There was an elevator and a doorway to a stairwell. Both were being relentlessly watched by the eagle-eyed camera. It was actually better than an eagle. The camera didn’t blink. Geogyn knew his N.O.S.E. gear was adequate to avoid the camera, but an invisible figure opening an elevator, or stairwell door would cause enough concern for the guards to question their skills while rushing to find out what was happening.
Geogyn was proud of his abilities as an infiltrator. Yes, his training was ample, but his ingress equipment was amazingly surreal.
The lighting in the area was dim at 1:00 am. Light was not a major component for employees who didn’t work at 1:00 am, and if a guard needed to be there, his flashlight would suffice.
Dimly lit areas were Geogyn’s ally. The camera wasn’t. He slowly walked towards the camera. The camera was a Kryann 2160P Grand Def 3-D monitor. ‘Clarity’ was a monumental understatement when it came to this camera’s abilities. If a man was wearing tight jeans, you could tell if he was circumcised or not.
The reason he walked so slowly was to not show much motion. With a monitoring system better than a normal human’s natural eye, you can see things you shouldn’t. Eldridge, sadly, didn‘t have the knowledge of this future invention. The suit was ten years old, and the monitoring system was one year old, two years ago. Due to his untimely demise, he would not have been able to augment it.
Geogyn had nothing to worry about. Eldridge’s swift knowledge was another reason he was in the Paranormal Commandos; he had future-proofed the suit.
N.O.S.E. gear had certain features even Ron didn’t know of. One of those features was called ‘Who’s Got an Eye on Me’. The gear not only projected but received. It gathered information about what was looking at it, whether it would be a person or a monitor. It could perceive the quality of sight, and adjust itself to work very congruently with whatever was viewing it.
Since Geogyn would have no advantage of Eldridge’s amazing skill of premised future-proofing, he remained at his painfully slow snail’s pace.
It took an unnecessary hour for Geogyn to position himself under the camera. Once he was in the blind spot, his tenseness relaxed slightly. He pulled out a device called the Dark NV-87. It was an infiltration device given to him by Ron. It had Parasitic technology. What it did was infiltrate the inner workings of any monitoring device, record three minutes of the image, and display it in the camera, as if it were live. It was wireless and had a forty foot radius of execution. Most infiltration specialist nick-named it the Envy Box, because it wants the camera’s previous live feed, and always got it.
Geogyn thought, I have three minutes to enter the elevator or stairwell, and leave this area untouched, literally.
With this damned Grand Def camera, this monitoring system could record bad thoughts and display them.
He surveyed the obstacles, and before he turned the Envy Box on. Before he removed it, he decided on the stairwell. He assumed the elevator would have a constant monitor alerting a guard even if nothing got on the elevator. His entire mission stemmed from him never being there. Even ‘unexplained phenomena’ wasn‘t acceptable in this scenario.
That door is alarmed, no doubt, he thought. In less than three minutes, I have to find out what type of alarm it is, disable it, and pick the lock. No pressure.
Tick, tick, tick.
His execution was flawless. His clockwork actions were seamlessly natural. He knew what he had to do in the painfully small window he had to do it in. Although he wasn’t briefed on what particulars his obstacles had, he knew the tasks that had to be accomplished.
Tick, tick, tick.
No turning back now, he thought as the Envy Box’s record collusion was expiring. I have less than three minutes, and being on the clock is not just a figure of speech.
The Box gave off a higher than human sound emitting sonic cascade that engulfed the camera. It read the inner technology of the camera and adapted to it. It recorded the image of the empty corridor. Once it completed that task of accessing prior recordings, the second phase replaced the live display seamlessly with the recording. The Envy Box was frame perfect. The monitoring computer couldn’t tell the difference, let alone the human eye. It was ready for covert penetration. Geogyn just had to get in the doorway and leave the image exactly the way it looked in the recording. With this monitoring system, if even the smallest object would be out of place, it would point out the discrepancy. Knowing the makers of that system, and how much it cost, Geogyn began to think of what they housed in this fortress to warrant that kind of surveillance.
