute.
I've come to a plan:I'm brute-forcing my way through this one.
Yeah, I'm gonna have to go to medical if I get back.