CHAPTER 12
The Bauhaus Gaststätte restaurant was closed when I arrived there an hour or so later. That wasn’t surprising; they were never open on Sundays. What was unusual was the Baron wanting to see me outside of normal business hours. I figured he liked to keep up the appearances of me just being a fan of the restaurant (which was true, I loved the food). Having me come over when they were closed was more suspicious, though. I could only assume that whatever testing he had done had verified the authenticity of the Seraph fragment.
I parked around back, by the staff entrance, and got out of my car. It was a cool but clear day, a pleasant break from the normal rain and gloom of autumn in Delta City. The door slid open with a quiet hiss as I approached and closed behind me. One of the server robots was waiting for me inside.
“Please come this way, sir,” it said. Without another word it pivoted around and rolled away. I followed the bot across the restaurant and was led to Deitrik’s private office. He was waiting for me inside, sitting behind a large desk that appeared to be fashioned from real wood.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice,” Deitrik said. He didn’t stand up to greet me. He looked tired, like he hadn’t gotten any sleep. He motioned toward a plush chair facing his desk. “Please, sit down.”
I took my hat and coat off and held them in my lap after taking a seat. “Why do I feel like I’ve been called to the principal’s office?” I asked, only half-jokingly.
The Baron didn’t smile. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. His hands were folded together on the desk in front of him, almost like he was praying.
“Deitrik, are you alright?”
He slowly shook his head. “No, I am not.” He looked up at me. “I had the object you brought me tested in a laboratory. They were unable to identify what material it is made from, and it displayed properties that they described as . . .” He trailed off.
“Anomalous?” I said, finishing the statement for him.
“Yes. I did some more checking. I wanted to make sure I had investigated every possibility before reaching a conclusion. For example, it is not illegal for a corporation to have small samples of alien technology to study. There is a process which allows for this outlined in the Conventions on the Discovery and Control of Alien Technology, Organisms, and Remains, and it was possible that Ascension had acquired the sample legally. That might have also explained why Dr. Ivery was apparently planning on smuggling it off-world.”
“An artifact like that would be immensely valuable on the black market.”
“Indeed. However, Ascension has not requested nor been granted the legal authorizations to acquire and keep a sample of alien technology for research purposes. Nothing of the sort is to be found in any of the company’s records, going back a decade.”
“If they didn’t acquire it legally, that means it was either brought to Nova Columbia off the books or they found it here.”
He nodded. “Correct. The information encoded onto the identification card included with the fragment lists when and where it was found. It was excavated from Site 471.”
“Well, then,” I said, “isn’t that all you need? That’s proof, right? Can you expose this whole thing?” He didn’t answer. “Deitrik?”
“I sent a routine query to the station chief of Nova Columbia’s SIS detachment. I didn’t mention you or what you found. I stated that I’d heard in the news that an Ascension scientist was found murdered, and that sources are reporting unconfirmed rumors of possible alien technology at Site 471.”
“I see. What did they say?”
“I was told that they had also heard of the rumor and investigated it thoroughly. SIS investigators were invited to go inspect Site 471, which they did, and that no evidence of alien technology was found. I was assured that Ascension was quite forthcoming and turned over reams of documentation, which they also sent me to review if I wanted to. Dr. Ivery’s death was, in their opinion, a coincidence.”
“Is that right? Seemed pretty conveniently timed to me.”
“Yes, well . . . this puts me in something of a predicament, doesn’t it? I have, on one hand, the assurances of the local SIS station chief that there is no alien technology on Nova Columbia, and that the matter was investigated thoroughly. On the other hand, I have physical evidence of alien technology found on Nova Columbia.”
“It’s a pickle, that’s for sure. Seems to me that either this station chief really doesn’t know about it, or that he’s in on it.”
“Do you remember what we discussed before, about how difficult it would be to hide such a find?”
“Yeah?”
“It is theoretically possible that SIS officers inspected Site 471 and somehow missed the excavation site. It is also theoretically possible that what Dr. Ivery said about that wasn’t true.”
“She was right about everything else so far.”
“I know. All of this information is leading me to the conclusion that the local SIS office is in fact conspiring with Ascension to keep secret the discovery of advanced alien technology, in violation of Commonwealth law and the Conventions.”
“That’s a big deal, Deitrik. Are you sure?”
“Objectively? No. Subjectively? My gut tells me something is very wrong, and that I can’t trust my own agency.”
