Making the Grade (Omnia Online Series Book 2)

by Christopher Booth

  Drake still had to wait a few minutes for Ash to make his sweep. There were no sounds from behind Drake; however, he did see some movement from the hallway leading south.

  When Drake turned his head to look, he didn’t see anything.

  “Samantha, I think something was moving to the south a minute ago. Did you catch anything on the sensors?” asked Drake.

  “Yes, I think someone is down there, a door opened and closed. I think someone was curious about the sound of your shooting and looked out the door,” replied Samantha.

  “Which door, the one to Imaging?” asked Drake.

  “Yes,” replied Samantha.

  At this point, Ash returned alone.

  “What did you find, Ash? You don’t look happy, what happened?” asked Drake.

  “There was a guard detail in the stairs at one point. I found two dead guards, people I worked with.” Ash took a moment to compose himself.

  “There was also a dead woman, I’m not sure that she was one of them, though.” said the guard.

  “All the A.I.’s current support has been in the woods for some time… from a few days to a couple weeks, if the woman was dirty, she was probably one of them,” said Drake.

  Ash nodded at the information.

  “Yeah, she looked like she hadn’t washed her hair in a week.” said Ash.

  “Ok, so cover me while I go down this hall toward the emergency rooms and plant my first distraction.” Drake carefully walked down the corridor, there was a sitting area just south of the waiting rooms that were next to the Laboratory. Drake still didn’t see anyone but killed another camera at the Lab door.

  After hiding one of his radios under a chair, Drake retreated to where Ash was waiting and covering him, while watching the halls.

  The next step was to sweep through the imaging department and make sure it was empty and unplug any machines.

  Drake entered the imaging department; he was expecting to find someone inside and discovered that person right next to the door. The person he found was a middle-aged Human man who seemed frightened. Since the man was clean, not trying to kill him and had a hospital I.D. badge, Drake was confident he wasn’t under the A.I.s control.

  “I’m Marshal Horatio Drake, what are you doing here? Didn’t you hear the alarm earlier?” asked Drake.

  “Y…yes, but it stopped, so I thought it was a mistake?” the nervous man gave the statement an inflection at the end that suggested he was asking a question.

  “Well, since you’re here, I can use your help. I need you to go around and unplug all the equipment you can find.” The man began shaking his head like he would refuse.

  “This is important, this is no drill and no game, there’s a rogue A.I. in the hospital, and it’s taking over any computer system it can. So we need to unplug these to protect them from the A.I.” Drake said. He figured the man to be some sort of lab technician and would understand protecting the equipment better than any other longer explanation that Drake could offer. And with all the live machines around him, he was sure the A.I. was listening.

  As the man started to comply, Drake added, “Oh, and I suspect the A.I. can track people through that badge you're wearing so I would get rid of it, if I were you.”

  The technician acted like his employee I.D. had turned into a snake, the way he paled and clawed to get the thing off him.

  With that, Drake started to hunt cameras. He found another three and took them out.

  Drake thought, ‘Damn this hospital is full of cameras.’

  With the man working on shutting everything down and the cameras dead, Drake prepared to join Ash again in the hall.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes to make sure everything is ready here, and all the systems are off,” Drake said to the imaging technician just before exiting out into the hall.

  The back hallway, into the emergency rooms, was clear of people too.

  After Drake and Ash had cleared the halls of cameras, Drake placed his second radio near the wall next to the back door into the emergency room area.

  Now with steps one and two complete, Drake and Ash returned to Imaging, to check on the progress of the technician.

  “Are all the machines shut off?” Drake asked when he found the technician working on a system.

  “I need more time to shut them off right. If I just unplug the machines, it could damage or misalign some of their systems…” said the man.

  Drake responded by pulling the power cord to the machine the man was working on.

  “Listen to me, if these machines aren’t all unplugged in five minutes, I’ll start shooting them, rather than unplugging them. I’m sure then you won’t have to work on realigning the systems or whatever you do with the damn machines,” said Drake.

  Drake started looking for any machine the still had a functioning display or lights and started unplugging the devices. He really had no intention of harming the delicate equipment any more than he had to, but he wanted to motivate the man, they were running out of time.

  While Drake worked to shut down anything electronic he could find, he closed his helmet to talk privately with Samantha.

  “Sam, as we were chasing the A.I. out of the forest, you mentioned something about a reward for killing it? How does that work? Do I need to register to hunt it, like a bounty?”

  “No, any party to kill an A.I. traditionally earns a reward from the Imperial family directly. It’s not a bounty, but as a gift from the Empress, it’s not taxable either. The reward has traditionally been 100 thousand credits split among the people directly responsible for killing the A.I.,” replied Samantha.

  “That’s a lot of money, but at this point, I would need to split it with Ash?” asked Drake.

  “From what I understand, that will only apply if he is there when we actually kill the rogue A.I.,” replied Samantha.

  After shutting down all the machines he could find, Drake moved into an eastern room where the third part of his plan would take shape.

