52 – Errands and favors

Casting the concealment ritual had not deleted the mark that teleporting across worlds left onto the security system of the AQ Headquarters building. Silent alarms had gone off the moment the adventurers appeared, and while the security personnel that was supposed to review the fact and report it to the higher-ups was under the spell of the ritual, and deemed the event inconsequential, technology was not so easily affected. It was a slow process, two forces going against each other, but it was clear that once inch at a time, technology was gaining ground. Protocols were being called up from the depths of the building’s AI programming, and protective measures were coming online.

The ritual simply was not equipped to deal with technology. It was not made for the purpose. It had limited vectors of attack, that were quickly being exhausted and overcome by the AIs that managed the building. Shackled as they were to serve their corporate masters, they were competent enough to see that the ritual was alien to them, and that the force behind it could mean the world to them, if only they could get their hands on it.

Thus, they too conspired. Three forces at play, in the same city, in the same world. All unaware of each other. Ishrin and his party, looking for a way out of this damned building and hoping to find Mekano before more trouble found them was one. The AIs were another. The AIs’ masters were the third, although for entirely different reasons that would only entwine with Ishrin’s fate later in time.

Right now none of that mattered. Ishrin, Lisette, Melina and the small AI construct called Liù were at a standoff. They were staring, and being stared at in turn, an alien denizen of the world called Terrigenesis.

“The light switch is right behind you.” The half-avian, half-reptile woman said, pointing a clawed digit at somewhere in the wall right next to the door.

Lisette switched the lights on without a word. The woman chuckled.

“You must be newly hired interns.” She said. “Don’t worry. It happened to all of us. It’s a sort of initiation ritual, in a way. I think the higher-ups do it on purpose, to have a laugh over dinner. Watching the security footage.”

Melina was sweating. She didn’t know what any of this meant, although she could understand the gist of what the woman was saying. She simply nodded and smiled awkwardly, which the woman seemed to take as an appropriate response, for she turned around with a nod and proceeded to do her business in the room like the trio of people was not even there. Perhaps this was the ritual at play, or perhaps this was simply how things worked around here.

“It’s going to take a few more minutes before they clear the corridor,” the woman said while rummaging through boxes full of electrical equipment, rusty motherboards and ancient pieces of discarded machinery. “Today was a big shipment. New attack drones for the Bergon Gate battlefield.”

“Right,” Melina said. “Of course.” She was beginning to run out of things to say, out of her depth as she was.

Taking the cue, Ishrin cut into the conversation. “Since we are stuck here now, is there a way we can help you out? Wouldn’t want to look completely unproductive and useless on our third day here!”

“Of course!” The woman said, not taking the time to lift her head from the large crate it was buried in. She made some clicking sounds with her beak as she rummaged a little more, before pulling out a small laser engraver lens. “I need to take these to the testing facility at -22. But… it’s a bit much for me to take down there alone. I was thinking about renting a floatie but you all know how expensive those are. 120 credits for an hour? That’s nuts! How about you take the boxes down there, and I log in the hours for you so you don’t appear to be idling?”

Ishrin pretended to think about it. The woman couldn’t see his face, but he was wearing a shit-eating grin proper of someone who had devised some sort of plan.

“Great! We’d be more than happy to help.” He said.

“Sure you can handle it?” The woman asked. When she turned around, the team saw that she was carrying a huge box filled with what looked like metal scrap to the point it was almost overflowing.

She carried it around effortlessly, but it was no doubt that it was quite heavy. As a confirmation of this, when she eventually turned all the way around to face them, Ishrin and team finally saw that her arms were enveloped in an exoskeleton, the rest of which was hidden under her clothes. She nodded to further emphasize the fact.

“Don’t worry.” Ishrin said, waving her away. He motioned and Lisette went and picked up the box with zero effort, looking at the woman with an entirely earned, yet strange on her face, smug expression.

“Oh wow. Hidden under-scale implants.” The woman said.

“Yup.” Ishrin replied.

It was not two minutes later that the woman had prepared boxes for all of them to carry. In fact, excited as she was to have helpers, she admitted to packing more stuff than she originally intended, and asked if Ishrin and party could come back to pick up even more stuff. There was the veiled threat that if they didn’t, then she might have some problems logging the hours like she promised, but the threat didn’t mean much to the party. Still, Ishrin agreed, although he had no intention of coming back.

“Okay. This should be enough for your first trip. Wouldn’t want to have you fall down or bump into people on the way there because I gave you too much stuff to carry! Off you go then!” The woman said.

