On The Run
#5 of The Suit
"Auto destruct complete doctor, the base has collapsed in on itself as it was designed to. The computer systems were crushed, and the magnets fired off destroying any remaining data on the spinning disks. Over Voltage will have fried any solid-state storage." Marvin said over the truck speakers, even though the Doctor sat in the driver's seat of the truck Marvin in his cradle in the back was controlling the truck. "Thanks Marvin. Take us to Site Alamo now."
"What's site Alamo?" I asked the doctor. "Alamo is the backup base. When the original was built our commander managed to get extra funding to build a bug out site. The site was never documented just like the escape tunnels here weren't. So, they won't find us at Alamo. We'll be safe and we can figure out where to go from there. Marvin, do you have the footage from the exterior surveillance system?"
"Yes, doctor I've cached the last three days of footage in my operating memory." Marvin chimed. "Let me see the footage from right before we left." The cameras appeared on the truck dash the footage was still as Marvin was only showing us one frame from each camera. "Ok, let me see camera 3 better." Camera 3 zoomed in, and the doctor studied the faces. "Marvin advance the footage 5 frames please." The footage suddenly jumped to another shot. "Ah I should have suspected this." The doctor pointed to a lithe female Jaguar. "That is agent Cynthia Ovay. She works for the Defense Intelligence Agency." I looked her over, a lithe figure, curvy where it counted with a pretty face. Though her expression could leave a man wanting. "She's gotta be an ice queen." I chuckled. "You have no idea." The doctor chimed in. "Ok Agent Ovay is one of the people that had the Super Solider Program shut down and by extension the suit program. Talking to Marvin it seems we'd been close to fixing the issue with the suits quite a few times. Except one of her agents would make breaking changes right before we'd do a test."
He sighed and closed his eyes. "Oh well." There was a chime. "We will be exiting the tunnel into downtown Bright City in 30 seconds. We'll be coming out of the loading dock of the Financial Times building. Cellular service will resume... Now. We will be traveling for 20 minutes to the loading elevator of the Submarine Building where we will take an unlisted stop and we will travel another 5 minutes to The Alamo base under the bay floor."
Bright Bay, on the west coast of the nation, Bright Bay was one of the busiest ports in the country. Anything on or under the floor of the bay would be easily overlooked from all the sediment kicked up by the passing of ships so it was as good a place as any to hide a secret base of operations.
Once my phone reconnected, I could see the icon for my cellular service appear in the top left and corner of my vision along with the current time, date, weather, calls, messages, and a couple other widgets. "Huh, that's impressive." I said out loud. "What is?" The doctor turned to look at me. "I can see my phone's status indicators." The doctor looked a little confused at this statement. "You mean without the suit you can see a HUD? The collar must have really been advanced without me knowing, if that's the case then see if you can access the suit's network functions and see if you can view its optical sensors."
Not sure what to do I concentrate, and a menu appears, with some more concentration I'm able to choose menu items and before long I'm looking through the eyes of my suit, the optical sensors showing a false color image of the inside of the truck's trailer, I blink and the vision fades and I'm looking out of my own eyes again. "Yeah, I can access the suit remotely it seems."
"That's good news. Ok, let's get Rikr on hacking the traffic camera network then." As the doctor speaks a false wall before us slides open and we exit the tunnel smoothly, our truck slowing down to a crawl as we navigate around the loading dock of the Financial Times building to the exit. "If Rikr can erase us from the traffic cams we should be able to hold our pursuers at bay for a bit longer." I nodded and concentrated again and the world around me vanished.
When I opened my eyes, I was sitting on a beach, it was overcast and there was a cool wind blowing from the north. I stood up and looked about, the weather was comfortably warm and there was evidence of a recent rain in the forest behind me, and the beach was pristine. Looking down I was wearing only a loincloth; the leather flap covered my manhood and was decorated with bits of steel or iron and carved stones. Taking a closer look, I realized the stones had been carved with runes, an ancient language from my own ancient ancestors. I didn't really know what it meant but that was fine. I look around some more, I'd just been in a truck and now I'm here on a beach.