I just have to assume Chu-Li-Fan has enough clout to be authorized for such equipment, and enough paranoia to have that equipment voraciously excised.
Most would say her caution is way too extreme, Geogyn thought as he began sweeping the stairway door with the Envy Box. I give her respect for her paranoia. She protected herself with the best technology invented, to hinder whatever was coming for her. Sadly, it won’t make any difference… I’m coming.
Geogyn felt the coded vibration from the Envy Box, letting him know it had found the type of alarm on the door. It started the algorithm, alphanumeric code break program. Geogyn was able to begin picking the lock. This step of the process took twenty-eight seconds. Over two and a half minutes left.
He opened his pick kit, pulled out his picking tools, and began working on the lock.
Tick, tick, tick.
Who puts a twelve pin tumbler lock assembly on a stairway door?” he asked himself as seconds began ticking away, with no favor of leniency. A paranoid person, who spares no expense for security.
He ran into another problem. This was what was referred to by most infiltration experts as a ‘smart lock’. The tumbler that was picked first had to be set, and housed by the tooth, or equivalent of an actual key. If it was picked with no support, it would reset to a new tumbler placement, re-complicating the lockpick, and rendering traditional lock picking useless.
Her paranoia is beginning to irk me, he thought. I don’t have time for this errant complication.
Tick, tick, tick.
Then he reevaluated the situation. I can’t call it errant if it is doing what it‘s supposed to do, he thought, as his internal stopwatch ticked down to zero. He just had to complete his unauthorized entry before it reached zero.
He pulled out the semblance gel to fill the lock mechanism. The Envy Box was working at lightning speed to bypass the alarm. It was thirty percent complete in about one minute and thirty seconds.
Do your job, Box, and I'll do mine, Geogyn thought, as his watch kept relentlessly counting down.
The semblance gel began to fill the tumblers of the picked lock. It was designed to mimic a key perfectly. The only other thing a security company could do to thwart a lock pick was to invent at timing counter for the execution of the use of a key. He was glad no one had invented that yet.
Well, even if someone did, we‘d invent a way to beat that, he thought, as the gel filled the last tumbler.
Tick, tick, tick.
I‘m complete. C‘mon, Box, you have twenty five seconds to crack the alarm. Geogyn began to believe the Box would hinder him. He was about to curse how slow technology had become for him when he got the confirmation vibration from the Box.
Tick, tick, tick.
Ten seconds left, he thought, as he turned the semblance gel pseudo-key. The door unlocked without the alarm sounding. He pulled the key out, opened the door, and closed it behind him.
He was free and clear, with five seconds left. Then he reviewed his actions of those critical three minutes to make sure everything was as it looked before those three minutes. As he retraced his steps, in less than a second, he realized they were not.
The lock mechanism on the door was horizontal, because it was unlocked! The previous, live frame portrayed it as vertical. If it was a standard monitoring system, only an anally meticulous guard would have noticed it with blind luck, but with a Kryann Surveillance System, you spend the money for f
lawless anal meticulousness. If there is a discrepancy anywhere, the system would alert, and point it out. Geogyn had four seconds.
He opened the door quickly. Three seconds. He fumbled with the semblance gel pseudo-key. Two seconds. He gained control of the key, stuck it in the door. He turned the key to lock the door back and pulled the key out of the door. One second. He swiftly closed the door, and remained quiet. He waited to hear a squad of guards descending on his location. He kept listening pensively. Waiting to hear the slightest noise. Thinking of how all his covert infiltration was for nothing. How not paying attention to detail made his delicate situation shatter. His mind raced as to how to augment his plans to complete his mission. He knew they were coming. He prepared for the hellfire.
