A week later…

“Sir,” James’ A.I. interrupted his thoughts, as he was once again looking out the window of his office at the river. Maybe having an office with such a beautiful view wasn’t such a good idea, since he seemed to spend a lot of time looking outside and thinking.

“Yes, Matilda?” he asked.

“You wanted to be informed about any unusual events dealing with subject U138.”

“Matilda, you know I’m no good at remembering all the number codes the Department is so fond of hanging on every person, place, and thing.” He knew, she knew, he disliked the level of bureaucracy all the codes entailed. But for Matilda, using the code number was just another way to tease him out of his current mood… It had taken him years to learn all the tricks she used to keep him sane, and he loved her even when she was irritating.

But the Department took its numbers and codes a bit too far for James liking. They seemed to want to reduce people to just a set of figures that could neatly fit into their files. The whole mentality was irritating, and he wondered if it was a mark of the eventual decline of the Imperium. Having grown up on Earth, he learned of the cycles of dynasties that China went through, and couldn’t help to wonder how many more thousands of years the Imperium would last.

“You might remember subject U138 as Kevin Asharic, who plays the character Horatio Drake in Omnia. His A.I. has put in a request for a lifting of restrictions on sharing information. She feels that to further his training in some technical matters, he’ll need to be allowed to experiment in real life. She’s asking for permission to recreate the Kinzigur experiments under laboratory conditions.”

The name sounded familiar… “Remind me, Matilda, who was Kinzigur again?” asked James.

“He was one of the earlier researchers into hyper-field theory, or as he preferred to call it at the time Supra-Spacial theory. And he was able to develop some experiments back in 546 P.I. proving the existence of fifth-dimensional space.”

“Oh, right, the Pre-Imperia scientist, I remember reading about him in history. So what do you think Matilda? Would allowing this information out, hurt or help our efforts in bring Earth up to speed?” he asked his A.I.

“The experiments are barely within the ability of a few Universities to perform. They’d need access to vacuum, either out in space or in a chamber and have the tools on hand to conduct experiments using superconductive high energy devices, which could be hard to manufacture. We could make it a lot easier by providing a high power superconductive coil for the experiments, but that might violate the bounds of our project.” answered Matilda.

James nodded in thought for a few minutes. “Maybe not, we could have a subsidiary of Intelecom put a bid in on manufacturing the coil. I agree with the terms of the project, the people of Earth need to feel that they’re making advances on their own terms. But if they put the part out to bid, we might be able to help without bringing notice to ourselves, but do we even want to approve the release, to begin with?”

Matilda responded, “Well, it would be an Earth Human making the information known, which is part of the idea behind the project, right? But it would have to be done in a way that didn’t lead directly back to the project or Intelecom.”

“Ok, give it my approval, just insist on anonymity. The release can be attributed to Kinzigur, but that in its self is a form of anonymity in a world where our history is unknown,” said James.

“How is Mr. Asharic doing otherwise? I haven’t heard anything about him since his explosive start in Omnia.” He asked.

“Based on his request for skill books, he’s been busy learning; nothing important to report otherwise,” replied Matilda.

“Good, is there anything else I need to know?” James asked instead.

“Most players are just starting to make headway in the game. But I’ve been monitoring a disturbing trend…”

***

Kevin could hear the wind blowing through the leaves in the darkness of the night behind him. He could feel the cold air as it found its way through his stealth armor as he laid down at the edge of the compound, and watched the guards make their rotation.

The plan was simple; sneak into the research lab and get proof that they were designing a bio-weapon, then escape to return the evidence to his employers.

The problem was, there was nothing easy in its execution. First, the lab was in a restricted area, second, it had around the clock security guarding its perimeter, and third, to get in he would have to get past the electronic lock on the building's door.

The only way in was to cross twenty kilometers of land that was restricted and patrolled by the military, on foot and at night in order not to be spotted. Then get in, get the proof, and escape out of the zone before dawn.

Even with the night, making his way through twenty kilometers of forest, hills, streams, and rivers, would have been impossible for him without all the physical training he’d been through in the last six weeks.

It helped that it was winter in this part of the planet of Baldarick, which gave Kevin some hope at first of being able to complete the mission in one night. But on further study, Kevin decided that he just didn’t have enough information about the research compound. No matter what plan Kevin came up with, he just couldn’t find a way to complete the mission in one night.

So he changed the plan.