“You didn’t answer me before. Can’t you expose all this now? Take what you have to the Colonial government?”
“You don’t understand the gravity of the allegation, Easy,” he said, looking down at the desk again. “Never in the history of the Security Intelligence Service has an entire branch office actively conspired to break the law like this. There have been scandals, yes, but nothing of this magnitude. I also can’t rule out the possibility that this isn’t limited to Nova Columbia, and that the Service itself may be compromised. Even an artifact like the one you gave me can be explained away, especially if it’s just my word against both the SIS and Ascension. I also don’t know to what extent Nova Columbian government officials are involved.”
“I need to ask you something. Are you absolutely sure that this is a rogue operation? Is it possible this is all being done in accordance with the letter of the law, and that you’ve just been kept out of the loop for some reason?”
“I have considered that possibility. I was up most of last night considering it, as a matter of fact. I spent hours reviewing procedures, regulations, and the law, trying to find a way for this to not be what it looks like.”
“No luck?”
He shook his head. “There is no procedural or regulatory mechanism for such a find to be kept hidden from someone in my position. To do so would be to defeat the entire purpose of my being here. I have been delegated powers from the inspector general. Attempting to conceal operations from me is in of itself an actionable violation of SIS regulations.”
“What can you do, then?”
“There isn’t much in the way of set procedure for a situation like this. What I’m supposed to do is report my findings to a higher office and await instructions.”
“Do you have a higher office on Nova Columbia?”
“No. There is only the Embassy of the Terran Confederation, and they are not in my chain of command. If I bring this to them, they may start an investigation, but it will be a ponderously slow affair, working through the bureaucracy, and most likely that won’t even begin until they send a message to and receive a response from Earth.”
“Hm. May as well cut out the middle man and call Earth yourself, then.”
“I am putting together a communiqué, but even then, the response will be slow. Assuming I could get the message uploaded to a ship leaving immediately, it’ll take seven weeks of local time for it to reach Earth, and another seven weeks for the reply to get here, not including any time headquarters has to spend deliberating on the matter.”
“So months, basically.”
“Yes. Given incidents like Medusae Fossae, I don’t know if waiting for months is prudent. As you have pointed out, they could potentially be putting the colony at risk. Even if I sidestep the normal chain of command and bring this all to the Colonial government, I still don’t have much evidence. The fragment may not be enough by itself. The person who seemed to know the most about Project Isaiah, Dr. Ivery, is dead.”
“There are other people who know what’s going on,” I pointed out. “Arthur and Cassandra Carmichael. It seems to me we can help each other. I need to get Cassandra Carmichael out of that facility. You need testimony from witnesses. If I’m able to recover Cassandra, her stepfather will talk. Cassandra herself might be able to testify. I also have some Ascension records she left for her sister, nothing definitive, but it might help. Hell, I’ll do you one better—you help me with this, and I’ll testify about what Doc Ivery told me.”
“You don’t happen to have a recording of it, do you?”
“’Fraid not. People are hesitant to talk to a snoop to begin with. You get a reputation for secretly recording them when they do talk, you’ll be out of sources in short order. But I’ll still go under oath and give my account, if you need me to. Dagny Carmichael was with me, she can vouch for what I say.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” Deitrik said, more to himself than to me. “Do you really think you can get her out of there?”
“I don’t know,” I said, honestly, “but I’ll try. I’ve got a few aces up my sleeve, and Arthur Carmichael is willing to help me.”
He nodded. “Very well.” He swiveled around in his chair and grabbed a book off of the bookcase behind his desk. It was a leather-bound Bible, and he set it on the desk in front of me. He then reached over to his computer and tapped the screen to wake it up. He rotated a camera so that we were both in its field of view, then addressed it directly.
“My name is Deitrik Freiherr von Hauser,” he said. “I am the adjunct inspector general for the Security Intelligence Service, Nova Columbia branch. My badge number is three-three-six-two-four-zero one.” He then turned to me. “I am now going to swear you in as a temporary deputy officer of the Terran Confederation. Do you understand and consent?”
“Uh, I do,” I said.
“If you care to, please place your hand on the Bible.” I did as he asked. “Now repeat after me. I, state your name.”
“I, Ezekiel Novak . . .”
“Do solemnly swear to support and defend the Articles of the Terran Confederation, against all enemies, human and alien; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation of my own free will, without coercion, reservation, or false purpose; that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to take; so help me God.”
