Stratus Bastion Security and the Watchers
Entering the black sphere was an utter unexplainable experience.
Inside the black was lost and everything was bright blue as if the three separate cities within the battle dome were forever surrounded by intense blue sky.
The three cities set in a triangle formation around the actual breeding center – although all the citizens in each city thought it was a specialty hospital for high risk pregnancy – just another way that the Nexus Directive helped society as a hole.
Jackie felt bile rise in the back of her throat as she thought about how she was once one of the naïve citizens who thought Nexus was their protector and savior.
The group followed the given route with no question and when they met their first obstacle – the security door – they were through it with the greatest amount of ease.
Lyra had stepped forward and brought Tally directly to the door. Tally – the small black amorphous AI unit - adhered herself to the door's security panel and quickly ran through security protocols. She had made a quiet humming sound as the panel ran through different neon lights as it was forced to give up the code for entry.
The door quietly slid open and Vi Somno walked into the first of three secure sectors they would need to traverse to get to the central hub of Status Bastion.
They moved quickly and quietly and each of them was rather surprised by the lack of security – until Jackie's 360-degree arc view revealed a pattern of small blinking lights at different junctions.
Her ocular implant began making calculations – BDJ spoke into her neural net once a conclusion had been made.
>The small blinking lights are inferred CCTV cameras set off by distinct signatures and – possibly – motion. There is a 90.36% chance that these have been placed and programed to monitor squad Vi Somno's progress. It is unknown if this is hostile intent or if this was done by a friendly.
Jackie nodded.
>tracing signal to receiver.
Jackie nodded again.
She sent the information to the squad and watched as her ocular implant tracked two data streams along the same schematic of the battle dome.
Lyra began looking up into the ceiling corners. Her ruby eyes searching for any flash of light.
Tally spoke into the squad's encrypted comms. "It does seem to be a unique pattern. Perhaps it is staggered this way to elude detection. It is definitely not a normal security pattern.
The next security point was a circular room of nine doors. Only one door was the correct door to the central hub. The rest of the doors led to traps or back out into one of the three cities of Stratus Bastion.
Lyra, Sura, and Jackie got to work figuring out which door to choose. Tally sent out cable connections to each. They all plugged in and Tally boosted their processing speeds by 20 fold.
Data flashed across Jackie's HUD as she deciphered the security hub along with her squad members. Lyra's ruby eyes lit up with bright red light and Sura's perception had entered into the system.
"It seems the correct door changes every hour."
"Right. Within an unpredictable pattern. Sura, your good at pattern analysis, can you decipher it."
"Working on it. It seems to a looped pattern within a pattern of logic, but there seems to actually be another layer to that as well."
Jackie sighed. "I will light up the system. That might help you see the patterns a bit better." The other two nodded and braced.
Jackie's ocular-weapon system injected a small nonsensical maintenance subroutine into the system – her ocular-weapon system had designed it to highlight essential subroutines within a given system.
"Mm. Great Jackie – I got it." Sura smiled as the correct door opened and they moved forward.
Then entire time the team had been monitored – both Orion and Kieran observed the squad – Jackie in particular.
The closer they got to the central area of Stratus Bastion the more enraged Orion got. An alert flashed across his HUD:
"Alert! Alert! Cerebral pressures are dangerously elevated!"
His head ached and his vision blurred, but he ignored it all. He didn't trust them and they were getting too close to her. The last vestige of his humanity without her he would only be machine – and he knew this.
Kieran watched with a soft smile on his face. As Alexander Simms he had to always be perfect and profitable. He could not feel or even think about actual existence. Asset 4986J was about to change the world and allow Kieran to be the amorphous being he had always desired.
Kieran didn't just want to shed the corporate shell that was Alexander Simms – he wanted to make it obsolete.