Chapter 10: Maximizer, Maximizer! Aisle 53!

A soothing wind blew through the alleyway I was waiting in. Our planning session had gone well; Alice figured that the inspector would have came via physical means, and likely not through air-based methods. They'd probably taken the subway system to a nearby few blocks, or gotten on an aircab to nearby and disembarked to not alert the factory to their location. So: stakeout time.

Speaking of the factory, apparently it was more than just a lock manufacturing factory. I was under the impression that the place only specialized in one thing, and it was a small operation — but no, it was a massive factory stretching deep under the ground and making all matter of weird bullshit. Aircycles, hovercycles, security cameras, an inexhaustible list of different models and makes on the lock and key system. And, well... our ideal was not just to steal their most used product — the MaxlocK Ten — but to get detailed scans of all their security devices. That way Alice could build a new firmware update for me to auto-stealth by all manner of anti-stealth measures.

However, this would be... a difficult task. I mean, clearly. The damn factory's at least 70 layers deep into the Earth, and it'd take me days to comb through everything without a guide. And since our matter printers didn't allow for comms production, we had no way of having Alice in the metaphorical Chair to guide me remotely.

Hence, the operation — Mission: Maximizer, after the MaxlocK Ten we were looking for — was going to be in two parts. First, me and Alice would infiltrate the MaxlocK factory and steal some communication tech. Then, Alice would make sure our wireless proxy was set up (using my processors as a link to interface with the facility and try to glean information) and excuse herself citing financial emergency. It'd be up to me to slink around and scan things using the updates I'd gotten, tested, and broken in this very day, and improvise some bugs to automate the process of scanning all the products so that we could get out ASAP instead of in 30+ hours.

Ideally, we'd be out within the day. But it wasn't guaranteed that the inspector would show up within the month, and both of our asses on the line, and Alice knew that, so... we had some oatmeal before we left. The good kind, not the watery kind. And I sent a message to Valor saying that I was going to be preoccupied for the next few days. She hadn't replied before we left and I signed off.

Sigh. It was getting really boring, but I couldn't lose focus. Not literally — though Alice had given me the option of integrating mild conditioning/compulsion to focus into my next update, which I vehemently denied — but everyone was relying on me. I'd need to tough it out for the next few days.

A shadow flickered across my vision, slowing as my processors strained to temporally extricate myself from my own perception of time. Or not, I thought, as the inspector we'd been keeping an eye out for strolled across my alley. A quick review of the last few milliseconds showed no threats or witnesses, either. Good for kidnapping.

My body whipped into action faster than anything I'd tried to do before. I caught the well-dressed man in one smooth motion, dragging him back into the alleyway before using my combat training to choke him out non-lethally. Sucked that I had to do this, but... meh. He'd be fine. Not like he was doing anything good, either. This was no Occupational Health and Safety Administration worker, this was a contracted boogeyman holding the controls to a sapient AI's mental state. I felt no remorse, except for the fact that this world needed this kind of actions to get out of the dumps.

Anyways. I'd been in a strangely philosophical mood the last few days, but I dismissed the miasma for now.  First, I scanned his clothes and mentally set aside some resources and imagination to tailor them for me and Alice. We'd be going under new forms this time, sure, but we couldn't just clone this dude's body twice. And disguise would only get us so far, which was why the inspector had a physical datapad on him containing all the information we'd need.

I found it quickly. It was of no use to me, exactly, but Alice was confident she could socially engineer a password in with just a bit of information — like our inspector's name, identity, and basic contact information, all on an ID card in his wallet. After securing the info and restraining the man with some ropes and a gag, I projected my new suit onto myself and quickly hurried to Alice's meeting point.

Her reaction was one of muted excitement. "Five hours to noon, that's closer than we'd expected to wait. Datapad?"

I flicked the pad and ID into my right hand, having brought the tablet-sized object in a hidden internal compartment for safekeeping. "Right here. ID too. Everything was there, just like you said — we're ready as soon as you get this broken."

"Got it. Won't be ten minutes," Alice said, inspecting the ID card. "Look up the handle '@kevinkz', send the info over to my datapad."

We started furiously trying passwords, from his date of birth to his marriage date to his credit card number — eventually, Alice figured out that he'd simply appended a 1 to the default "admin/admin" username-password combination, and we were in. Everything we could need was there: codes to get in and out, some rudimentary information on the layout, and, crucially, communications and oversight-disabling passcodes for if the AI got "rowdy".

My heart sank a little seeing those, but they were useful for us. And I resolved not to use them unless I really needed to. Which. I would. But: hell if I wasn't gonna try until the last second not to. Stubborn and idiotic was going to be my M.O, may as well get an early start!

Anyways. Alice downloaded the passcodes into my UI, and I set off to enter the facility. Thanks to our good friend the Inspector having an earpiece, I could communicate with Alice remotely — no need for her to risk her life this time. Which was good. The more I got into this operation, the more it felt real that I could really, truly die here. Or be erased. I didn't really know which was worse, honestly, but ideally we'd never come to that, and my whole thing was going to be ideals, so... I tried not to focus on my possibly-inevitable erasing for as long as I could.