“So help me God,” I repeated.
“Ezekiel Novak, by the power vested in me by the Articles of the Terran Confederation and the Charter of the Security Intelligence Service, you are hereby legally sworn in as a temporary officer of the Terran Confederation. This post is voluntary, uncompensated, and you may resign at any time. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
He reached across the desk and shook my hand. “Welcome to the SIS, Easy.” He glanced over at his computer. “End recording.”
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we consult with the other concerned parties and come up with a plan to rescue Cassandra Carmichael.”
I was able to arrange another meeting with Arthur Carmichael for Monday evening, the next night. As you can imagine, he was pretty anxious to get going, and for the money he was paying me the least I could do was be prompt. He sent me directions to a place he described as a safe house on the southwest side of the Crater, a large home he rented through a shell company. Dagny, Dante, Lily, and I all piled into my car and set off across town.
His two security men, the always-cool Slick and the imposing Truck, were waiting for us at the house. I still didn’t like these guys, on account of them kicking my ass and then kidnapping me, but Carmichael seemed to trust them. He must have been paying them pretty well to get them to stick by him as he went up against the company, or else maybe he had something on them. They greeted the four of us politely when we arrived, then showed us to what they said was a secure conference room. They asked us to leave our personal devices in the hall and let us in, closing the doors behind us.
Arthur Carmichael was waiting for us inside, sitting at the far end of a conference table with a portable holographic projector on it. He stood up slowly when we entered and locked eyes with Dagny. Nobody said anything for a few awkward moments. “Dagny,” he said, trailing off slowly. “It’s been a long time.”
“It’s . . . good to see you, Arthur,” she said, stiffly. “Thank you for this.”
He smiled at her, sadly. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about, but now isn’t the time. Just . . . thank you for doing this.”
I glanced over to Dagny to see how she’d respond. She looked down at the floor for a moment, then back up at her stepfather, and nodded. With the family reunion out of the way, we all sat down and I introduced Carmichael to Lily and Dante.
“These two are both experienced hackers and net-divers,” I said. “Lily’s worked with me for years, and she can vouch for Dante here.”
“I see,” Carmichael said. “And what is it that you two can do?”
Dante answered his question with a question. “You don’t happen to have access to the Ventura Medical Research Center’s systems, do you?”
“Not directly, no,” Carmichael admitted. “It’s a subsidiary company and is outside of my normal scope of operations. They have their own security manager who doesn’t answer to me and I can’t directly access their network. If I try, they’ll know that I’ve located Cassandra. Surprise is the only advantage we have right now.” He looked thoughtful for a minute and rubbed his chin. “However . . . as of four months ago, all of the company’s subsidiaries were required to standardize on Ascension’s network architecture, to streamline interoperability, consolidate personnel files, things like that. I do have current, proprietary network blueprints and security protocols for the company. As a senior security administrator I have access to all of this information. Will that work?”
Dante’s eyes went wide. “Y-yes,” he stammered.
“You’re willing to give that to us?” Lily asked. “Couldn’t you get in trouble?”
“Trouble?” Carmichael chuckled and shook his head. “I could end up sued to bankruptcy and thrown in prison for corporate espionage. I don’t care about any of that anymore. The only thing that matters is getting Cassandra back. I’ll give you whatever you need. What do you plan on doing with this information?”
“We might be able to create a worm,” Dante said, “one that will allow us to take over their entire system.”
“It’s possible,” Carmichael said, “but it might be difficult, even with the information I can give you.”
“Trust me,” Dante said, grinning, “we’re really good at this.”
“Why all the security for a medical research lab?” Dagny asked. “Is this just because they’re keeping Cassie there?”
“Not exactly,” Carmichael said. “The Ventura Medical Research Center is a Biosafety Level-5 laboratory that primarily focuses on the study of, and developing treatments for, life-threatening conditions brought on by exposure to non-terrestrial organisms,” Carmichael explained.
“Like Kellerman’s Syndrome?” Dante asked.
“Yes. It’s also researching conditions that occur on other colonized worlds. In fact, it’s the only lab on Nova Columbia to possess samples of some of the organisms it does. Some of them are quite rare, and effective treatments for them, once patented, would be very valuable. That’s why Ascension bought VMRC.
“However, because of the dangerous nature of the organisms being studied, and the potential value of the proprietary information the lab produces, it’s a high-security facility. A breach will trigger a response.”
