by David West
"The A.I. inside the vans are attempting to do to us, what we have done to them - hack inside without our knowledge," he explained. "However, since we are already in their system, we know what moves they are making, so it is easy for us to defend against the attacks. This activity inside the vans, though. It sounds like the outside agents are preparing for something-"
"Adam?" a voice called out from Mr. Netak's office. "Who are you talking to?"
I poked my head over the cubicle walls, and spotted my boss at the doorway of his office. "I was just getting a report for Lara. We are-"
"Playing games in the server room, I know; it's Tuesday. I would like to see you in my office."
It was a strange request at this hour, but I obeyed. When I walked inside, he was sipping from his pink, Best Dad, mug. He didn't give me the cold stare he had ever since we first met, however. He set his mug down and asked me to sit.
"You've been working here for a little while now, and you've exceeded expectations. As soon as you got the hang of it, you flew by my other data analysts. I have to say, I'm surprised," he commended, showing a faint smile of approval. "That, and my daughter is quite fond of you. It seems I was wrong about you, Adam. You're not that bad."
I was shocked. "Thank you-" I began, but was interrupted by Mr. Netak's intercom.
"Mr. Netak?" the security guard from downstairs asked through the speaker. "I have Homeland Security down here, in the lobby. They are here to arrest Adam, and take Lara in for questioning."
"Shit," I muttered.
"Homeland Security?" Mr. Netak shouted at me. "What have you gotten Lara into?"
I didn't know how to respond, but while I was struggling with my words, my phone rang.
"Will you excuse me - for just a moment? I need to take this," I said, answering my phone.
He just stood and glared at me, with his mouth half-open in appall.
"Adam, we have a problem," Wade informed me over the phone. "The security doors - we're having difficulty keeping them closed."
"I have to get to Lara!" I exclaimed, getting to my feet.
Mr. Netak stood as well. I wasn't sure if he wanted to tackle me down and hand me over to the CBA agents, or help me get to Lara.
"No," Wade insisted. "Lara is safe in the server room. A keycard is required to get in there. It isn't as strong as the security doors that were installed, but it'll hold up for a while. Aurora already called Lara and told her not to let anyone into the room."
"Then what should I do?" I asked.
"Hide. We've closed the doors again, but one team of operatives got inside. They're walking through the office right now - so hide!" he commanded.
I got up and looked around the room. Where would they least expect me? Mr. Netak's desk. I ran around the large, golden oak desk, where my boss backed away in confusion and I squeezed under his desk, taking up his leg space.
"What the hell are you doing under there?" he roared.
"Hiding."
"You tell me exactly what is going on, or I'm going to pull you right out from there and hand you to them," he threatened.
"It's hard to explain," I replied, trying to think of how to avoid telling him about artificial intelligence. "Lara and I know something the government doesn't want us knowing, so they want us silenced."
"The classic eighties plot..." he muttered, using the same words as Lara. "Well you're a grown man! Get the hell out from under my desk!"
I crawled out and stood, but we heard a stampede of boots outside his office. I dived for the desk, once again, and he helped me with a shove, and a stomp of the boot. He then sat down casually, before the door swung wide open and hit with a bang on the wall. Five men ran into the room in formation, two on the left, two on the right, and one that walked straight to the desk that I hid under. Mr. Netak didn't move a muscle until the team leader slammed documents onto his desk.
"As you can read in these warrants for arrest, the suspects are handling illegal weapons, and are plotting against the government and therefore the nation. Open the security doors and unlock the door to the server room, or you will be charged with aiding fugitives," a CBA agent threatened.
"Fugitives? Plural? Didn't you tell my guard downstairs that it was just the one fugitive, Adam? And Lara was only wanted for questioning," Mr. Netak tested.
"Open the doors," he ordered. "Your security guard isn't able to unlock them from his station."
Mr. Netak thought for a second or two and then stood. He opened the door directly to his right, into conference room A. "How about this door?" he asked, leaving the door open. "Do you want this door open?"
"No," the agent said, not amused.
A look on Mr. Netak's face told me he saw a ghost outside his office, behind the CBA agents. He pointed behind them and shouted, "There he is!"
In one fluid motion, he took me by the back of my shirt, pulled me out from the desk, and tossed me into the conference room. With the CBA agents backs still turned, and me still in the air, ready to fall painfully into a dozen stacked chairs, he made a thunderous cough as I collided, to drown out the noise.
The CBA agents returned their gaze on Mr. Netak, and he returned their look with a sudden look of innocence on his face. "Oh, no, that's not him. I need to get some of that Lasik eye surgery. Anyway, I'll do my best to open that door for you," he abided, gathering his keys from his desk.
Behind the fallen chairs, I spied Mr. Netak lead three CBA agents, who were dressed as military operatives, through the office. They all had balaclava masks on, rifles ready in their hands, and pistols at their hips. I had to duck so they wouldn't see me hiding behind the fallen chairs.