  Drake stopped and calmed his mind to focus his psionic senses on the wall and what lay beyond. This took a little more time than normal since Drake was so stressed by the events of the night.

  The office room on the far side was empty.

  Drake went to the next room to the south and tried again.

  It was on the third try that Drake found what he was looking for. He sensed something about the size and shape of the box that contained the A.I., and there were a couple machines and two humans nearby that seemed to be holding weapons.

  Drake carefully and quietly checked this room out. He made sure nothing was plugged into any walls. Drake went as far as moving everything near a wall away. He double checked the ceiling and floor for any hidden devices, just to be sure. Once Drake was sure there were no betraying electrical eyes, he pulled open his green backpack and pulled out the sixteen-meter roll of det-tape. Using the whole roll would be overkill for what he needed, but he thought that he only had the one chance. So, he stuck the whole roll to the wall with all three timers he had in his bag. It was all set to go off in one minute.

  Before turning on the timers, he exited the room to check on Ash and the technician.

  “Everything shut off?” he asked

  The technician nodded.

  “Ok, listen, I’m not sure there’s a safe place to be until after I deal with this A.I. threat,” Drake said to the technician.

  Now Drake would see if he could get rid of his help.

  He didn’t want to share the reward with someone he met as a chance encounter. Drake felt that he had been the one to take all the risks and injuries, so he should also get any rewards for his efforts on the job.

  Drake turned to Ash, “So are you with me for this final step, or do you want to escort this man clear, Ash? If you decided to leave… listen if I don’t make it back, tell whoever’s in charge not to trust anything electronic that had a data connection, wired or wireless.”

  Ash nodded, “Yeah, I’ll go, I need to find my
commander and report. Good luck.”

  “See you on the other side, Ash,” said Drake. He didn’t want to order Ash to back out, and by allowing him the choice, Drake felt a little less like a cheat.

  If he made it through this alive and received a reward, he would then consider if Ash should have a share. Reporting and escorting the technician gave Ash an easy escape, and Drake would not have to split his focus watching out for the guard too.

  “Ok, I’m starting the distraction part; this is probably the best time to leave.” said Drake.

  As the men left, Drake took out the two remote controls for the radios and turned them on.

  Even from inside this room, Drake could hear the radios transmitting the sound of someone talking.

  Drake then entered the room with the high explosive det-tape and timers.

  He reached out again with his senses to check one last time, before setting off the tape. The room beyond the wall was still guarded by two droids in the room but only one guard outside the chamber.

  Drake started the timers and hid behind the biggest piece of equipment he could find in the room. He closed his faceplate to protect his face and ears from the coming blast. Then braced himself for the expected explosion, in just 20 more seconds the emergency department would have a new back door into the imaging department.

  10 seconds.

  5, 4, 3, 2…

  Drake was braced for the blast, and behind cover, so he wasn’t affected.

  With his Blaster at ready, Drake hurried to make his way into the new opening to the emergency departments offices before anyone moved to block his path.

  Drake entered a room devastated by the explosion. One of the droids was complexly smashed and the second took some damage, the office door had been blown outward, and the person on the far side turned out to be a female Human, who was starting to turn around despite being stunned by the blast.

  Drake’s weapon was ready before the woman’s blaster could be brought to aim. He fired twice at the woman, before shifting his aim to the still able droid. The droid was turning around to bring the damaged limb that held a blaster pistol to point. Drake fired twice into the droid too.

  Drake’s two shots at the woman, hit her once in the right shoulder, and the second time in her left arm as she was turned by the first shot.

  The working droid was hit at close range twice, the first shot breaking through its housing and doing severe damage. Drake second shot must have hit its power pack since it caused the droid to explode.

  By the time Drake recovered from the Droid’s explosion, the woman was also recovering from the two hits she’d taken and was starting to aim a blaster rifle in his direction.

  Instead of taking a shot at the female Human, Drake dove for cover behind the A.I.s casing.

  The woman managed to get off a shot that hit Drake on the right side, just below his ribs, as he dove for cover.

  Drake didn’t know if the A.I. was functional since it had taken some damage from the blast.

  As Drake started to recover from his dive and being shot, in his attempt to avoid fire, he heard a panicked yell coming from the direction of his assailant.

  Drake realized that his being so close to the A.I., and using it for cover might have caused the woman to panic. Drake readied his blaster carbine, and when the women came running around to get him away from the A.I., he started firing before she had a chance.

  Drake fired four times at the charging woman, hitting her center mass with three shots but missing her with his last shot, as she fell to the ground.

  Just to be sure, Drake shot her one last time in the head. Which with as powerful a weapon as the carbine, it did noticeable damage, and Drake was sure she wouldn’t be getting up.

  Drake quickly disconnected the wires the A.I. had plugged into the data port and the power.