“From SecFor?” Lily asked.
He shook his head. “No. The first response will be from corporate security. Ascension has four active Special Response Teams and one is on call at all times. If the alarm goes out, they’ll send a jump-jet full of heavily armed operators who will shoot first and ask questions later. If that happens, our odds of success aren’t good.”
“Okay,” Dante said, looking thoughtful. “Could we possibly disable the alarm, stop the call for help from going out?”
Carmichael leaned in and rested an elbow on the table. I wondered if, despite the serious circumstances, he wasn’t enjoying the scheming. Doesn’t everyone fantasize about screwing over their boss from time to time? “You won’t be able to stop them from triggering the alarm, but you might be able to cut off their intranet so the alarm doesn’t go out.”
“Won’t they realize something is wrong?” I asked.
“They will eventually,” Carmichael said, “but this might buy us some time. Typically, the sort of emergency call for help that triggers a response from a Special Response Team is similar to a silent alarm in a bank. It’s designed so that employees can activate it without the assailants realizing it, so they don’t panic and start hurting people. The company has a policy of always responding to these alarms, even if it turns out to be nothing. They’re designed so as to be difficult to trigger accidentally and don’t require any further feedback from the person calling for help. The trick is to make their intranet think the call for help went out as intended.”
Lily chimed in. “I think we can do that. A false feedback algorithm.”
“This won’t stop them from calling someone by other means,” I pointed out.
“It won’t,” Carmichael said, “but realistically, we’re not going to be able to steal Cassandra out from under their noses without them realizing it. The best we can hope for is to give you enough time to get in and get her out.”
“How are you going to get this worm into their system in the first place?” I asked. “You can’t hack into it remotely, can you?”
“Probably not,” Lily said. “Ascension’s encryption and network security protocols were always tough to crack.”
“We haven’t had a successful hack of our networks in several years,” Carmichael said. I could tell that, even now, he was proud of the work he’d done.
“Right,” Dante said. “The way you usually gain access to a system is by getting someone who does have access to the network to install your program for you. You can send a message with the worm encoded in it, or figure out the password of someone with network access. That’s usually all it takes.”
“If they weren’t watching me the way they are, I could send an official email from my office with your worm embedded in it. I don’t think that will work, the situation being as it is. I’m being watched. If I try to do anything involving the Ventura Medical Research Center, they’ll know, and we’ll be compromised.”
“You don’t have anyone you trust who could maybe do it for you?” Lily asked.
Carmichael shook his head. “Once you get assigned to Project Isaiah, nobody talks to you anymore. It’s a black hole. Even if I were to create an alternate account and send it, there’s a very good chance it’ll get picked up by our protection software, or that the message will be flagged. Internal correspondence is heavily monitored. There’s no guarantee that this will gain us access to the system.”
“Okay,” I said. “We’re going to have to do a recon of the building to see if we can find a way in.”
“Let me show you the building in question,” Carmichael said, tapping at a tablet in his hands. The holo-projector lit up and generated a three-dimensional image, a trio of tall buildings somewhere in the city. Each tower was perfectly triangular if viewed from above, and they were arranged in a big equilateral triangle, with a point facing inward toward the center. A massive circular platform was suspended in midair between the three buildings, near their tops. Below that, many covered walkways and tramways connected the towers. At ground level, between the three buildings, was a cluster of lower structures.
“This complex is called Research Towers,” he continued. “It’s a hub for numerous industrial and commercial scientific concerns, as well as being the main campus of the Delta City Institute of Technology.”
“The university?” Dante asked.
“The same,” Carmichael confirmed. “The three towers each have one hundred and thirty floors. The platform in the center is a landing pad for aircraft, complete with parking space and automated traffic control. DCIT is in the Southwest Tower. Among the smaller buildings at ground level are a hotel and a convention center, as well as a station for the city monorail system.”
The hologram zoomed in, focusing on one of the three buildings, and he kept narrating. “The Ventura Medical Research Center is here, in the North Tower, on the north side of the eighty-fifth floor. The research center has forty-five employees and operates during normal business hours on weekdays. At any given time during the day, anywhere from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand people are working at, living in, or passing through the transit hub of Research Towers.”
“Jesus,” Lily said, looking at the hologram. “This is where they’re keeping Cassandra Carmichael? Talk about hiding in plain sight.”