He was given no information on the compound he was supposed to assault, so he first took a night to scout out the site, watch the patterns of the security patrols, and try to discover the function of each of the five main buildings in the compound.

Over that first night, Kevin scouted the complex slowly and carefully from the outside.

He noticed that one of the buildings vented steam into the night’s air, and was rarely approached, and then only approached by people dressed like maintenance personnel. Kevin’s guess was that this was the services and maintenance building, which served to supply cleaning, repair, and utility services to the rest of the buildings.

A second was used for vehicle and bus storage. Everyone who worked at this location was bussed in from a remote parking area as part of the security.

The remaining three buildings proved to be the test facility, the research lab, and the guard’s barracks. The barracks served double duty as a temporary holding place for the test subjects.

Kevin had listened into a conversation between an older guard and someone new, describing the ‘services’ the guards routinely demanded from the political prisoners before they were sent to the testing center. Since the trip to the bio-weapons testing center was one-way only, the guards felt they could do whatever they wanted with the prisoners, with no fear of repercussions.

The whole conversation seemed to disturb the new guard, but he said nothing at the older man’s boasting. Kevin who had to lay quietly in waiting was sickened at the man’s lack of humanity. He wondered if the man was posted here because he was a degenerate, or if he had become that way through having watched so many of the test subjects dying in gruesome ways. Did he ever have a sense of humanity, or was it ground away with each passing victim he took to the weapon testing facility.

The briefing Kevin had on the government of Baldarick reminded him of some of Earth’s most dictatorial and despotic regimes. Places like North Korea where any dissent was cause for being ‘disappeared’ into political re-education and work camps.

Kevin wished he could do something to help the prisoners, but a whole world’s future depended on him successfully completing this mission.

The only thing that made this job possible at all was the fact that the people running this research lab had gone to extreme lengths to keep it off the data-net. So there was no automated security, just a lot of the old-fashioned, human-driven kinds.

By the end of the first night Kevin had a plan that he hoped might work, he felt it was still a long shot. To Kevin, the weak point of the compound was the maintenance building. It was close to the edge of the perimeter and seemed to have the lowest security. But he thought that there must be some access from there to the other buildings in the compound, some way for power and water to be distributed.

Since Kevin had planned on a multi-day mission, he came prepared to wait out the daylight hours. He packed in a mummy bag and breathing system, that was designed to allow him to hide buried beneath thirty to forty centimeters of earth for the day.

Before dawn, Kevin found a small depression outside the compound, and dug a shallow trench, then buried the mummy bag in the dirt and leaves. The bag was three meters long, and once the whole thing was buried in dirt and leaves, only one end was exposed. Kevin climbed into the open end of the long bag. He pushed his feet down into the slick material, forcing the ground to make room. Once he was at the bottom of the bag and underground, he then pulled the open end down below the surface.

This hiding system came with a rebreather that Kevin could use for up to twenty-four hours. But he only needed fourteen hours for the sun to pass. Kevin did his best to sleep through the day. The pressure of the ground around him made his sleep fitful and uncomfortable. The best he could do for most of the day was just to try to meditate and focus on relaxing.

If Kevin had been claustrophobic, this plan wouldn’t have worked. But he made it through the day, and getting out of his hiding spot was much easier than going in.

Kevin had snuck up as close to the building as he dared, and was now waiting for the guard who was responsible for patrolling this side of the maintenance building to pass him by.

Kevin’s heart was racing as the guard approached his position. He didn’t think he would have had a chance to hide undetected without his armor’s ability to blend into the background. Still, he’d selected the part of the building that was closest to the perimeter. As Kevin waited, he laid low in the long grass of a small ditch, as the guard walked by no more than five meters away.

The guard turned the corner and started to walk away.

Kevin stood up and did his best to sneak up behind the alert man. This was the risky part of this phase of the plan… He was just a meter away from the man when something must have alerted the guard to his presence. Kevin was watching the guard carefully as he tried to sneak up on him, so when the guard started to turn to look behind him, Kevin sprang forward and in a rush tackled him.

As soon as Kevin had his arms around the guard, he squeezed the trigger on the stunner in his right hand. Kevin felt a jolt of electricity as some of the charge managed to pass through both the guard and his own armor. It was enough to make his nerves jump at the spike of energy.

The guard was now limp. The stunned man would be out for the next five to ten minutes.

