by S. Harrison
Brody immediately jolts into action and strides across the room toward her, as Brent snidely shakes his head with disapproval. In a strangely affectionate manner, Brody picks up Bit’s glasses from the bench and gently slides them onto her nose. She smiles warmly at him and begins stacking computer slates in his arms.
I’m eager to see what everyone’s been working on, and I’m about to go and help set up, too, when Professor Francis takes my arm and gives me a strangely grim and curious look. “It really does boggle the mind,” he says. “A covert operative with an enhanced physiology, sitting in my very own class.”
My brow furrows with confusion and surprise as Professor Francis gives me a sideways glance. “Come now, young lady. I understand that you must be accustomed to maintaining a veil of secrecy, but after what we’ve witnessed, your handler, Mr. Brogan, had no choice but to answer a few of our more pressing queries.”
I glare at him, perplexed. “What exactly did he tell you, Professor?” I stammer.
“Well, he told us the reason you came here today.”
All I can do is stare bewilderedly at Professor Francis, and the only word that comes out of my mouth is a highly confused, “What?”
“You were sent to test the security,” says Percy. “To see if someone could secretly infiltrate the facility.”
Right now my memory has more holes in it than a slice of Swiss cheese, but I remember enough to know that explanation is a complete lie. Jonah did not send me here to test their security, but apparently he is quick off the mark when it comes to making up a fitting cover story on the spot.
The Professor’s expression darkens even more than before, and he leans in uncomfortably close. “My father was in military intelligence, and it drove him to drink,” he whispers ominously. “Every now and then he would let something slip, tales so horrible that I have no doubt the weight of that knowledge played a part in sending him to an early grave.”
From the corner of my eye I can see Dr. Pierce turn away and begin sorting medical supplies on a nearby trolley. He’s trying his best to look innocuous, but it’s plain to see that he’s listening intently.
I awkwardly lean away from the Professor as he glowers at me over the top of his glasses. “I don’t understand, sir?” I mumble.
“Thanks to my dear father’s stories, I came to accept the fact that there are many powerful and morally devoid people in this world. Training children like you to do their bidding, while shocking, is sadly not surprising. But the fact that they allowed you to hide in a school group of innocent civilians and break into a potentially dangerous place like this goes far beyond the boundaries of ethical responsibility. The tragic loss of life today speaks for itself. You’ve got a lot to answer for.”
I’m completely taken aback by this sudden confrontation. The fog in my brain is unyielding; it’s adding to my confusion, and I don’t know what the hell he’s talking about. Part of me wants to get off this table and just walk away, but strangely, another part deep down inside of me wants to grab the Professor by the scruff of the neck and tell him to shut the hell up, but I decide it’s wiser to take the middle ground, so I just sit still with my mouth shut.
“Those deaths were hardly her fault, Professor,” says Percy. “Finn didn’t know a cyberterrorist would hack the computer and take control of the robots on the same day.”
I stare at the two men with a blank expression on my face.
“Perhaps not,” sighs the Professor as he frowns at me. “You do deserve some credit for attempting to save us, young lady . . . but the fact remains that your actions contributed to our dire situation and now our lives are hanging in the balance.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just sit and look at the floor, avoiding the Professor’s accusatory glare as an unpleasant silence festers.
“Everyone, gather around please,” Jonah calls.
“Let’s go,” Percy says as he takes Professor Francis by the arm and guides him away from the table. The Professor’s expression is still painted with disdain as he and Percy head to the middle of the room to join the others, who are all gathered in a loose circle. I let out a deep, uncomfortable sigh. That conversation was unexpected, confusing, and very painful to hear. Professor Francis has always been a fair and kindhearted man. He’s always been nice to me in the past, but after everything that has happened today, it’s clear that he’s a different man than he was before. I could see the pain in his eyes, the anger, the disappointment, and the fear. He was looking at me as if he didn’t know me. I can’t blame him for that. Lately I’ve been feeling like a stranger to myself.