  Drake knew he only had seconds before the rest of the A.I.’s team came looking for him. Drake calculated that with four dead, and any droids out of the fight now that the A.I. was disconnected, there would be only two or maybe three left out there to deal with.

  Since Drake didn’t know how many of the A.I.’s servants might have been killed taking the hospital’s emergency room, he really had no idea of how many were left. The only thing he was sure of was that he sensed one more person, before the distractions kicked in.

  Drake didn’t have any tools to open the A.I.’s metal case with, to get inside and make sure it was dead.

  Drake grabbed the rifle the female dwarf dropped and started using the weapon to fire at the big metal box.

  After a few shots, Drake figured that he was not going to be able to just blast through the A.I.’s outer shell.

  Therefore, Drake retreated through the hole he blew into the wall less than a minute ago. He then took cover behind some equipment and waited for a response.

  Drake heard some movement from just beyond his sight, and past the shattered office door.

  “Your ‘master’ is dead, the A.I. has been destroyed, and you’re too late. Give up now if you want to live,” shouted Drake. He hoped that if the brainwashed followers of the A.I. thought he was dead, they might give up now that it was too late.

  “No!” came back an angry shout, “The Great Arhat is immortal and has slept for two thousand years awaiting us. The master can never die, you lie!”

  Then a male Sebek and a male Human charged into the A.I.’s room. Drake started firing as soon as he had a target. These last two didn’t make it through the chamber. Drake took them down while shooting from cover, and with all the debris from the wall, droids, as well as their dead companion, it was hard for the last two followers to move or shoot.

  It saddened Drake to kill these two people since they were more than just programmed tools of the A.I., they were people that might have been recovered with proper care. But they were extremely dangerous since their conditioning also somehow enabled them to absorb so much damage and continue to fight.

  For Drake, this was a game, but he would wonder for some time after if he could have saved these last two had he used the stun gun. This was especially true the few times he met any of their relatives.

  People or code, did it matter that the feelings were based on programming if hurt so much? When the living had to build a new life from the one with a person-shaped hole in it?

  After killing what, Drake now believed to be the last of the A.I. servants. Drake started looking for a way to destroy the A.I. for certain. He had no tools, but he finally came up with something that might work.

  Drake found some air vents on one side of the box, and loaded his stun gun with a fresh set of electric stun darts. Then he plugged the A.I. into the power socket one last time and started shooting darts into the vent.

  With each shot, he could hear some sparks going off inside the box. On the third shot, the box started smoking; the fourth shot caused even more smoke. By the time Drake had unloaded the full clip into the box, there was a fully evolved electrical fire burning.

  Drake unplugged the box and left the room to try to find something to use to contain the flames.

  Chapter 18 – Dreams Made Virtual

  The after battle cleanup would take days, weeks or for a few people years.

  Before Drake could find a method of extinguishing the flames, he discovered the rooms where the ‘Great Arhat’ confined all the people it had captured.

  Drake found about sixty people confined to the first three rooms in the office area. He imagined that the reason they were restricted to the front offices was so they could serve as a living shield at need.

  The confined groups of people included three security guards and a lot of the hospital emergency room staff.

  After releasing a few, he gave the work over to a couple of the guards and asked the third to help him contain the fire he started.

  The fire extinguishers produced foam that quickly reduced the flames. They had to feed the foam into the same air vents Drake had shot through, to put out the fire insi
de the A.I.’s shell.

  With the fire contained and the captives released, Drake made an excuse to the guard helping him fight the fire, and left the area.

  He figured that the hospital staff and the security guards were the real experts to deal with the mess, at this point.

  Later he would learn that when he unplugged the A.I., the 19 people subjected to strenuous mental conditioning were left locked in the medical pods unconscious. The A.I. had to overwrite many of the functions and limits built into the medical pods, so when the victims were released, they needed to be moved to other areas of the hospital for treatment.

  ***

  Drake found getting back to the High Jinx to be a challenge in a city where all the public transportation had been shut down.

  He would have to think about getting his own transportation that was hardened against hacking. He imagined the cities systems were protected, but they just couldn’t stand up to this level of threat.

  Drake started to head back to his rented air-car when Samantha gave him some bad news.

  “Drake, if you’re heading back to the air-car, you should reconsider. Hitting the emergency shut off will leave the vehicle grounded until a technician can come out and reset the system,” said Samantha.

  “So can you call a cab or something?” asked Drake.

  “No, sorry, most of the cities services have been severely disrupted by the ‘Great Arhat.’ The data-net is just starting to recover, but many of the officials took flight with the Governor when we called in the alarm and are still on their way to the space station.” said Samantha.

  “Without the missing leadership, some of the cities systems are going to take more time recovering. It’s not helped by the fact that all communications with the spaceships and the space station have been cut off. It might take some time to get the word out that the A.I. is dead.” Samantha continued.

  “So what do you suggest we do to get back to the spaceport… wait a second, didn’t you say that all the space ships lifted from the spaceport? Did that include High Jinx?” asked Drake.