It was a little hard to walk into the building without trembling, but I successfully passworded myself into the factory without any surveillance or anything. The factory itself was a dirty place — but not dirt on surfaces, rather more a constant chugging noise which implied diesel or great piston engines; the grime and smells staining the air felt galaxies away from the otherwise-advanced civilization I'd been privy to thus far.

Or, well, that was what I thought. It was clear they weren't using fossil fuels purely because there weren't enough fossil fuels to keep the entire place running, meaning that the clunking and grime was likely a result of underfunding and overworking the machines here. That was good and bad: good, because it meant the quality of the products were likely not great, and bad because danger to personnel.

As I walked through the entrances and went through normal handshake procedures with the factory's AI, though, I didn't really see... any humans. Like, anywhere. No construction workers, nothing. Which I suppose made sense, if you were able to utilize AI labor, but wow. Really? I guess that was why nobody cared about the machines here. The only thing getting hurt would be the long-term profits of the company, which notoriously was never cared about by most CEOs. The dusty hallways certainly seemed to support this too.

I figured it'd be more clean around the electronics, but... ew. Money sucked.

Anyways. I was always on the lookout for whatever stuff I could discreetly scan, but said lookout was made significantly more squeak-inducing when a monitor popped out of the ceiling with a face on it without warning. An androgynous voice came from the walls, seemingly everywhere and nowhere at once, but the avatar on the screen before me synced to the speech perfectly. Probably the AI, if I had to guess.

"Hello, inspector Gavin! It took me a little to find you as you were off the assigned path. I hope the wait has not been dissatisfactory, sir." Shit. Of course the AI had an assigned inspector who took a given path. I'd be under a lot of scrutiny. "There have been no major incidents since your last visit five weeks ago. In fact, we are operating at 102% efficiency due to some optimizations I have made after application to the KBC."

The person on the screen stared back at me with a slightly-hopeful look on their face, their features seemingly not older than me by more than two years. They were wearing a white, collared shirt and black slacks, but I somewhat suspected that this wasn't a natural choice for them — I knew performative excellence was certainly an expected thing of a lot of workers.

Oh, fuck. I was supposed to respond. I coughed into my arm, then nodded, modulating my voice to be a bit deeper. "Right. Yes. All good. I will be executing an inspection of your production lines, and confiscating at random for quality assurance testing." I hoped that was reasonable — it gave me enough time to steal away some important bits of information, as well as get detailed scans on all the objects we needed to get scans on. I could feel Alice interfacing with the factory's security camera system through my close proximity to the AI's monitors as well, which was great. Less time spent in a potentially dangerous area, the better.

...Actually, it was probably a good idea to learn about the AI I was inspecting. As we walked along to the elevators, I spoke up off-handedly. "So. What is your name, again?"

The AI seemed to pause for a moment. "Er— Max, sir." Wow, it was really grating on my nerves to get called sir. At least they didn't make a big deal of not knowing their name. Maybe it was normal to check..? I'd have to ask for their pronouns at some point. Likely when I got caught and was about to be deleted — wait, no, don't focus on that!

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We entered the elevator, but Max chose to show up on a monitor already inside the elevator car rather than bringing their screen in from outside. Probably prudent to have multiple screens to show yourself on, actually, and it gave me a moment to inspect their surroundings a little more. Maybe I could glean something about them from the way they showed off to me..?

Max, in particular, was a black-haired person of indeterminate gender and few defining features. They had black hair, black eyes, and (strangely enough for a capitalist hellscape which seemed to be white-dominated), skin which seemed somewhat olive or light-brownish. Asian, if I'd had to guess back on Earth Prime, but why make themself look like that if they were going to interact with likely-racist shits whenever inspected..?

Not my choice, though, and I didn't have the cultural knowledge to do much with the information. In any case, they were standing in front of what looked to be a relatively-standard office: gray walls, fluorescent lighting, a plastic/composite desk, and some shitty plastic plant pots in the corner for a touch of green on the otherwise all-monochrome room. Professional-looking, but Max themself didn't have a tie or belt on, and the room looked extremely "template default" to me. Possibly an act?

Agh, I wasn't great at social stuff normally. I wasn't going to magically become Sherlock fucking Holmes by looking at my subject closer, and I felt like Max was beginning to get off-put by my side-eye scrutiny.

We'd arrived at their MaxlocK Ten — hey, was that named for the AI, or the other way around? — production floor area, and as I stepped out of the elevator I had to stifle a gasp at the sheer scale of the factory in front of me. We were in a little oversight-room set a few stories above the actual floor of the production facility, enclosed and with large windows to see outside while not contaminating the area. There was an airlock to my right, with gasmasks inside and basic suits to keep dust out of you. The floor itself, though, stretched to be the size of what I could only imagine must be almost an entire city block: conveyor belts, plastic dividers, welding and soldering, with massive machines producing both metals and electronics to be fashioned into the locking mechanisms sold by Megasec Solutions Ltd. And this must have been duplicated what, 70 times? Fuck. Yeah, there was no way fossil fuels were powering this.

