He didn’t turn on the lights, but used the optics built into his helmet to look around the robotic cleaning and maintenance support room. There appeared to be one cleaning bot here that was down for repairs on a work bench. While there were many empty robotic charging stations, the rest he figured were out cleaning the buildings, since the night would be a prime time for such work.

“Sam, do you see a place to start looking for the evidence we need?” asked Kevin.

“There’s a small office with a terminal on the far side of the room to your left, maybe we can find some information about the buildings and labs there,” replied Samantha, through the speakers in his helmet. Samantha was Kevin’s personal A.I. (Artificial Intelligence), who interacted with him through the armor’s data bracer.

Kevin made his way through the room and into the small office. He then went to the terminal and disconnected it from the wall socket.

Sorting through his bag, he pulled out a small device that had a wire attached to it. The wire had its own connection that he plugged into the wall socket.

This box was a pre-programmed computer hacking bot, sometimes called a data-sap.

Kevin was surprised a few weeks back when Samantha told him she was unable to hack any other computer, or device not owned by him. Kevin thought it was nice to know that his A.I. had limits; she could not lie and would ensure his privacy. But not hacking was one of the downsides to the limits. It was an extension of the rule against lying, that she couldn’t lie to other computers, so legal A.I.s utterly failed at hacking. If the data was off limits, they couldn’t access it.

Kevin had thought that hacking was one of the things Samantha would be great at. All the fiction stories and movies dealing with A.I.s made them out to be incredible at hacking, so when he discovered this restriction he was really disappointed… For about a minute, then Kevin thought about it. The more he thought about the constraint, the more sense it made. How could a person have any privacy if A.I.s could hack? How could governments and businesses stay competitive if there were millions of hacker A.I.s getting into every crack?

So, the only way to hack? Become a hacker, which Kevin didn’t have the time for, or use a non-A.I. hack bot. They could be incredibly sophisticated, but they weren’t A.I’s, and they had to be wired directly into a source.

Kevin watched the indicator lights on the hack bot as they cycled. They were flashing amber as they tried to gain access to the system. The systems were probably defended by an A.I., but this data-sap was supposed to be military grade. After a few minutes, the light started flashing green as it began to absorb any data on the local network.

Once it was downloaded, Samantha then could look at it… After all, Kevin stole it, not her, and since Kevin owned it… she wouldn’t be lying or stealing… Kevin shook his head at the Machiavellian thought. A.I.s or girls… they were all complicated. And Samantha was a girl and an A.I. … so naturally Kevin loved her.

“Samantha, can you start sifting the data for anything that might help the mission?” asked Kevin.

“Working on it…” replied Samantha, from the small speakers near his ears in the helmet.

Two minutes later…

“According to this information, the proof you’re looking for can be found in a stasis unit in Lab A of the research building. It appears that we were right about the purpose of the buildings in the compound. I’m still trying to see if there are any floor plans…” said Samantha.

After just a few more seconds she said, “Yes, Research Lab A is on the far side of the research building, but there are no corridors between the buildings.” said Samantha.

“So take the data and settle for a partial completion of the mission, or try for the actual bio-weapon to back up the claims.” said Kevin, as he thought about his options.

The problem was the mission goals stated that without solid physical proof, the expected war might not be avoided.

In this mission, the planet Hwan was his employer, they had intelligence that indicated that a nearby planetary neighbor, Baldarick, was planning a coup attempt. They discovered some evidence that Baldarick’s self-proclaimed Grand Protector was planning on releasing a bio-weapon on Hwan. Then they’d launch an invasion of Hwan, disguised as a mission to ‘assist and support’ them during the disaster.

Such weapons of mass destruction were banned under the Imperial Common Law, so if Hwan can prove that Baldarick had such a weapon, then they could get the Imperium and the Fleet to intervene in something that would otherwise be considered a local matter.

The data alone might help, but it wasn’t proof on its own since it couldn’t be certified as being true by a verifying agency. Since Samantha could not directly steal the information, she only knew what the little black data-sap was telling her, which was provided by Hwan. So the data was tainted and couldn’t be considered proof. But if Samantha saw Kevin actually pick up a sample of the bio-weapon, then there was actual evidence that could be verified.

“Thanks, I guess we need to follow the bread crumbs. Can you see any other way to get to Lab A, airshafts, service ways for bots rather than people… anything?” asked Kevin.

“No to the air vents; but there’s a small passageway for maintenance bots that runs between the buildings. It will be a tight squeeze, and I couldn’t say what you might run into. Remember, the clock is ticking, you’ll still have twenty kilometers to cross to exit the patrolled area,” said Samantha.

“Great, is the data-sap done?” Kevin asked.

“The data-sap’s memory is full, I think it has the data they need, but there’s no way it could pull all the data from the local servers.” answered Samantha.

Kevin pulled the data-sap and put it back in his pack.

“Ok, Sam, where is this maintenance bot passage?” he asked.

Samantha used his helmets display to highlighted a panel on the far side of the room, opposite the door to the corridor.

