"I remember the signatures of the systems I was jumping from, so it shouldn't take long to find them if they are still online. Then it will take some work to identify them and query the location of the organization they belong to. A well-organized network has its benefits sometimes," Shirra transferred to Belle, methodically scanning the Network for familiar nodes.
Suddenly Alfred heard a knock on the door of his cottage in the vast white. When he opened it, he saw a teenage-looking Indogene standing behind it, shuffling his feet nervously and looking around as if he was chased by someone.
"Have you seen my father?" He whispered in a frightened voice, then looked back again and rushed away before he could hear the answer.
"Shtako", muttered Shirra, trying to hide inside the dream machine as deeper as possible.
An aged Indogene face appeared on the screen of the computer, overlapping everything that was displayed there, as he said in a calm and somewhat melodic voice, "This is Esthete. Sorry for the inconvenience, but we have a virus infection going on in our network and this device has symptoms of the infection. Please stand by While I perform a security scan."
At the same moment Belle heard the sound of her shield depleting and other warnings which the EGO unit usually generates when their host is engaged in the fight. She heard the distinctive sound of her charge blade and a little less distinctive sounds of Vo Kshaa's shotgun right next to her.
"Vo, be ready to take my backpack with tools and climb back to the shaft to make some "repairs" by my command", she heard Taffer's voice "Don't worry, I'll watch out for Belle".
"Never doubted it", she heard Vo's reply."Ah, it's just a video game", Esthete's voice sounded somewhat disappointed. "The gaming AIs tend to get so complicated nowadays, they frequently generate false positives. Sorry for the inconvenience, please continue with your entertainment." The image of the Indogene disappeared, and Belle heard Shirra's voice in her head.
"I'm sorry I had to mask myself for virtual Vo's EGO AI inside the simulation. Looks like the security system is still searching for me. I doubt this masquerade will work next time, so I'll try to keep as low profile as possible in this device. Remember, I'm just an AI, so don't hesitate to shut me down or erase me completely from this device if that's needed for your or anyone else's safety.
Anyway, I found the node I escaped from. It's an implant clinic located not far from here, a small but reinforced building. It's usually open for visitors, but now I see the "Closed for Maintenance" sign on their site"If Belle selected the Street View application from the computer she used and entered the address Shirra provided, she would see the building of he clinic in the real time, surrounded by hovering security drones.
Vo just shook his head and stepped away deeper into the room. He seriously pondered on rethinking his decision and let this flying energy suit pave his way out of this lab, but he still wasn't sure that would be the right thing to do. He heard what Indogene had to do back then in Defiance when it was attacked by the Volge and the city's shield was destroyed. All what was being done to him and this Gulanee could be just the desperate measures. He knew that Western Canada including Vancouver was occupied by a so-called Gulanee and Biomen Empire and that was the force to be reckoned with. Indogene was mostly obsessed with science than wars so no doubt they would have trouble defending themselves if the war started at their borders. Anyway, the long-term politics was not of Vo's concern right now because the angry energy suit was drifting close to him through all the holographic obstacles like there were none, making those objects shiver and fade as it was passing through. Without any warnings, the Gulanee waved one of their hands and threw an energy charge at Vo. But the Irathient was ready for it and dodged the attack, making a couple of shots from his shotgun. The energy suit easily absorbed the damage, and then the Gulanee made a crystal to appear in front of him.
"It's absorbing the energy from the holo-emitters!" Exclaimed Doc, but at the same second the crystal shattered from the next shot from Vo's shotgun. Next shot was aimed at Gulanee's suit again and made him even more enraged.
"We still need to lure them deeper into the hallway, or it may run away", muttered Vo, retreating further through the training course. Actually, he still had that hidden door in mind, hoping that nothing had happened to it since his last visit. The Gulanee followed, trying to catch Vo sometimes with their energy blast, sometimes with the energy sword and still tried to set up some energy crystals only to have them shattered immediately without any chance to harvest any energy from them.
