USD: 77 Days after arrival at Fort Glisson

Location: Van Biesbroeck’s star, Meltisar, MIL-1A, Transit Hub

Thea checked her Meltisar Navy uniform one last time. The captain’s rank insignia adorned her breast with the additional pip for ‘civil’ service showing her non-combat designation. She had to spend days figuring out how to caress the system to extract the required files and perform the necessary manipulations. The old intelligence and methods made available to her by Fallon had been utterly useless with the MN’s new toy.

She’d managed, however. It was smart, but it wasn’t equipped to deal with her, and it slowly became clear that while it could cloak itself, it couldn’t hide its manipulation to a Phi rank like herself. It was still frustrating for sure. Especially since she had the uneasy feeling that it had wanted her to find the traces, why had it continued to send the repeated ‘help’ messages otherwise?

Satisfied that her disguise was complete, she headed towards the tram that would take her to MIL-1A’s Joint Services Research and Development complex. It was a highly restricted zone, but part of her disguise had been fiddling with the records to place her as a researcher with the proper clearances in one of the less secure programs.

As she approached, she idly scanned the security. It appeared to have the standard scanners. As she joined the line, she released an invisible line of nanites to the machine, creating a hardline connection and fuzzing the machine to believe wholeheartedly that her presence was completely valid despite any discrepancies its sensors might find.

The guard took her ID, scanned it, ran the detector over her, and then passed her through without comment.

Her shoulders relaxed as she plopped down on one of the benches inside the vehicle. It only took a few more minutes before everyone had boarded and then they were launched toward the research complex.

She punched in a command to call Lieutenant Fallon on her ear comm, and after a few seconds, his face appeared on her HUD overlay.

“Thea, is this line is secure?”

“It’s direct, but I’m in public. Are things ready?”

“Preparations for the targets’ return are all prepared and in motion. Are you sure this side op won’t jeopardize the mission?”

Normally, her restrictions would override any actions she might take that would jeopardize the mission Rea had given her. The truth was what she was now doing would put the capture of the rogue NAI and the princess at risk.

But the core restrictions designed by Moneta that every Corpo NAI received had several tenets that applied in this situation that overrode whatever Chi Rea might want.

And whatever Meltisar had cooked up was certainly a potential threat to NAI technology that superseded the need to capture a rogue NAI, even one that might be part of a faction that harmed the CS.

“In my opinion, it is critical, and a higher priority than the original mission.”

“Fine, I won’t argue, but it will be up to you to explain to Rea why we deviated from the task at hand. So close to going operational, too.”

“No, if she has a problem with it, she can complain to Moneta.” Thea answered.

Fallon paled, then nodded.

A slight hum was the first sign that the Tram was slowing down.

Thea looked out the window and confirmed that they had arrived at the MJSRD platform. “I’ve arrived. I’ll be out of comms until finished. When I return, I will contact you.”

“We need you for the grab. Don’t get caught.” Fallon said.

“I don’t plan on it.” She clicked the channel closed and stood up to wait for the press of people to make their way out of the car. While waiting, she brought up her core management routine and shifted all but one computronics module to her ANUF systems.

Her personal cutter she’d modified to store them in was docked in the station’s shuttle bay. It had a dozen of the things, but that had been pressing the design as far as she dared without things becoming terribly obvious that the craft was more than it seemed. The energy consumption and emissions were already relatively high, and she’d been told to have the ship serviced before her next flight by a worried flight controller.

It was more than enough to run her ANUF at full capacity, though. She’d been running them on info war duty against the hostile program, not that it did much good. A glance at a camera on the tram wasn’t needed to tell her that her every move was being tracked by the thing. Why it didn’t call in MPs to detain her was only a theory in her mind.

Mainly because she had done nothing overt, and it somehow, someway wanted help from her. Well, that was about to change. She just hoped it wouldn’t figure out what she was up to for a bit.

There was a second checkpoint just outside the tram where everyone disembarking was checked a second time. She passed through it much like the first and then headed into the R&D’s central concourse. There were dozens of different labs and special programs hosted in the complex. Her fake credentials had her listed as a developer of some type of advanced life-support development.

That wasn’t her destination. She’d pulled enough information about black programs from recreating Meltisar’s black book project list. That had required that she spend countless hours playing with the stupid AI program they had developed.

It fed her modified, sanitized data to every request, leaving an unbelievable number of fingerprints behind as it did so. It, or the humans, thought it was being clever, undetectable, but every bit of information it touched was… tainted. One didn’t need to be a Phi level to see the issue.

But that did help when creating a reverse engineering algorithm to determine what the original information was. She had thought it would be pointless at first, but it was almost as if the program wanted to be found, wanted her to figure out what the project was.

That had probably been the final tidbit that convinced her that the help message was real. It had to know that it was leaving breadcrumbs behind. The only question was whether it was setting a trap for her or a genuine call for help.

Thea had decided to spring it one way or another.

In the center of the concourse, she activated her last non-ANUF computronics module. It had already been prepped with an extensive attack suite of programs. It was such a dense package of goodies that the module was as good as slagged as it consumed itself, pumping out a relentless barrage of security bypasses, worms, and spam.