“Indeed,” Carmichael agreed. “I never would have guessed that this is where she is being held, had my contacts not told me so. The company has several, ah, black sites, at which they can hide things that need to be hidden.”
“But you would have probably found out if she was at one of those sites,” I pointed out. “How certain are you that she’s even there?”
“As certain as I can be,” he answered. “There was a direct flight to Research Towers from Site 471 shortly after . . . well, let’s just call it the incident for now. This flight corresponds to when I think my daughter was removed from Site 471. My contact, who works in logistics, was able to get a look at the cargo manifest and flight log before it was scrubbed. Mind you, I was still at Site 471 at this time, and had no access to outside networks. I learned all of this later.”
“That’s some compartmentalization,” Dante said.
“As I said, Project Isaiah is a black hole. This cargo manifest listed one nonambulatory patient, an Ascension employee whose name was supposedly redacted for privacy reasons, being brought to VMRC for observation. This patient’s age, sex, and description match Cassandra’s.”
“Nonambulatory?” Dagny asked. “What happened to her?”
“I’m not going to get into it right now,” he said. “The last time I saw her she was in a medically induced coma. I will have a doctor here to safely revive her when the operation is complete.”
Carmichael’s lack of candor was frustrating, but I couldn’t blame him for not being entirely forthcoming. In any case this information was important to know. Cassandra wouldn’t be able to walk out on her own.
Carmichael continued, “She was transported from the landing pad to the Research Center in a medical isolation pod, and was logged as having contracted Kellerman’s Syndrome. I was able to cross-reference that information with Ascension’s accident and incident reporting system; no cases of Kellerman’s Syndrome have been reported in almost four years.”
“That’s all you have to go on?” I asked.
“Yes,” Carmichael said, curtly. “For the money I’m paying you, I’m afraid it will have to suffice.” He looked me in the eye. “If you want my cooperation on exposing Project Isaiah, this is what I require.”
“The whole colony could be in danger!” Lily said.
“You have no idea,” Carmichael replied, coldly. “But if I do anything before Cassandra is safe . . . I don’t know what will happen to her. If there’s a chance, even the slightest chance, that I can get her back safely, then I must try.”
“I understand,” Dagny said softly. “I’m with you, Arthur. Whatever it takes to get my sister back.”
I shrugged. “Well then, I guess we better figure this out,” I said.
“I know it’s daunting,” Carmichael said. “If this goes wrong we could all end up in prison.”
“I have gotten us some overhead cover on that,” I said. Now was as good a time as any to tell him. I pulled out the credential wallet the Baron gave me and opened it for him to see. Inside was a laser-cut titanium badge, coated in platinum, bearing the shield of the SIS. Below that was an identification card he had made for me. “This operation has been greenlit by the SIS under an emergency contingency provision, as a matter of urgent colonial security.”
Carmichael’s eyes went wide. “What? You’re serious? The Security Intelligence Service? You?” He was angry.
I held up a hand. “Calm yourself, Mr. Carmichael. This isn’t a setup. I got roped into it same as you. It’s good news for us, though, because it means we have a better chance of pulling this off and not getting arrested for it. Just know that the SIS expects to fully debrief you when this is over. I told them you’d cooperate if we got Cassandra back.”
“This doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “The SIS has been on the ground at Site 471 for months! What in the hell are you trying to pull, Novak?”
Aw, hell, I thought. Probably shouldn’t have told him. “Look, something is definitely screwy here. My SIS handler thinks the local office has gone rogue. I don’t know all the details, but whatever you people are doing up there has not been authorized through the proper channels.”
Carmichael sat back in his chair, looking defeated. “Unbelievable.”
“You’re telling me. Listen, I don’t know what all is going on with the SIS. I’m just a private eye; these spy games are above my pay grade. All I know is that I have a high-level SIS intelligence officer willing to help me get your daughter back if you’re willing to talk to him after. We need all the help we can get if we’re going to pull this off.”
He nodded. “I suppose we’re committed, aren’t we?” He sighed. “Let’s get to it, then. How do we get you in, and, more importantly, how do we get you and Cassie out?”
I looked at the holographic projection of the building and rubbed my chin. “Our biggest problem is that the moment they think we’re up to something, they’ll call for a security response team. What if . . .” I trailed off for a moment, then looked back up at Carmichael. “Hypothetically speaking, what would the response look like if there was an incident? Not a security breach, but some other kind of emergency? A hazardous materials leak, or maybe a fire? They’d have to move her, right?”