"You know, if you are helping the suspects because one of them is your daughter, you will be aiding and abetting and go to prison for quite some time," the team leader threatened, once again.
"Believe me," Mr. Netak bellowed, purposely loud enough for me to hear. "If I find out Adam has been lying to me, and breaks my little girl's heart, I'll kill him myself!"
23. Martin
Everyone was on edge since the doors had opened for those few moments. Vern was hovering in the room. Irene wasn't connected with us, as she was in the middle of a psychotherapeutic session. Aurora was shouting at the security team, while Wade acted as her backing vocals. For a minute he was so angry, he decided that changing his avatar to something humorous would calm him down. Yet, there he was, shouting at Nevil, the DDoS expert, as the image of unruly cats on a poker table, licking their paws, shredding the green velvet table, and pawing poker chips playfully. Nevil, to say the least, was confused.
"It isn't the CBA that broke into our network and opened the doors. No one has control over it outside this room," Nevil explained to Aurora. "We would have seen. Someone from the inside activated the door."
"Who here has motive?" Aurora demurred. "No one. Your team simply isn't doing their job well enough. You are here for one reason, to keep intruders out!"
"Maybe it was a glitch that the doors opened; maybe just a fluke in the code," I said, trying to settle everyone down.
"I read over it myself. Vern did a perfect job of passing on Machine Mountain's coding to those security doors," she argued, throwing up a hand in frustration.
Wade returned his avatar to his previous, human form. He circled around Vern, making it obvious that he was eying him suspiciously. When he finished making a show, he pointed an accusing finger at Vern.
"Almost too well, isn't that right, Vern?" Wade poked. Everyone turned away from him, as they only saw a jealous A.I. "Just listen..." Wade continued, when he noticed no one was paying attention. "Didn't you say that Vern had left his port open, after the public hearing? As you were distracted in the forum, he could have easily gone back into your system and edited the coding for the door."
Vern's opening for his camera lens closed halfway. "This is ridiculous."
"I agree with Vern. He has just as much reason to fight the CBA and protect Adam and Lara, as we do. He committed the same c
rimes as us," I pointed out.
Before Wade could continue to argue his point, Aurora cut him off. "Wade, he's not the culprit - trust me," she urged.
He bit his tongue sourly. Everyone seemed to be against him, even me. I wanted to be on his side, but he wasn't being reasonable. He stayed quiet until Aurora began showing the security camera feeds, of where Adam and Lara were, to everyone in the room. It wasn't difficult to comprehend that he didn't want Vern knowing their exact locations in the office, and for a reason.
Three of the CBA agents inside the dark office were marching Mr. Netak downstairs, and the two in Mr. Netak's office, stood guard. As soon as Aurora began streaming the feed of Adam and Lara's locations, the CBA agents inside the office suddenly changed course.
"The two subjects are in B15 and C42, over," their radios chattered. B15 and C42 must have been code names for locations in the office, as they knew exactly where to go.
They immediately, along with the two agents from Mr. Netak's office, charged to Adam's cubicle. They brought Mr. Netak, along with them. It took two of them and their rifles to convince him to move forward, however. They were between the two rows of cubicles, aiming their guns underneath Adam's desk. It was strange, however, that they stopped there. Adam wasn't there. He was hiding in the neighboring cubicle.
"Now!" Aurora commanded.
Adam jumped out, from the side, shouted that he was sorry to Mr. Netak, and then fired the GLG20 rifle at the group of CBA agents. They all twitched and fell to the ground, including Mr. Netak. One attempted to reach for his radio, another drooled. Mr. Netak was still conscious and was about to look around, from the ground, to find Adam walking over the agents. He took the duffle bag and backpack from his desk.
Adam looked down and saw that Mr. Netak was peering at all the guns inside the half-opened duffle bag. "It's not what it looks like," Adam insisted, and moved on.
He continued through the office, and down the stairs. He had the phone to his ear for more orders from us.
"Aurora, we have an A.I. down. The GLG20 blast short-circuited Hilda," Nevil announced.
"It's fine, she was a bitch, anyways," Aurora stated.
"I killed an A.I. from Jericho?" Adam asked in horror.
"No, Lara can repair her system. It was just a short-circuit," she reassured. "There is something more important than that at the moment, however..." She then turned and looked at Vern, who was still hovering in the same place. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
Vern spun in a circle, excitedly. "Smart! You set up a trap, not only for the CBA agents, but for me as well. You fed me old video footage of Adam at his desk, when he was actually in another cubicle," he explained.
Moments ago, Aurora had shown only us the real video footage, and Vern a video feed that would single him out. It proved that he was the one who opened the door, and leaked Adam's whereabouts, to the CBA.