Kevin took the guard's company badge from around his neck and pulled him over to the door. Once at the door, he propped the man up against the door for a minute. Then he placed the guard’s left hand over the door’s sensor plate and swiped the employee card passed the I.D. reader at the same time. There was a click from the door.

Kevin hurried to drop the man’s body and reach past him to open the door.

He dragged the stunned guard into the building and shut the door behind him.

Kevin found himself in a stairwell. It continued to surprise Kevin when he found something so low tech in a game where you're surrounded with so much advance technology. But he figured that the A.I. that made this game must have realized that emergencies often mean no power, which meant there were stairs.

Kevin took a set of restraints out of his backpack and secured the still unconscious guard to the hand rail. He then pulled out an injector from the same pack and gave the guard a shot that would keep him out for the next few hours.

He didn’t know when the guard would be missed, so the clock to his discovery had just started.

One of the stairs led down, which had been what Kevin had hoped for.

Kevin stretched out his growing psionic senses. He descended the stairs with his senses pushed to their limit, as well as his eyes, and his helmet's sensors. He didn’t find any cameras or sensors that might give away his presence.

The stairs only went down one level.

When Kevin reached the bottom, he looked for any signs that the door was wired for security. He could see nothing on this side of the door, or through his helmet's sensors.

He then reached out with his psionic senses… there was something… something at the top right corner of the door. He could sense it there, but he’d yet to develop enough sensitivity to ‘see’ fine details.

He looked through his backpack for something that might help… He had a door bumper, for breaking into regular electronic locks, or he could try using his stunner to fry the electronics on the other side of the door… If what he sensed at the top of the door was a lock, the bumper would work, but if it were a sensor, the bumper would set off an alarm. If he tried to hit the spot with a jolt from the stunner, it might fry a sensor, but would set off an alarm if it were a lock… He wished he had something he could use to look through the door jam and see, like some sort of fiber optic camera.

Kevin decided to take a chance and bet that they wouldn’t put a lock at the top of the door. He took out a small handheld electric drill from the tool kit in his backpack, and using his psionic senses to see where to drill, he drilled two holes on either side of the presumed door sensor, then he ran two wires through the door, which he hooked up to the stunner.

With a press of the trigger, Kevin heard a muffled zap on the other side of the door… He paused and listened, there were no alarms.

He quickly put the gear away.

Once ready he opened the door, again he reached out with all his senses for anything that might give him away.

Kevin caught a break as he exited the stairwell. On the wall just outside the stairs was a sign that displayed the emergency escape routes for this floor and a map of this part of the building. The large room off this corridor to the right was labeled as the robotic cleaning and maintenance support room; further in there appeared to be some smaller rooms that were not labeled or marks as escaping through this exit.

Kevin noticed that there was a camera that he hadn’t sensed or seen until he opened the door. Fortunately, it was mounted above the door pointing inward. Kevin thought he would have mounted the camera on the other side of the hall looking at the door, but he was glad that security seemed more interested in what was going on inside the building then what might be coming from the outside.

Kevin knew he might have to deal with a few cameras, so he’d come prepared. He’d rigged up some ‘clip and feed’ devices for the camera feeds. Kevin started by taking a telescoping rod out of his pack. He then attached a little black box with a slot on one end to the rod. Once Kevin had the box extended up near the camera, he sent it a signal, and it took a still shot of the view down the hall. Then he slipped the black box over the laser fiber line to the camera. Once the box sensed the fiber line, it sliced in, severing the camera’s connection, and in less than a tenth of a second later it connected to the fiber and started transmitting the still picture it had taken of the hall.

Kevin again paused to listen for any alarms, if the guards noticed the brief interruption in the camera signal; they might be on the way down to check it out.

Hearing nothing, Kevin decided to move forward. The robotic cleaning and maintenance support room door was locked, but having not discovered any sensors he used a door bumper to scramble the door lock… resetting it to the unlock default built into non-military interior doors. The problem with a door bumper was that it would jam the door in the unlocked position. The next guard to check the rooms down here would know there’s a problem if the door opened to his touch.

Kevin entered the room, closed the door behind him, and placed a piece of duct tape on the door to keep it shut.

_______________________

Authors note: The rest of this chapter will be up tomorrow.

I make a mistake in the books release. I was hoping to do a pre release purchase, but Amazon's rules make that impossible if I want to make the promised release date of September the 9th. So, I decided to just release it early, today.

I just pressed the button on Amazon to release book 2, I hope you like it.

Here's the link: https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B01LFX8YYY