Even through this discontinuity I wasn't surprised for some reason. Like I'd known this would happen. My thoughts were interrupted when the smell of smoke drifted to my nose, looking about I see a pillar of smoke coming from just within the line of trees, so I progress up the beach to the trees and enter the underbrush, my paws pressing into the podzol beneath them, I could feel the dirt squishing between my toes, I could feel the rough bark on the pine trees as I used them to steady myself up the steep path from the beach to where ever I was going. My limbs didn't seem to tire, and my breathing was as steady as ever. So, when I reached the top of the embankment separating the beach and the forest, I'm simply amazed at how easy that was.
The source of the smoke was directly a head of me, a fire was built in the middle of a small clearing with a hut, and a bunch of survival equipment. I step into the clearing and hear a deep humming coming from the hut, so I make my way to the hut. The wooden door is open just a crack. "Hello?" I call out and the humming stops, what comes out of the hut a moment later was a hulking wolf his fur as dark as midnight, he wore nothing but a band around his left bicep. I back up a few steps the massive beast looks down at me. "You must be Chester." The voice was familiar, but less computerized. "Welcome to my world. The virtual world our minds share. I'm Rikr, what you see is an avatar. I built it using things you find attractive. If you'd rather I take another form, I'd be happy to oblige." The wolf before me flexed, his pecs and biceps bulging, his sheath was thick, and his balls were large and hung low. He was also at least a head or two taller than I was. God damn the AI; it knew too much about me.
"Oh uh. Well." I cough trying to cover up my arousal. "We need to do a few things." The wolf nodded and beckoned for me to follow him into the hut. Past the door the world seemed to change, no longer were we in the forest, or the hut, now we seemed to be in a modern room, filled with computer terminals, a lounge space with a huge sofa, chairs, and even a TV and game console. "Welcome to the center of the VW. This is where I would normally reside, you can come and go from this space at will just by passing through a door and commanding to come here." The huge wolf sat in a chair before a desk that seemed to be overflowing with monitors. "Since you've been in here only two seconds have passed outside this virtual world. So don't worry about time. Now since we have to do some hacking we have to run at real time. So, prepare for a perspective shift." As the wolf said this time seemed to stretch out flowing slower. "You can check the passage of time with that clock up there, it's synchronized to real time." The wolf's hands fell on the keyboard before him, and the fingers seemed to blur as he began typing. "Man, who the hell encrypts traffic cameras this well. Pfft too bad I'm better than them though." A few seconds go by and the wolf smirks "I'm in the network. Now we need to run some algorithms and set them up to detect the truck and selectively erase any frames the truck is in while inserting fake frames." Some more time passed. "And... Done." The wolf looked up at me and smiled.
"Child's play, if it were another AI that would have been much more difficult. Alright. You need to get back out there. We'll have plenty of time to talk later. I have to keep real time processing." The world faded and I was back in the truck. "Huh." The doctor looked to me, his hands on the wheel. "What happened?"
I shook my head. "I dived into this weird virtual world. I was on a beach and then a forest, then in this high-tech room." I tried to explain briefly. "Hmmm, we'd theorized that in later iterations of the software that such things might be possible. Interacting with the AI on its own level so to speak. Didn't think it would be possible now."
On the truck's infotainment screen appeared two figures. The black wolf that represented Rikr and an orb that represented Marvin. "Ok, ok. I got it Marvin we should be visible now. Hello Chester, Hello Doctor. Sorry it took me a minute to figure out the interface for the truck, but I think I got it now. No documentation on how this thing interfaces with smart devices and all." The wolf shrugged. "Nice to see you again so soon Rikr." I chuckled. "Looks like you put on some clothes." The wolf had come dressed in a light gray tunic that covered up his manhood well enough to pass muster. "Well of course. That side of me is for your eyes only." The wolf winked at me causing me to blush. "Ok so I have traffic handled and the cams, I'm staying out of the cellular networks though. I don't know enough about them since they've changed a ton since I was first activated. Wait. There is a black sedan coming up the side street next to the loading dock. Government ID on the plates. Wait." The truck crept to a halt just before the exit of the loading dock to street level.