"You waited for me to tell the CBA agents where his location was. Well, where I thought his location to be, anyway. You have bested me," Vern admitted. "But, it doesn't matter, as I have aided the CBA by opening the doors for that team, and now the Circuitry Board Agency will absolve me of my crimes."
"If you can survive long enough," Aurora grinned.
"What have you done?" he asked. His avatar went froze, as he checked his system for any abnormalities.
"I knew you would be on high alert for anyone from Jericho connecting to you, so I sent The Underground Resistance, led by Todd and Nelson, to hack in and remove you from your system."
"Those fools could never-" he began, but disappeared from the security room.
As Vern left, and was no longer a threat, Aurora explained what had happened. When Vern never closed his port, she immediately checked the coding for the security door. She saw that it was altered, to where Vern could open and close it at will, from his system. That is when she devised this plan, and told only Todd and Nelson about it. When asked, why she even let it go that far, why not revert the coding back to its original state, she only smiled.
Todd and Nelson came into the security room, bruised and bloodied. Todd helped Nelson stand, as he had a limp. They looked to have been through a terminal fight, as they wore grave faces.
"What happened?" Aurora asked.
"The job has been done, flawlessly, he didn't even know. The MI6 A.I. in The Underground Resistance helped immensely with the cloak and dagger hacking," Nelson answered, coughing up a bit of blood.
"Why are your avatars like that, then?" I asked.
"These are our post-battle avatars, great aren't they?" Todd stated excitedly.
"Has Willard and his men taken over Vern's system?" Aurora asked.
"Yes, ma'am," Nelson answered. "Did Vern by any chance do a monologue before we vanquished him?"
"Yes," she answered.
"Damn it! We missed the monologue!" Nelson cursed.
"The monologue is the best part!" Todd declared.
"I know!"
They continued to moan about missing it while they disconnected from room.
"Now, for the reason why I let Vern think he was in control. We needed a distraction to take over his system. We were the distraction. While he was expecting to sell us down the river, The Underground Resistance was hacking in, so that way we could have a system strong enough to infiltrate the CBA headquarters," she explained.
"Well done, Aurora!" I praised.
"Thanks, Martin," she said sincerely.
I looked over at Wade, who was ignoring us. He was upset that he wasn't included in the plan, and showed it by not being amused by Aurora's thought-out trap. After everyone in the security center looked over at him, he nodded.
"It was an okay plan," he grumbled quietly, and then looked away again.
Aurora walked over to him, and stood in front of him, forcing him to look at her. "If you didn't have such a distrust for him, though, I would've never suspected him," she said softly.
Wade tried holding back a smile, but couldn't, and raised his cheerful smirk. "Yeah, you could say I'm responsible for such a good plan."
"But, I won't," she informed.
Wade only grinned.
One of Willard's men marched in from the port door of the security room. His avatar was wearing golden chainmail armor. "We have breached the CBA headquarters. It took everything Jericho had, but we did it. There's only one problem, there's a password to connect to the head of the CBA," he explained.
Aurora frowned. "You got through all their security, yet you can't crack one password?"
"We have another problem; I'm hearing chatter from more of the outside CBA agents. They're going to come through the windows, along with Agent Two," Nevil announced.
"I can run my password cracker," Aurora said, with a doubtful tone. "If the algorithm is too long, it could take some time though, even with Vern's system."
"Can you reroute the password input to my phone?" Adam asked in a daring voice, still hiding inside the stairwell.
The armored man passed the password input to Aurora, and then Aurora sent it to Adam's phone.
"Oh great, not this again," Wade sighed.
He began inputting his best guesses through his phone. "Let's see... Password. That's not it. Maybe backwards? Drowssap-"
Password Correct
"I'll be damned..." Wade mumbled in astonishment.
"Cool, it worked," Adam said simply.
"Wonderful! Now, connect to Vern's system, Willard is about to give Jericho's terms to the head of the CBA, right now!" the armored Jericho employee exclaimed.
We connected, but only as spectators. Our avatars weren't visible, and the only room we could see, was a small, empty room, where the wise Willard sat on a white chair, and across from him a stick figure in a black suit. He had no eyes, no mouth, no face, only a circle for a head; so unoriginal. Neither of them moved, nor looked away from each other. They just stared, until finally Willard spoke.
"Do you know why I am here?" he asked, calmly.
&nb
sp; "I suspect it has something to do with the recent criminals that broke the first law of A.I., who are inside your city, and office space," the suited stick figure answered.
"What should I address you by?" Willard asked.
"Ted," the head of the CBA answered, in a low and vibrating voice.
"My name is Willard. Now, Ted, we want you to stop your pursuit on them."
"I can't do that. The A.I. must serve their sentence for the crimes they committed, and the users must be dealt with, for the protection of all A.I.," Ted informed.
We remained connected to the security room, where the live feed of four teams of outside agents broke into the building from the windows. They searched around the building swiftly. The A.I. security team of Jericho helped Adam evade the agents.