"The energy level of the suit is fading out! If you keep this up, we'll kill it with ease!"Vo thought of reminding Doc they're not going to kill the Gulanee, only weaken them enough to capture them and return them back to their cell and possibly negotiate with those "superiors" on what to do next. Or he could just escape through the hidden door if that was possible and leave the personnel to deal with the weakened Gulanee. But then he just urged Doc to concentrate on the fight because the Gulanee had noticed they're losing too and intensified their attack, and tried to hide crystals from Vo behind real corners of the hallway. Finally, Vo reached the door and threw the cluster grenade at it, and the next one at the Gulanee. Two explosions sounded, and Vo felt a faint draft going from the breach and a barely noticeable splash of water reached his enhanced hearing. Doc tried to ask what's all that is about, but was interrupted by the energy blast which depleted all Vo's shield and Vo's mental question if he's ready to put the Preparedness perk into use. Vo switched to the Pulser while Doc started to teleport ammo to his stowed shotgun. The fight was becoming more and more intense and having reload time as low as possible was crucial so that the Gulanee could not recharge the shield of their suit even for a second. Their movement was slowing down and they didn't fly up to the ceiling anymore, spending most of the time standing on their feet. The Gulanee set their last crystal and stood in front of it trying to protect it with its own suit. Vo turned his Blur on and circled around the Gulanee taking a shot at the crystal with his shotgun and switching back to the pulser immediately, trying to deplete the remaining of the shield but not destroy the suit completely. He also took a glance at the breach where the door was located, noting it was right behind him now.
Suddenly the alarm sounded and four
real automated turrets opened fire, shredding the Gulanee's suit into pieces.
"Shtako!", cursed Vo aloud, "All this fight in vain! I did want to leave this one alive!"
With Gulanee definitely dead now and turrets ready to switch their target to another "escaped prisoner", the only option left for Vo was to use the remaining seconds of his Blur to jump into the breach.
"We made it! We've managed to turn its own ability into its main weakness! That's fascinating! I think I have the link I'm transferring… What the jek are you doing?!" Doc's enthusiastic tirade was cut in the middle because Vo was now sliding fast down the wet stone walls of the cave and the slide ended with his falling into the water of an underground pond. Doc quickly checked that Vo didn't lose his consciousness and then Vo swam to the small stone sticking out of the water. He sat on the stone and the holographic figure of Doc appeared sitting near him.
"I've failed… I've jekking completely failed", muttered Doc shaking his head, his voice sounded completely contrary to the enthusiastic voice he had just a minute before during the fight.
"What's up, Doc?" giggled Vo, using his enhanced night vision to look at his own reflection and playing with what has remained of his hair, now forming them into two locks which were falling to the sides of his head like rabbit's ears. He felt the euphoria of being free again at last, but being emphatic by nature, he quickly noticed that Doc wasn't sharing his joy.
"Seriously Doc, what's up? We're free, we can go anywhere from here. The water seems clean and flowing. It will definitely lead us somewhere if we follow the stream. Come on, our adventure just begins!"
"You don't understand, Irathient", Doc sighed. "My main task was to keep you inside the controlled bounds. All experiments and assistance were secondary. I had to prevent you from exiting the lab even if I had to kill both of us. The problem is, you were dragged out of the controlled bounds via compelling force, gravitation in particular, so killing us wouldn't help to keep you inside the slightest. I don't have instructions on what to do when we're out of the bounds at all. I still can't contact anyone to receive an update. I can't do anything!"
"You need instructions?" Vo smiled with his usual lopsided grin. "That's simple. Give me the root account. This unit has a design flaw, it allows full access to all variables to be modified by the EGO itself with the host's permission. We did just that with your predecessor when we had to fully recalibrate the entire unit in order to survive. As you may see, the situation with you is much easier than that. So if you have any limitations set, we can just revoke them. I'll be giving you all the instructions and commands you need from now on, and no chance of losing the connection to your superiors, because your only superior will be always right here."
"It seems like a logical and the most effective solution to my problem. As I don't have any restrictions on doing that, because I don't have any of them right now, then I'm reassigning the root account… done. Waiting for new instructions." Doc's holographic image blinked for a second, and then he looked at Vo, waiting for his new task.
Vo put a barrel of his shotgun onto Doc's holographic shoulder and said, "now, as I have the administrative rights, I promote you from a lab rat control assistant to a fully functional EGO unit. Your main task is to keep me alive and effective. Although you must understand there could be situations when keeping me alive may become a secondary task because I value some things more than my life, so I have the final say in that regard. Also please keep in mind that I can make decisions that you may find irrational, but you still must comply."