While that was working, she took physical control of the cameras in the area and set them on a repeating loop. There was no question it would be noticed and corrected quickly, but she didn’t need long to make her move.

There was a third security checkpoint to a higher restricted area. Her ministrations to their electronics and equipment were as simple as the persistent invisible cloud of nanites that infected anything digital near her.

“Ma’am, I need to check your ID personally.”

Thea nodded and unclipped it from her lanyard and handed it to the man.

The second guard gestured to a wand in his hand.

“I need to scan you. Standard procedure.” He said.

“That’s fine. Anything exciting going on?”

“Heard the Solarians recalled their ambassador. More stink between them and the Corpos.”

“I doubt that will have anything to do with us, though.” Thea said.

“Oh, yeah, but it happened here, and the newsies said they were trying to blame the local station management as well as each other.”

Thea offered him a weak smile, then shrugged. “Anything to get some type of leverage, I guess.”

“Yeah, they don’t have a leg to stand on, but they get to beat on their drums as much as they want.”

The other guard popped out of the security room. “Ma’am, you're cleared to go once you’re done being scanned.” He handed her ID back. She smiled and nodded to him.

The other guard hurried up and finished scanning the rest of her body. She gave him points for effort. The scanner should have been a fine tool to detect anything non-organic and throw up a report on what it was. It should have been screaming bloody murder the second it was passed over her skin, but it was happily reporting all clear.

Her nanites had shut off the internals physically while making it appear fully operational and still online.

“All clear, Ma’am. Sorry for the delay.”

“No problem, Corporal. Just doing your job to keep us all safe.”

“Thank you for understanding, Captain.”

They all shared a nod, then she passed through into the high security zone. It was a maze of sterile white corridors, with only a few other officers and personnel passing by her in the hall. None of them made eye contact and all were perpetually busy in their heads or looking at whatever they had in hand.

Her generated map wasn’t the best, but she pulled a helpful map from a wall port in a few seconds and made her way to the section listed as AAIRD.

Advanced AI Research and Development. It was a considerable portion of the high security area, with several dozen sub labs inside of it. Normally, once inside the top security area, her ID would only get her access to the areas she was supposed to have access to.

Thankfully, the door locks were about as smart as the security checkpoint computers and scanning wands.

She made for a small and un-assuming lab named ‘Heuristics Development’ that was embedded between two larger labs. As she moved through the area, the density of research and people dropped off rapidly. Once inside the Heuristics Dev area, there was no one at all.

The lab was just more unassuming, sterile white corridors lit by the same off-white overhead lights. Doors lined the hallway, and she peeked inside the first one she came to. There was nothing but an empty office devoid of any furniture.

Thea took a breath and closed the door quietly. Her target was somewhere in the lab. She was certain. Checking every door was going to be inefficient, though. She needed to find a local console and plug into the local network to see what she could find.

Just as she was about to reach the first intersection of the lab, she came to an abrupt stop as a man stepped around and faced her. They both shared a second of surprise at the encounter, but Thea instantly saw the suspicion light up on the lieutenant’s face.

She spoke before he could say anything.

“Lieutenant, I am sorry to bother you, but I seem to be lost and I haven’t seen anyone to help direct me for a while. I’m looking for AAIRD-2B. It’s my first day reporting to the lab.”

He eyed her warily for a moment, his eyes latching on to her captain’s bars and then her ID on her lanyard. The frown on his face deepened. “You shouldn’t have access to this lab.”

She frantically pulled up a list of personnel in the research division.

“Yeah, my badge opened the door, though, so I had thought I was in the right place. Obviously not. I was supposed to meet Lieutenant Harrison at the entrance for a rundown.”

There was a moment of silence. Thea did her best to not let her tension show.

Finally, the lieutenant let out an annoyed sound. “Why the hell are they still letting that clown show people around? Captain, if you would follow me, I’ll show you the way.”

Thea nodded. “Thank you, Lieutenant…?”

“Lieutenant Martinez, Captain.”

They walked side by side toward the exit. The second they reached the empty office room, Thea looked over her shoulder to confirm there was no one there. A quick check on her HUD showed the cameras were disabled.

Then she grabbed him by the back of the neck, opened the door, and threw him inside. The door clicked shut behind her as she followed.

She had to give him credit as he rolled back onto his feet. It took only a second for him to turn and face her as he drew his sidearm.

She was already swinging her fist toward him as he pulled the trigger. The super-heated plasma projectile split itself on a black metallic V of active nanites that rushed out of her knuckles, passing around her harmlessly. The shock on his face didn’t last long, and he quickly pulled the trigger again, only for the weapon to fail to discharge. Her nanites had already disassembled the firing mechanism from the inside.

He switched his grip to pistol whip her with the sidearm as she took another step forward.

She let the blow come down on her temple without bothering to block it. Her fingers stabbed into his stomach with enough force to cut through his skin.

The man’s screaming filled the room. Finding his spine, she clamped down on it, turning the bones to powder.

She caught him as he crumpled to the floor and cradled him under one arm as he beat at her with bloody fists.

“Sorry about this. I heard it’s very uncomfortable, but I have a few questions.”

She stuck a finger in his spine and nanites poured into him.