“I think I see where you’re going with this,” Carmichael said. “Research Towers has numerous laboratories of different specialties, and they work with all manner of hazardous materials: biological, chemical, even radiological. Several entities in the complex have their own emergency response teams, and the complex has an in-house fire department.” He looked down at the electronic tablet in his hands and tapped at the screen a few times. “There’s a mutual response agreement in place. If the leaseholder doesn’t have its own response capabilities, or the incident exceeds their ability to contain it, the other teams in the complex will respond as quickly as they can. For anything major, the fire department, which has its own hazard containment team, will respond. If that fails, Public Safety and the Metro Fire Department will respond.”
“Would the company send a response team for this kind of emergency?”
“They shouldn’t, not right away, if they’re following standard operating procedure. Ascension has high value assets all over the city. The SRT won’t deploy unless there’s an alarm or a direct report of a breach of physical security. They don’t respond to things like fire alarms.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “It would be too easy to cause a diversion that way.” I was quiet for a moment, turning some things over in my head. “Okay, here’s what I’m thinking.”
Planning a heist is the easy part; actually getting away with the goods is where things get complicated. There are a lot of variables and not all of them are under your control. You have to account for as many as possible while knowing that you can’t possibly account for them all.
It took a few days for our little band of strange bedfellows to get the operation started. Using the network blueprints and security protocol information that Carmichael had given them, Lily and Dante spent the time tailoring their malicious computer program while I began reconnaissance on the building itself. The architectural plans for Research Plaza were publicly available, but blueprints don’t tell you much about the day-to-day workings of a place. You actually have to get eyes on your target if you want to understand the patterns, the comings and goings, and the general state of physical security. That was my job.
Dagny offered to help, but given her relationship to Arthur and Cassandra Carmichael, I was worried that she was on Ascension’s radar and would tip them off if facial recognition software was able to ID her. I opted instead to take Dante along, since two of us could cover more ground in one visit.
Working in our favor was the fact that the complex was open to the public and bustled with activity during the day. Tens of thousands of people, from students, to scientists, to office staff, came and went constantly. It made it much easier to move around without raising suspicion.
The Research Towers complex had its own maintenance and building security staff, supplemented by a fleet of robots for the menial tasks. Security cameras in the public spaces, such as corridors and plazas were common, but each individual suite or office was on a separate network. The complex’s employees wore badges that granted them access to different areas of the buildings, and there were enough of them that they weren’t likely to all know or be able to recognize one another.
Wearing a hidden camera, I gathered footage of their uniform attire, their routine, and how they generally presented themselves. I made it a point to hang out by doorways, allowing the radio-frequency decoder in my pocket to record the signals broadcast by the card readers and ID badges as employees accessed them. The badges were passive, only activating to broadcast a signal when pinged by a reader. That made things easier—some places use active broadcasting ID, allowing them to track every single badge-wearer at all times, and that would have complicated the plan.
Once the RF decoder had scanned the transmission of several card readers, it was able to duplicate and broadcast those signals over short distances. This allowed me to ping and receive information from numerous employees’ ID badges as I wandered throughout the building. Dante was doing the same thing in a different part of the complex. The buildings’ access codes didn’t seem to change or rotate throughout the day, and none of the access readers used by building staff were equipped with frequency-hopping or other security features.
Lackadaisical security is the norm in most places, especially in public commercial facilities. What security they did have was mostly for crowd control and getting them a discount on their insurance. This all worked in our favor. Using the signal data that Dante and I gathered, Lily was able to program smart access badges, ones that could use any of the access codes we’d gathered. She also set them to use different sets of credentials as often as possible, so that anyone looking at the access logs wouldn’t have a clear pattern of where we went.
Before leaving, I made my way to the eighty-fifth floor, where the Ventura Medical Research Center was located. The research center had a lobby that was accessible from one of the main public corridors, but I thought it was too risky to go in, even just to look around. Being owned by Ascension, they would definitely have good security, including cameras with facial recognition software. We weren’t going to be able to get past the lobby with the access codes we had been collecting, but Dante thought that there might be another way.
A couple days later he and I made our second visit to the Research Towers complex, this time disguised as maintenance technicians. The uniforms the techs wore were common work coveralls with the Research Towers logo printed on them. Having a couple sets of those fabricated for us at a small clothing shop only took an hour or so. We each wore ID badges that Lily had encoded; between the maintenance, security, and vendor personnel we had gathered data on, we could get almost anywhere in the complex.