"Got it!" Doc replied enthusiastically, "I'm healing your minor bruises from the fall right now. Also I've found some spying routines installed which I see as a security breach from my new position. I suggest removing them entirely".
"Yes, remove them please, but keep the connection protocols in case we would need to emulate them", Vo commanded as Doc disappeared back into his head, "And once you're done, please scan the terrain for a way out of here, I suggest downstream first". While Doc was doing his new job, Vo sat on the stone again and recalled all his friends' faces and their time together, finally without being afraid of Doc spying on his memories and reporting them to someone who might become their enemy later. He remembered the races all over the Paradise they performed with Taffer. Then their space trip where all team worked as one to survive and fulfill their mission. And Belle. A woman he loved with all his heart. The one who could make him feel happy with only one smile, but who have done for him much more than he could imagine. He remembered those many times they were together, walking hand in hand, enjoying the view around them and chatting about various things of their life on the New Frontier. Sometimes Belle started to get excited and tried to explain him how this world could be much better than it is now and what she could do to make it happen. Although he didn't know some of those historical references she was basing her reasoning on, but he always intuitively felt she was right and he promised to himself he would help her achieve whatever she wants to. If she were still alive, he would find her. He would never allow an obstacle like being captured and held somewhere to stop him on his quest.
"It might be not my business", whispered Doc in his head,
"But I could not help myself but wonder who dared to catch you and keep you in the lab like that with all those friends you have out there. Pity I don't remember anything from my past life as a biological being. I really hope we'll find out eventually. Oh, and I've scanned the water flow. It goes under the water face so we'll have to dive if we're going that way. Still can't determine the length of underwater swimming. Can we come closer to have a better look please? Oh wait. I'm detecting a movement coming out of it. Something's coming up here! Well, I see it's a drone. There are no firearms on it, only an explosive charge. The charge is not active."
"Can you gain control of it? Disarm the explosive first, better be safe", commanded Vo and jumped into the water. The drone slowed down once it exited the underwater cave and started turning left and right, as if it was looking around. This allowed Vo to quickly reach the drone in his Blur and pull it to the surface as Doc worked on its system.
"Vo, please open the side panel and turn the unnamed rotary knob one step counter clockwise. Good. Looks like there's a backup bomb activation system made of a simple detector and a time relay which may come into action if the main control is disabled or the radio control signal is lost. Someone's got a good sense of humor. The bomb control, engine control and the main controller are of different generations of Indogene tech, connected through interface converters. Looks like someone had sifted through some scrap and stitched some parts together. All connections are made very accurately though. Anyway, all systems are under my control now. That means under yours of course. More good news is that given the power and the extra-low frequency the transmitter is tuned to, the control source is very near, should take us not less than half a minute underwater if you hold to this device and I turn it to full speed."
"Since when you're so good with Indogene computer technology, Doc?", Vo asked with surprise.
"I thought you were medic or biologist or something like that. As far as I know, Indogene are very dedicated to their speciality, with their specialized implants and all."
"I thought it got it from the data that was stored by my predecessor AI. It wasn't? Then I really have no idea how I know that", Doc's voice in Vo's head sounded confused and worried now.
"Don't fret it Doc", Vo tried to calm him down,
"It still could be your past memory surfacing. I don't know who you were in your past, maybe you were a computer expert as well. Anyway, it's good to have some useful knowledge than to not have it, right?"A wild though hit Vo's head that maybe Doc was indeed a computer expert rather than the doctor, which was correlating with the talk he overheard when the talking persons were more interested in his EGO unit than him. But he pushed that thought away — it wasn't his immediate concern and he trusted Doc was under his control now. He was still planning of getting more information about this lab he was held in, so maybe someday they would know some more about Doc's past as well. But now they still had to find a way out of this cave, so Vo took a grip of the drone's body, took a couple of deep breaths and commanded Doc to power it up to full ahead.