Kevin decided to secure the door a little better, to try to fool the guards into believing that the door was still locked. He put duct tape the whole length of the door, on the side near the lock.

The panel to the maintenance bot passage was designed to swing open at a signal from a cleaning bot. Since Kevin couldn’t reproduce the signal, he tried to pry it open. It was easier to open than he suspected, but it jammed in the open position.

Kevin felt like he was leaving an easy trail to follow.

The small passageway was about a meter tall, but a little less than a meter wide, Kevin could barely fit in the small passageway with his armor on. He followed Samantha’s directions as he crawled through the small passage. Kevin crawled on his hands and feet for what felt like a kilometer before he arrived at an opening to the research lab they were looking for. This time, the wall panel was easier to open since he could just push it open.

He was relieved to find the lab empty.

Kevin asked, “Samantha when I get the bio-weapon, what’s the quickest way out?”

He didn’t want to use his blaster on the way in since it would cause so much noise. But if he was spotted, the stealth game was up.

“This building has another fire escape just like the last, but it’s further from the perimeter, and it will still be guarded.” she said.

Kevin didn’t want to take all the risks involved in going back through the whole tunnel, he felt very lucky to have made it this far.

“Thanks, Sam, so where is this stasis unit?” asked Kevin.

Samantha highlighted something that looked like a big refrigerator to Kevin. He approached and looked it over with his eyes and helmet sensors.

“Do you see any signs of an alarm on this, Samantha?” asked Kevin, after looking the outside over.

“There are none that can be picked up by any sensors built into your helmet.” said Samantha.

“Let me try my psionic skill, to see what I can find.”

Kevin closed his eyes for a moment to focus… he pushed out his psionic energy… and tried to sense anything his eyes and sensors couldn’t find…

He couldn’t detect any traps… He couldn’t sense any alarms built into the unit…

Kevin knew that he was being overly cautious, but he kept getting the feeling that he’d made it this far on luck alone and that it would fail him at any second.

He opened the stasis unit. There were two shelves of metal containers in the unit. Each one had a label and a vertical set of light bars. The bottom light bar was red; the next light bar up was orange, then yellow, after that there were five more that were green. Each container had all the lights on, which Kevin took to mean that they were fully contained, cooled, or whatever they needed, to be safe to handle.

“Samantha, can you tell by the labels which one we need?” asked Kevin.

“Yes, let me highlight the latest batch.” replied Samantha.

Kevin grabbed the canister and put it in his pack, and then he headed to the door.”

“The building plans indicate that when you exit this door, you’ll be in the range of the security camera.” said Samantha.

Kevin had already mentally plotted out his next moves, so he just said; “Ready, let’s go.”

Kevin pushed open the door leading to the corridor. He didn’t see anyone, so he made a dash for the exit leading to the stairway. He was more than half way there when an alarm went off.

Kevin was only a step from the exit when the corridors began to fill with gas. He was sure that he’d made it into the stairwell leading up before any gas got to him, but he held his breath as he ran up the flight of stairs.

Kevin felt that his only chance of escape now depended on speed; he hoped to exit the building before security could get organized. Which is why he didn’t pause at the door exiting the building, the time for stealth was passed… at least for now.

Kevin had his blaster in his hand as he exited the door to see a surprised guard who was looking out toward the perimeter. Kevin figured that this guard hadn’t yet been told that the threat was from the inside, not the outside.

Before the guard could turn around at the sound of the door opening, Kevin shot him twice in the back, and then with all the speed he had in him, made a dash for the cover out beyond the perimeter.

About halfway to the perimeter, he felt a brief surge of intense pain from his chest and neck…

… Kevin’s world went dark.

Chapter 2 – Being Graded

Samantha’s voice came out of the darkness; “Congratulations Kevin, you almost managed to beat that scenario.”

Kevin said, “Lights on please.”

The lights to Kevin’s training room came back on.

In front of Kevin appeared his personal A.I., Samantha, she was an amazingly attractive young lady, about 1.7 meters tall, with short blond hair, parted on her right, a beautiful young face, and a perfect figure. Samantha had all the features that Kevin found most attractive in a woman. As an A.I. construct, she could appear in any form she wanted, but Samantha looked this way because she felt it was the form Kevin would find most pleasing.

In fact, that was her stated goal in life; she helped Kevin in whatever his goals were, and planned to help him live a long, healthy, and happy life.

Kevin still had some doubts about Samantha, but so far, she’d proven herself many times over. The only problems they had were more from too much attachment, rather than too little.

“So what happened?” asked Kevin.

“Your blaster fire alerted the perimeter guards, and you were shot by the tower guard on that side of the building.”

_______________________

Authors note:

As I said yesterday the book is up on Kindle. Based on my contract with amazon, this is as much as I'm allowed to post of book 2.

Here's the link: https://www.amazon.com/Making-Grade-Omni...B01LFX8YYY

One more bit of news, as of today I have an author's website... I'm still building it, but it's running.

That link is: http://www.writerbooth.com