They would not get us into the Ventura Medical Research Center, but Dante didn’t think we needed to in order to gain access to their computers. After studying building blueprints he was able to locate a telecommunications junction box in a network closet off a maintenance corridor near our target. We did have access to that corridor and to the closet. There wasn’t any security on the junction box except a normal commercial electronic lock, which I was able to get open with my locksmith tools.
“What now, kid?” I asked, looking at Dante. The junction box was mounted on the wall. The closet was warm and there was barely enough room for both of us to fit into it.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tablet computer. It was a bulky, ruggedized device, with multiple ports and several different cables. “I need you to keep a lookout while I do this. It might take a few minutes.” He pulled a retractable cable from the tablet and plugged it into the junction box’s access port.
“What are you going to do?”
“These are high-bandwidth network lines,” he said, nodding at the junction box. On the inside of the door was a diagram, showing which vendor each hardline belonged to, including the Ventura Medical Research Center. “This is the portal between the VMRC intranet and the planetary network.” He paused long enough to draw another cable from the device and plug it into a port embedded in his skull, behind his right ear. “With the network architecture and security protocol information Carmichael gave us, I should be able to get our malware into VMRC’s systems without them realizing it. Then, unless they disconnect their intranet from the planetary network entirely, we should be able to access it remotely whenever we want.”
“You sure you want to plug this thing into your head like that?”
“It’ll go much faster using a direct neural interface. I’ll just be zoned out while I’m working, so I need you to keep an eye on me. It can be disorienting doing this standing up. Don’t let me fall over.”
“What am I supposed to do if we need to leave?”
“I’m not going in that deep. I’ll still be able to hear you, but you may have to give me a good shake to get my attention.”
“Got it. Good luck, kid.”
Dante grinned. “Luck’s got nothing to do with it,” he said, putting his smart glasses back on. “I’ll be back in a few.”
He leaned against the wall and fell silent. I quietly closed the door to the closet in case somebody else walked past. It got damned hot in there and sweat started to trickle down my brow. Dante was sweating, too, but I didn’t think he would even notice. Plugged into the system as he was, he seemed oblivious to everything around him. His neck and facial muscles twitched as he did his thing.
After ten minutes of this I was starting to get worried. I was just about to give his shoulder a shake when he lurched forward, stumbling into me. I caught him before he fell and asked him if he was okay.
“I’m fine,” he said, breathing hard. “I’m fine.” He took off his glasses and looked around. “It’s hot in here.”
“How’d it go? I was starting to think you got lost or something.”
He grinned again. “Mission accomplished. Sorry it took so long. Their network has an algorithm that automatically scans for malignant code at regular intervals. I had to disable that before I could install the worm.”
“Are we good to go, then?”
“Oh yeah. Carmichael’s security administrator access paid off. Once the worm was installed, I took a snapshot of the network and told the algorithm that this is what it should look like.”
“So when the algorithm scans the network again, it’ll think the program you installed belongs there.”
“Exactly,” Dante said. “I created several hidden accounts for us. We can remotely access their intranet and poke around at our leisure. Lily’s false-feedback algorithm is installed, too—we can cut off their network access and they won’t realize we’re capturing all of their outbound communications. They won’t even know they’ve been compromised until it’s all over.”
“Good job, kid. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
The malicious program that Dante and Lily cooked up worked like they said it would, but we were still limited on what we could access. A lot of the work going on at the Ventura Medical Research Center was compartmentalized, even within their own internal network. The accounts that Dante created couldn’t get into the encrypted data storage to see what kind of research they were conducting.
This didn’t mean that embedding the kids’ malware into the Research Center’s intranet had been a waste of time; far from it. They had reported to Research Towers that they were currently hosting one in-patient who was the subject of a study. In the event of an emergency, she was to be evacuated in an isolation pod and moved as quickly as possible to another approved medical facility. They had a memorandum of understanding in place to allow her to be taken off-site without being held up by the building authorities.
No further identifying information on this patient was given, allegedly due to medical privacy laws, but our inside access allowed us to pull up a confidential document about her. With that we were able to confirm that Cassandra Carmichael was there. She’d been checked in under a false name, June Davis, but there were photographs. Both Dagny and Arthur Carmichael positively identified her, and my facial recognition software matched her with ninety-seven percent confidence.