I slide off the steel table, walk to the center of the lab, and awkwardly take a place between Percy and a sullen-looking Margaux. In the middle of the circle, half a dozen trolleys have been pushed together to form a makeshift desktop. On top of the trolleys Bit has arranged an array of ten or so computer slates. With their scratched-up surfaces and chipped edges, I’m surprised any of them are in any kind of working order. Bit picks up the least decrepit-looking one and begins prodding at it, as Jonah stands tall, puts his hands behind his back, and clears his throat. “Bettina, if you wouldn’t mind displaying the map?”
Bit swipes the screen in her hands, the slates in the array suddenly light up at all once, and a large and surprisingly detailed glowing 3-D model of Blackstone Technologies shimmers into the air. The whole thing is rendered in thin blue lines, Domes One, Two, and Three are represented by overturned holographic baskets of decreasing sizes, and surrounding them is a series of angled blocks representing the landscape and some of the buildings. “I’m sorry it’s so crude,” says Bit. “It’s a far cry from the detailed model Percy showed us when we arrived, but it’s the best I could do at short notice.”
“You did a very good job, Bettina,” Jonah says with a smile. He looks up at the diagram, and his expression becomes more serious. “As you can all see, this is a diagram of Blackstone Technologies. The artificially intelligent computer that controls this facility is malfunctioning and currently sees us as a threat. It will do anything it can to eliminate us, so if we want to stand a decent chance of getting out of here alive, we need to regain control of it. To do that, our first objective is to retrieve Bettina’s computer slate from the wreckage of the fallen transport inside Dome Two.”
Bit taps the slate. The second wire-frame basket turns red, and inside the red wires a little green spot representing her lost computer lights up and begins blinking.
“Why exactly?” asks Jennifer.
“Well,” says Jonah, “Bettina believes that she can use her slate to access the main computer and reset it. Once that is achieved the mechanoids and any remaining Drones up there will shut down, and we can search for survivors, tend to the wounded, and get to the school bus safely.”
“What?” Margaux blurts as she glares at Bit. “Why the hell didn’t you do that before?”
“I couldn’t,” Bit snaps back at her. “The main computer was blocking the Hypernet signal, so I couldn’t access it wirelessly. My slate contains all the source code I need to repair the mainframe, but the only way to do that now is to plug directly into the neural core.”
“And we’re going to give her the opportunity to do exactly that,” says Jonah.
“How?” asks Jennifer.
“Bettina?” says Jonah. “Would you like to fill them in?”
Bit gives Jonah a serious nod and jabs at the slate in her hand. A small green circle appears on the diagram. “This is the hatch we all entered to get down here,” she explains. “I’m going to exit through that hatch and make my way up the hill to a maintenance door that leads beneath Dome Two. From there I’ll climb up inside the dome and get my computer slate from the transport wreckage. After that I’ll take it to the main computer’s neural core and plug in.”
“All by yourself?” I ask Bit.
“No, Finn, she won’t be alone,” says Jonah. “The computer’s neural core has a level-twelve-security-access door with a DNA-coded
lock. The only one here who can open it is Dr. Pierce, so he’s going with her.”
“And so am I,” Brody says, beaming at Bit. She returns his smile, and her cheeks flush a telling shade of pink.
Brent and Margaux both turn to Brody and glower at him. “You’re part of this plan and you didn’t tell us?” growls Brent.
“Bit told me about it, and I wasn’t going to let her do it without me,” he says defiantly. “And how was I supposed to tell you guys anything when you’ve been shut in the bunk room sleeping the whole time we’ve been down here?”
“We weren’t exactly sleeping,” murmurs Brent.
Margaux frowns and backhands him on the arm. “Shut up,” she seethes at him.
“Ugh. Gross,” whispers Bit.
Jonah ignores them all as he studies the holographic map. “Bettina makes the plan sound simple, and it would be if it weren’t for three tall green problems.”
“You mean the Remote Articulated Mechanoids, don’t you?” Jennifer murmurs with a quiver in her voice.
“The R.A.M.s,” Brent whispers ominously.
“Yes,” says Jonah. “Dr. Pierce, Brody, and Bettina can’t exit the hatch without setting off the facility’s motion sensors. As soon as that happens the mechanoids will come running. So, first we need a diversion to draw those robots away from the hatch.”