I could see visible disrepair in some of the bigger machines. No rust, nothing like that — but jittery movements, impressively-loud scraping noises audible even from the observation booth, and caution tape seemed to imply that there was fouling at play. But five weeks certainly couldn't do that — so... likely wasn't something to be commented upon. Still. What was the right thing to do here?

Well, the obvious thing was to figure out Max's relationship to capitalism and offer a way out if I could. But that was difficult. The second most obvious thing was to push for less unsustainable factory methods. And I was uniquely equipped to do that, right now. "Max?"

"Yes, sir?" they said. Eugh. "What is it?"

"Your, uh, machines. Are they having issues?"

Max shrugged a little. "No, not really. There are no problems that are large enough to necessitate immediate action."

"Yeah, but, like. That one looks and sounds like it's about to explode. Even if it's not necessary to immediately fix it, it should be top priority to ensure your production lines are sustainable and robust. Right?"

"I guess— er, sure, of course, sir. It's not a huge deal, though. The thing has been like that since I got it, and we've only had one or two catastrophic incidents." They stopped for a second, before continuing with a vaguely-accusatory tone. "Both of which you oversaw and praised for the efficiency of minimal cost replacements..."

Was I going too far? Maybe. But I had a new goal — if we simply convinced Max to join us, we wouldn't need to spend thirty fucking hours inspecting the place. I sighed, turning back towards the elevator and mentally requisitioning a path towards Max's AI core installation from Alice. She gave me a bit of trouble, but soon we were speeding down into the depths and on our way to the heart of the factory's overseer.

Max seemed to be getting progressively more anxious the closer we got to their AI core. Made sense. But I couldn't really do anything before we got down there. I'd been unsure of how to enter the passcodes in, but I was definitely going to disable outward communications. We needed a private talk. And it sucked that I had to deceive like this, but when needs must, I guess I... must need?

God, that saying never made sense. We made it to the AI core within good time — maybe 10 minutes since entry. A safe amount of time. Better than 30 hours of sneaking and anxiety, at least.

The room itself was simple: there was an embedded installation on the far wall that seemed to converge on a single cubic point, which I assumed was the actual real core. Around the room were monitors plastered over every side-wall, and a single console sitting in front of the core installation with accompanying holographic screen. Max was projected onto it as always, but there was also an offshoot at human height which held a console and a number of different graphs and charts and controls. Several of the graphs were spiking in what seemed to be a textbook anxiety response.

But, well, I could tell that just from looking at the screen. They were trembling, trying to focus but clearly... well. I'd be quick typing the communications disabler.

As I walked up to the console which likely held the controls to Max's heart, the soft tapping of my feet was the only real sound I heard. The entire room seemed extremely soundproofed and self-contained — even the communications systems I'd been using to communicate and exchange continuous all-good signals with Alice were getting staticy, and I quickly gave a sign-off to her before hunching over the console and typing in the override codes.

I could hear Max's hurried, frantic breathing. What the hell did Keizen fucking do to them? They hadn't been breathing up until this point, I was sure of that. And it made me feel like shit for feeling the tension in my shoulders relax. Fuck! Argh! I hate deception! Bullshit that there had to be genuinely good people reliant on capitalism.

I stepped back from the screen, stretching before going over to sit against a wall. Max's breaths slowed a bit as I stepped away from their console, and I could feel their confused stare burning holes into the bridge of my nose. "...sir?"

"Not a sir. Sorry for the stealthy bullshit. Needed to get in here and disable communications so that we could have a private conversation." Max suddenly looked fucking terrified. Shit, that did sound really sketchy, didn't it? I waved my hands around and tried to clear things up. "No, wait, no, not like. Murdering you! Fuck! I'm really sorry for causing all the anxiety you've probably been feeling. I'm not like, a fucking sadist? Like... Gavin? That's his name?"

They slowly nodded, expression flickering to an unsettlingly stock look. "Yes, s— er... ma'am?" I nodded, leaning back into the wall. God, the anxiety took more out of me than I'd thought. "Um, okay. Who... are you?"

"Berry. Feminine pronouns. Your name and pronouns?"

"Max, or, uh, Mach, technically. Weird name for a corpo AI, but... serial ended up being of the MAX series. Neutral pronouns? I guess? It's not something I've thought about. I thought that was normal. Why's your name Berry? Not a common name I've heard." The words came gushing, an outlet for the frantic thoughts likely piled up in their head. God, I was glad to hear anxious rambling after the performative nonsense I'd been hearing up til now.

"No judgement. My name is Berry because my 'true' name is Chamber, of the Exotrope Brigade." I undid my holograms, eliciting a shocked look from Max before I settled back into my pink-haired anime girl disguise. "I'm kind of like you, I think. Can we talk?"