At last, I’d found her. We couldn’t determine what her status was, if she was ambulatory or not. Carmichael said that she was in an induced coma when they evacuated her from Site 471, so I assumed I was going to have to wheel her out of there.
Our access to the VMRC intranet proved useful in other ways, too. We were able to have a look at their administrative database. From that we learned the names, addresses, and contact information of everyone who worked there. We knew what their schedules were, we knew how much they got paid, and we could even read their employee evaluations. Their internal communications were end-to-end encrypted, so we couldn’t read anybody’s private messages, but we got a very good picture of how the place operated from day to day.
That was all good information and it would definitely be useful, but the real prize was gaining access to their emergency reporting and response system. Their research data was encrypted and out of our reach, but the climate control, communications, security, and fire suppression systems were not. The kids were able to pull up live feeds from security cameras and said they’d be able to shut them down when the time came.
Even better, they were able to capture ID badge data from every employee who worked at the VMRC. This meant that they’d be able to duplicate that information and encode it into my own badge, giving me complete access to the facility. I would try to talk my way in, at first, but if that didn’t work I had other options.
After seeing what we had to work with, we all sat down and refined the plan. Our best bet was still to try and trigger an evacuation and use the confusion to get in and out. The facility had two armed security officers on site at all times; a direct approach would probably lead to a dangerous confrontation. Carmichael said that they would likely have an emergency lockdown protocol, too. A triggered security alarm would immediately disable all badge access and close and lock every door. The only way this function could be overridden was if there was an ongoing emergency that required evacuation. By design, the security system couldn’t lock people in to die during a fire or biohazard leak.
There was one more decision we needed to make, too, and that was when to attempt the operation. The Research Towers multiplex was operational twenty-six hours a day, seven days a week. It was less busy at nights and on weekends, but at no point was the towering commercial campus deserted.
There was a case to be made for going during the day. If Ascension corporate security got tipped off, there was a good chance their special response team would come in guns blazing, and my odds of getting out of there alive dropped considerably. Ascension, for all the politicians and judges they owned, still had some powerful enemies and couldn’t be too brazen. Having a big enough crowd of bystanders and witnesses could make even the biggest corporation on the planet show some restraint.
Trying to pull off the operation during business hours had some pretty big drawbacks, of course. More witnesses also meant more people scrutinizing what I was doing. It increased the chances that bystanders might interfere or even get hurt. Most importantly, the Ventura Medical Research Center was only operational during the day. At night, the lab was minimally manned—two security guards, an attendant to monitor Cassandra Carmichael, and sometimes a couple scientists working overnight. A handful of people would be a lot easier to manage than dozens. Nighttime it was, then.
When everything was decided, I contacted Deitrik on an encrypted call and briefed him on the plan. He was the one signing off on this whole thing, after all, so he had a right to know what we were doing. He was, needless to say, relieved that we had actual confirmation that Cassandra Carmichael was on-site, and gave me permission to go ahead with the operation to extract her. He asked me to do everything in my power to keep the collateral damage to a minimum. If I had to, I had permission to flash my SIS credentials and interface with law enforcement. As an absolute last resort, to protect my life or the life of another, I, and I alone, had the authorization to use deadly force.
I told him that I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, and I was being sincere about it. I had my fill of killing during the war. Sometimes violence is necessary and can’t be avoided. As we used to say in the service, the enemy gets a vote, too. That doesn’t mean you should be too quick on the trigger, though. The problem with trying to fight your way out of every bad situation is that sooner or later, your luck is going to run out. In my experience, a little bit of restraint can go a long way toward keeping you out of trouble.
Deitrik brought more to the table than just some legal cover. He was providing an aircraft for our extraction, an autonomous rotorwing VTOL that would pick us up off the landing pad at the Research Towers and take us to a designated rendezvous point. It wasn’t like a normal air-taxi, either—this one was an SIS asset that Deitrik had access to, programmed to purge its records after each mission.
Having an aircraft waiting for us made pulling off this crazy operation a hell of a lot more likely. If not for that I’d have had to have found a way to get Cassandra Carmichael down more than a hundred floors to a waiting vehicle, and there are a million things that can go wrong when you’re trying to get away in a car. Something as mundane as a fender-bender or a traffic jam can ruin everything.
It took a few days, but we got everything set. We made all the preparations we could, had a plan of action, and had an escape route. Now all we had to do was pull it off.