“How?” asks Margaux.
“By giving them another target,” Jonah replies. “The Professor, Percy, and I will exit through a second hatch farther along Sector B. It’s the hatch that I initially came through to get down here.”
Bit taps the slate again, and a second green circle appears much farther along the map. Little red dashes blink on one after another, forming a line connecting the first hatch with the second.
“As soon as we exit that hatch, our mere presence will trip the motion sensors and send the mechanoids toward us and away from Dome Two,” says Jonah.
“That’s suicide,” blurts Brent. “They’ll hunt you down and turn you into mincemeat.”
Jonah smiles. “Of course it’s going to be very dangerous, but believe me, I certainly don’t have a death wish. There’s an administration building a short distance from the second hatch,” he says, pointing at a rectangular block on the hologram. “We’re going to position ourselves on the roof. It should hold up against the R.A.M.s’ weapons long enough for Bit to get the slate, access the neural core, reset the computer, and shut the R.A.M.s down.”
“Why do all three of you have to go?” I ask. “Surely you only need one person to trip the motion sensors to bring the R.A.M.s running?”
“Yeah,” agrees Brent. “Just stand by the hatch and wave your arms around. As soon as you see them jump back in!”
“I wish it were that easy,” says Jonah. “Even after we distract the R.A.M.s, there’s a chance they may decide to turn back toward Brody, Bettina, and Dr. Pierce once they exit their hatch. If that happens I need to present a much bigger threat to the facility in order to keep the R.A.M.s heading toward us, away from Dome Two. That’s where these come in,” Jonah says as he puts a hand on top of one of the three gas tanks he dragged over from the corner.
“I’ve drilled the valves and rigged them with ignition caps from emergency flares. It’s an old trick I learned from my days in the military. Drop one of these from the roof in the right way, and it’ll go off like a bomb. The computer will surely prioritize the explosions as a more serious danger and choose to focus the R.A.M.s’ attention on us, giving Dr. Pierce, Brody, and Bettina time to complete their part of the plan in safety.”
“Ohhh-kaaay,” Jennifer replies unsurely. “But, how will Bettina and Brody know when the R.A.M.s are a safe distance away? It must be at least a mile between the hatches. And there’s all those buildings in the way,” she says, pointing up at the hologram.
“We’ll take binoculars, and we have walkie-talkies,” Jonah says, kicking a yellow duffel bag at his feet. “Hopefully we should be able to spot the R.A.M.s from the roof as they approach the border between Sectors B and C. Then we can report their locations back to you.”
“Hopefully?” Brent gives Jonah an incredulous look. “You’re pinning a lot on ‘hopefully.’”
“Actually,” Jonah says, looking over at Bit, “when it comes to tracking the movement of the R.A.M.s, our resident computer expert came up with an ingenious idea.”
“It’s not ingenious,” Bit replies sheepishly. “It was kinda obvious really.”
“Show everyone what you’ve done, Bettina,” prompts Jonah.
Bit smiles and nods. “Four hours ago Dr. Pierce positioned a stack of medical ultrasound-capable computer slates near the surface and sent a message carried on a high-frequency vibration. That’s what guided us down here,” says Bit. “Percy and Professor Francis were kind enough to spread those slates along the entire tunnel between the two hatches.” Bit jabs at the screen in her hands, and up on the diagram of the facility, ten orange circles appear along the red dotted line between the hatches. “Using the slates as sensors, we can monitor the vibrations of the R.A.M.s’ footsteps. Even when we can’t see them or hear them, we’ll know where they are when one of these circles starts flashing.”
“That’s very clever,” says Jennifer.
“Yeah it is,” Brody agrees, smiling at Bit.
“It was pretty simple,” Bit says shyly. “I just boosted this slate’s frequency scanner in a similar manner to my own one and tuned it to—”
“Yeah, yeah, the whole school knows you’re some kind of super computer geek,” interrupts Brent.
“So, after you get your slate from Dome Two, you’re gonna plug into the main computer and make it all friendly again?” asks Jennifer.