Five minutes passed, nothing. He still didn‘t believe not one guard had noticed his sloppy work. After three more minutes, he realized he wasn‘t as sloppy as he thought. Nobody saw anything. He was efficient enough to remain invisible.
It‘s time to find where she’s going to work today, hide until she comes in, and administer justice, he thought as he began to descend the stairwell.
He saw what level he was on. It was sub-level one. He had to get to sub-level thirty nine. He began to silently walk the stairs. It took sixteen minutes to covertly navigate the stairwell. After knowing how close he was to being found out, he became as cautious as Chu-Li-Fan was.
Geogyn accessed his memory once more to see the layout of sub-level thirty-nine. Val-Koorin had made the map very thorough.
Two cameras, and a completely different door alarm. Geogyn thought of how hindering the security was.
He started with the alarm system of the door first. Being on the other side of the door gave him a more remiss time frame than the hectic three minutes prior.
It seemed as if things were in his favor, because the security on this door was much more advanced. It took eight minutes to crack the security. He was finished with the lock pick six minutes earlier.
Before he turned his pseudo-key, he had to hack the camera.
He was happy the Box had a forty foot radius. Being on the other side of the door made the wireless range technology detrimental.
After six minutes, he felt the vibration from the Box, letting him know it had done its job. He turned the key, slowly opened the door, and entered the sub-level. He closed the door and locked it behind him. He hid under the camera, and released its live feed.
The only thing he had to do was bypass the last camera, and enter the lab Chu-Li-Fan was speculated to work in.
Geogyn began to creep down the hallway closer to the camera. He remained as silent as he could, hoping there were no audio alerting mechanisms at this ultra-secure level. He was confident there were none from the detailed mental blueprint Val-Koorin had implanted in his mind.
This is two years ago, he thought, remembering his temporal paradox. Audio Tattlers weren‘t invented until six months ago, current time. Hard to rationalize known intelligence from then to now, which is technically, before. Then he screwed his face for a second. I'm going to stop speculating rationality until I catch up with my true time. My position is making me think unnaturally, he thought. Then the entire situation came crashing, harshly into his valid reasoning.
This whole situation is unnatural, he began to realize the obvious. Then his accomplishment of his mission automatically kicked in. It overpowered his thinking. It didn't make a difference how practical it was at this juncture. It became overshadowed, and quickly discarded like a candy wrapper.
Your situation doesn't make a difference here, Geogyn thought. All that matters now is you complete your mission, and that is what you will do.
That was the first time Geogyn‘s mind forced the subconscious’ perpetual order to the forefront of his mind. The first time he actually heard himself enforce the affirmation. Then he realized his brain believed the situation was unique, and needed significant circumstances to keep him on task. That must have been the reason.
Geogyn stopped thinking. It muddled his goal. He reverted back to what he knew was fact. He was in this hallucinatory situation, slated to do a true job. Erase Chu-Li-Fan, and that is what would be executed. No addendum or augmentations.
Stop second guessing this strangeness, and just do your job, he thought as he positioned himself under the last camera, monitoring the only other doorway in the hallway. It was the one leading to the lab Chu-Li-Fan worked in.
Geogyn clicked on the Envy Box. He had three minutes once more. He was glad the Box was a learning computer. The alarm system was the same that was on the previous door. The one which took eight minutes to crack. The Box found many shortcuts to accelerate the process. It finished in two minutes, thirty-eight seconds. The lock pick became quicker as well. He was still waiting for the Envy Box to complete its alarm cracking.
He entered quickly and silently to complete his task. His mind convinced him to stop thinking because sensible thought made no sense in this senseless environment. He decided to tackle that conundrum when things started making sense once more. Since that was two years away, he had excommunicated it for now.
He looked down the corridor. It opened to the lab. The only hindered entity was a clear glass entrance. It showed the entire lab. All the experiments, computers, components, all the way to the test tubes. It also showed one vitally important, but unexpected integer. Chu-Li-Fan was there!