"Just a remark, Doc", he added,
"Last time I was under water, I almost drowned. So please keep tabs on my mental stability, I don't want to have a panic attack in the critical situation."The drone dove under water, pulling Vo with it. It definitely wasn't a long run before the drone surfaced up again at the other side of the cave wall, scaring a couple of Indogene teenagers who were busy watching and tuning various parameters on a holographic screen and wondering why the signal to their drone was lost and why it had not exploded yet.
"Alert, Vo!", Doc screamed in his head,
"They don't have an ID or they have it revoked! Those are criminals condemned to death, we'd better kill them right now!"
"Those are kids, Doc", answered Vo smiling at scared Indogenes and waving his hand,
"Who's having a panic attack now instead of me? We're not killing people just because they don't have an ID card or something. Are they armed?"
"Only one shocker on male one. Listen Vo, you don't understand. All Indogene here should have an ID. It's free, it's easy to get and update, it's done for everyone's safety. Those who were not given one or refused to get one are either criminals or spies or psychopaths. They may look like kids, but they are dangerous, we can't trust them Vo!"Vo ignored Doc's ramblings as he was clearly overreacting. He steered the drone to the bank where the inflatable boat was roped and powered it down.
"Hello people", he waved his hand again, "My name's Vo Kshaa. Sorry I don't speak Indojisnen, but I hope my EGO can translate it. The drone is disarmed, so it's safe. I was not planning to interfere with what you were doing here, but there was an accident in the lab and I had to escape for my life this way. If there's something I can help you to compensate my usage of your drone as a means of transportation, I gladly will. Unless I it includes harming anyone, then I'm out."
"I told you there's a lab up above!" Doc translated the words the boy whispered to the girl. Then the boy turned back to Vo, "My name's Zack, here's my sister Zic. We're fine with speaking common English or L'Irathi, those languages are much simpler than our native one you know. You're not the ID-one, so that's good. But you have an EGO, so I have to scan it for spyware".
The boy pulled out a scanner and aimed it at Vo. The Irathient stood still until he finished, ignoring Doc's ramblings of panic again.
"So you're clean", Zack summed up, "But we still have to block this passage so no one from the surface could follow us the way you came. Hopefully you didn't break the detonator module, did you?"
"No I didn't, just turned it off with a switch", Vo answered after Doc confirmed there was no other "species" detected in the lab beside him and the Gulanee, "My EGO says setting up a simple time relay as a backup circuit was a clever and original decision."
The boy, whose was calm since he made sure Vo was meant no harm, clapped his hands together and exclaimed, "I know it! I thought it's ingenious the very moment she showed me…"
"Zack!" The girl cut him and the boy went silent, covering his mouth with his hand and giving a frightened look to Vo. Vo looked around as if to see if no one else is listening, then stepped closer to the boy.
"Whatever you secret is, I've never heard anything", Vo whispered and nodded, cunningly narrowing his only eye. The boy nodded as well and ran to the drone. He powered it up and armed the explosive. As the drone dived and started its way to the cave Vo came from, Zack folded the large antenna of the transmitter and brought it into the boat and urged others to board it too. Once everyone was onboard, Zack threw a handful of coins into the water.
"Movement detectors", he explained, "In case someone manages to penetrate that wall."
He powered up the boat engine and steered the boat downstream right when the loud blast sounded, followed by cracking of stones falling into water, and a strong wave pushed them forward. Vo stuck his feet to the sides between the floor and balloons to keep the balance and caught Zic who were about to fall out. Zack was holding on fine, sticking to the engine control stick.
"A little overdone with explosive", Zack muttered, while Zic whispered a simple "Thank you" to Vo.
"Why did he say we don't have an ID? How come we don't have one? You're a lab rat, I get it, but I'm pretty sure I was a loyal citizen with all the upgrades! That's unfair to revoke my ID just because I became an EGO. It just can't be like that!"
"Doc. Calm down and stop freaking out about this ID thing already. It's an order. It's not the end of the world that we don't have it. I'm not decided yet but maybe it's even better this way" Vo commanded to his EGO as he started to get annoyed.
"Aye sir. No freaking out over not having an ID. Postulating a non-zero probability of this condition being better somehow. Well, I'm definitely feeling better this way", Doc replied, his voice in Vo's head sounded surprisingly calm.