“That’s the plan,” says Jonah.
“How do you know you can even do that?” asks Margaux.
“I’m certain I can do it,” replies Bit.
“But surely Dr. Pierce knows more about the Blackstone computer than you do. Why doesn’t he reset it?” asks Brent.
“Because,” Dr. Pierce murmurs as he absentmindedly stares into space, “I have absolutely no idea how Bettina broke it in the first place.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Margaux turns and stares wide-eyed at Bit. Brent is frowning in confusion, and Jennifer’s mouth drops open.
“Miss Otto?” says Professor Francis.
“I . . . I didn’t know all of this was going to happen,” squeaks Bit. I can see her eyes beginning to glisten with a film of tears. “All I did was put our school on the visitors’ roster.”
“She’s being extremely modest,” Dr. Pierce says, smiling admiringly at Bit. “What she did was hands down the most brilliant encryption cracking I’ve ever seen. She accessed classified files that even I didn’t know were in there!”
Bit looks toward the floor and shakes her head. “I’ve never hacked an artificially intelligent system before,” Bit sniffles. “I didn’t know I would corrupt the whole system.”
“Onix,” says Dr. Pierce. “The artificial intelligence that controls the mainframe is named Onix. And you didn’t just corrupt him, girly, you seem to have damaged him quite severely when you decided to schedule this little field trip of yours.”
Professor Francis stares at Bit in disbelief. “You’re responsible for bringing us here? For all of this?”
“Ha! I knew it!” blurts Percy. “I knew there was something fishy going on the moment I saw that a bunch of high school kids were scheduled for a tour. But I didn’t say a thing, did I, oh no. Didn’t raise a fuss. I just did my job and led the tour like I was supposed to. Now everyone is dead, half the complex is destroyed, and I’m crawling through tunnels praying that I’m not the next one who’s gonna be turned into meat paste by giant robots!”
“Holy crap,” Brent says, glaring at Bit. “I bet that’s how the cyberterrorists got into the computer, too. Right behind you!”
“I’m not even supposed to work on the weekends!” Percy wails.
Bit is qui
etly sobbing and clutching the slate to her chest as I take a determined step forward.
“I’m just as much to blame,” I declare loudly. Jonah’s head snaps in my direction, and his eyes narrow as he glares at me with surprised confusion. “She never would have been able to get so deep into the computer’s systems without my help. I clearly remember sitting in our dorm room giving classified passwords to Bit so she could gain access to the Blackstone files and systems.”
“Wait,” says Jonah. “Your mind is still muddled, Finn. There’s no way that you could know how to access any information that could lead to a catastrophe like this. Head injuries like the one you sustained can affect people in very unusual ways. I don’t think you’re remembering anything properly right now.”
“Is that what happened, Bit?” I ask.
She sniffles and slowly shakes her head. “Nnnnooo . . . not really.”
“Did those passwords come from these lips or not?” I bark, pointing at my own face.
Bit frowns. “Yes . . . but—”
“Then it looks like I’m beginning to remember just fine,” I state, glaring at Jonah as a strange urge to punch him in the face ripples through me.
“Well, you’ve certainly got a lot to answer for as well, Mr. Brogan,” declares Professor Francis. “You gave your operative here the order to breach the security, and she clearly manipulated a naïve civilian to do it!”
“Now is not the time to be pointing fingers,” says Jonah. “We need to focus on the task at hand.”
“Well, considering what has recently come to light,” says Professor Francis. “I believe it is incredibly reckless to allow the young lady who caused this tragedy to have access to the computer yet again.”
Jonah levels his gaze at Professor Francis. “With all due respect, Professor, Bettina may have played a part in causing this, but she’s also the only one who can fix it. Sure, there are risks. What if the mechanoids don’t take the bait? What if Bettina’s slate has been destroyed? What if we retrieve her slate and she can’t reset the mainframe? The truth is, we’re pinning our survival on a whole lot of luck. Our chances to get through this are slim at best, but if we don’t let Bettina try, the alternative is certain. None of us are getting out of here alive.”