Geogyn thought he would hide for a few hours, and wait for his confrontation, but because of her diligence and determination, his opportunity laid itself out vulnerably in front of him.
She was in an anti-radiation suit, working on a computer. It was next to a test tube mixer, whirring with the high pitched sound of its purpose.
Geogyn slowly stalked his prey like a hungry cheetah about to attack a defenseless gazelle.
The predator tensed the sinews in his muscles. He began to slowly, with amazingly controlled motion, advance towards her. He stayed low, as if he were being hidden by the tall grass. His N.O.S.E. gear was his proverbial tall grass, and he was hidden stupendously. She kept working, obliviously grazing without a clue of being targeted. Geogyn kept inexorably advancing.
This is too easy, he thought as he centered his prey in his sights. Once I walk through this glass, she will have nowhere to go.
There was an entrance way fashioned in the glass. He knew that would be the entry point. He saw no surveillance equipment, or alarms anywhere. Not visually, or in his mind’s eye. Even Val-Koorin's mental map showed a free and clear situation.
He kept advancing slowly. Although his path seemed unhindered, he continued his stealthy stalking. He still didn't trust the ease of the execution. He knew from experience things are never what they show at face value.
The next shoe is about to drop, Geogyn thought. I'm ready to dodge it, whatever it will be.
He crept to the glass entrance with painfully slow, professionally executed stealth. He knew he couldn't be seen with the naked eye as he crossed the threshold of the entrance. Unfortunately, for Geogyn, the 'naked eye' wasn't his nemesis. The other shoe began to drop with alarming velocity. It almost toppled him over with the shock wave of the impact.
Sonar was his formidable, deadly nemesis. That sensor doesn't work on sight, it works on mass. When an object obstructs the sensor's designated path of distance, the sound wave bounces back quicker. It wouldn't matter if you were visible or not, your signature because of your mass makes you able to be seen as if you were wearing neon.
Geogyn moved to the entrance of the lab. It was a compartment about three feet long before you'd be in the actual lab. He thought nothing of the structure as he continued to hunt his prey. That eschewing of that curious construction cost him dearly.
When he was fully inside of the area, the sonar sensor activated. It detected him and immediately executed a lock down procedure. It closed both doors of the entrance swiftly. They made a sealing sound like that of closing a refrigerator, turning the entrance into his inescapable prison.
“
Chu-Li-Fan was so immersed in her work, the alert shocked her with more intensity than its intended informing. She screamed as she jumped about two feet away from her experiment.
“
Damn! Geogyn cursed to himself. I knew something was coming, but this is new. He was caught. His jig was up. No more sneaking. Geogyn decided to confront her without his camouflage. He deactivated his gear.
Chu-Li-Fan saw no one in the entrance prison initially, so she began scanning the lab in desperation. Geogyn relieved her tense paranoia by becoming visible. He thought her relief would be short-lived with what he was going to do to her.
“
Geogyn tried to answer her in his crude execution of her dialect. “” He hoped she understood.
She had a sinister smile on her face. “Because of the auditory rape and murder you've committed on my language, and your hideous American accent I'll spare you by speaking English. Don't worry, I'm fluent.”
She was arrogant, but correct. Her style of Mandarin was sprinkled with a heavy dose of Cantonese. Only an indigenous native could speak it. The corridor unlocked upon his revelation.
“I was sent by a higher power,” Geogyn began his speech. “You will create a devastating bio-agent that will multiply exponentially, and destroy the planet.”
Chu-Li-Fan wanted to correct him on the name of her new material once more. “It's called Anatominix. I created it to obliterate the Triad infecting my village. I'm getting retribution for my people.”
“You're going to get your wish of obliteration, but your wish will escalate to Earthly genocide,” Geogyn gave her the foreboding facts.
“As long as those bastards are dead, I'm happy,” she said, ignoring Geogyn's desecrating prediction.
The Final Option Page 11