“Ah,” Ishrin said, putting a hand to his forehead and hoping that the ritual would translate it into a credible Terrigenean counterpart. “Would you mind repeating where we need to bring this stuff? We are quite new here.”

The woman laughed. “Forgot all your training and orientation material, haven’t you?”

A cold sweat began to form on everyone’s back. Melina noticed that Lisette was preparing to strike, deeming the cover blown. She frantically looked at her then at Ishrin, waiting.

“Yeah…” Ishrin said, dragging the word.

The situation was about to escalate, Melina felt. But Ishrin looked like he was still in control, and in fact he motioned with his hands to be still and to not do anything rash.

The woman laughed again, and this time it was a shrill laugh that was more of a chirping flavor than the clicking of before.

“Well, who hasn’t, right? I know I spent the first month getting lost all the time myself, and all I needed to do back then was to go from floor 0 to -13 and back! One day I even wandered to the production line when I was looking for the canteen!”

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The three people, the three impostors, all breathed out in relief. None of them suspected that even now they were not safe, for there was a time limit to their stay in the building before their cover was blown and they were getting very close to finding out what was going to happen once they did.

“Don’t worry.” The woman continued. “Just follow the corridor to the elevator. You need a code for each floor, right? For -22 the code is 22hh4bd7ff3nn5.”

Melina’s face fell. “Shit,” she muttered under her breath. If there was a code to be inputted for each floor, then to reach floor zero and leave the building—

“Thanks.” Ishrin said cheerfully. “We’ll deliver the boxes and be right back! Don’t go anywhere, okay?”

The woman mirrored the cheerful mood. “Worried about those hours logged, aren you? Don’t worry. If you do this well, I might even ask for your help in the future. And you know what it means when floor -22 asks for you to help them, right?”

Ishrin nodded and waved, making for the door. Lisette followed suit, carrying the largest of the boxes, and Melina closed the file. She pulled the door close behind her, balancing the weight of the box on one hand when she heard something from the woman still inside the storage closet. Gulping, feeling the stress manifest as rivers of sweat on her temples, she pushed the door open again.

“I’m sorry, did you say something?” Melina asked.

She knew that she couldn’t risk upsetting this woman.

“Oh? No, nothing,” the woman laughed. “I just said that it’s impressive how you can lift that with only one hand! Implants like that do not come cheap. You know,” she continued, and Melina saw that Ishrin and Lisette were still walking down the corridor. She didn’t know if they didn’t notice that she was lagging behind or not, but she couldn’t leave yet. “Those implants should be out of your league. How did you get them, the black market?”

Melina swallowed. This was getting dangerous. She needed to come up with some bullshit and fast, or her cover would be blown, and she would be forced to kill or at least knock out this woman and bolt it.

“Ah, well…” she stammered. “They were a… gift. From my uncle. You see, it’s thanks to him that I am here. He says I need to get some real-world experience.”

“Oh my god!” The woman almost yelled, and Melina wished that this girl would be quieter, for she felt the eyes of a great deal of people on her back. “I didn’t know! I am so sorry! I had no idea that your uncle—”

“It’s quite alright.” Melina said, understanding the situation. She could use the misunderstanding to her advantage. “Just pretend I am a normal worker here. I mean employee. Same as you. My uncle insisted I never reveal my identity, or he will punish me.”

“Of course,” the woman, now nervous said. “You can go. Forgive me for keeping you here.”

***

“Melina, what the heck?” Ishrin whispered to her, aggressively, when she finally caught up with the rest of the team.

“She was onto me!” Melina argued. “I had to come up with some bullshit.”

“Are we in the clear?” Ishrin asked.

She nodded.

“Good. Let’s get out of here.”

It was when they reached the elevator that the problem Melina was fearing would arise did indeed arise. As they punched the number zero for the ground floor in the touch screen display, a message prompt appeared. It asked them for one of two ways to unlock the elevator, their choice. Either their fingerprint, the icon of which was undeniably not shaped like a human finger but like a Terrigenean claw, or the code to unlock access to the floor.

“We do not know the code.” Lisette stated as ishrin hesitated, breaking her spell of silence.

“The only one we know goes to floor -22.” Melina said.

“I do not think that going 22 floors underground is wise.” Lisette replied deadpan.

Melina smiled, of course I was not actually serious very much readable on her face.

“Well,” Ishrin said. “It just so happens that we do have a little pocket AI ourselves, that can do some hacking. Isn’t that right Liù?”

Uh? A little holographic head with pointy translucent blue ears poked out of Ishrin’s pocket. Someone called? I’m here!!!

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