A few minutes goes by and Rikr nods. "Ok we should be clear. The sedan turned the corner up ahead and they aren't going our way." The truck powered out of the loading dock quickly merging in with the traffic at street level. The electric motors driving the truck were nearly silent as they powered ahead. "We should be coming up to the bay in a few minutes. Traffic Control says conditions on our route are pretty calm. Oh yeah. I'm forging our vehicle registration signature, so they think we belong to the Submarine Institute."
"Smart thinking there Rikr." The doctor said as the traffic progressed. "It was actually a stray thought passing through Chester's head that gave me the idea."
Agent Ovay scratched her nails against the armrest of her seat the limo was stuck in slow moving traffic. "Ma'am we have the whole local agency looking for anything that could have come from the base, but we just don't have the intel required they didn't keep such things on our servers or our paper records. The lab was just considered too important to national security for that." Came the voice of the local director he was obviously stressed out with his voice cracking. "What about the external security cameras?" Ovay asked. "What external security cameras? The only one we have in the area is 300 yards away and pointed away from the base entrance. It's watching a gas pipeline." The man was annoyed he was clearly unprepared for this. Hell until this morning he didn't know that base was there. His predecessor probably did but since it was decommissioned, they didn't bother telling him about it.
"Uhng fine. What about device records for the local networks?" The voice on the other end of the line hesitated as he typed. "We can get those. Might take an hour or two. If they had a cellphone on them, we can grab them when they come back on the network."
"That's the point Director." Reaching out a clawed finger Ovay terminated the call.
The Submarine Base was a bunker hidden under the city's largest bay, the only access was a service elevator in the Submarine building or by submarine if you knew where the moon pool was. Luckily Marvin knew just where to go, driving the truck on the service elevator, the doctor stepped out and keyed a code into the keypad to activate the elevator.
"Ok we'll travel to the bottom of the shaft; a door will open before us, and we will just drive on through to the docks of the base. By the time we get there power should be on, and the robots will be ready to receive the suits and move them to maintenance." The doctor explained as he hopped up into the cab of the truck again.
"So, uh... Doctor. What are we gonna do now? I mean we are probably gonna be hunted down by some agency you said that yourself." I sat back in the seat. "Guys! We got a tiny issue. Something keeps trying to access the GPS subsystem in your cellphone's operating system." Rikr threw up as screen on the infotainment panel. "I can keep up denying the requests since I'm in control of those things but I'm turning off your cellular connection for the time being. They can track us using the towers and get close to our approximate location. We'll need to get a new eSIM to keep using the cellular networks. Unless you just want me to learn how to hack them all so we can piggyback which ever ones we want when we want." The wolf chuckled.
"We'll be safe for now though, right?" The doctor asked. "Oh yeah for sure. I have the cellular connection turned off and I'm just gonna use WiFi right now to get access to the internet." Rikr responded to him.
An idea clicked. "Rikr, can you get me back online?" The wolf scratched his chest for a second. "Done." I quickly opened up my chat app and signed in.
Private Chat Inder / H_Ron
Inder: H!
Inder: H!
Inder: H!!!!! Come on man.
H_Ron: What is it Inder? You've been offline two days man I was worried.
Inder: Dude, I need you to do me a favor. Run down to the pharmacy by your place and grab me a new SIM and data plan? You know where I leave my cash for emergencies in your flowerpot yeah?
H_Ron: Wh- Dude do you think your phone is compromised?
Inder: Shit dude. Idk It's been a fucking roller coaster the last two days. Anyway, can you meet me at the Submarine Building?
H_Ron: yeah yeah. Where at that Aquarium is huge.
Rikr: Service Elevator 3B
H_Ron: FUcK who the fuck is that?
Inder: Shit, sorry man. Long story I promise when we meet, I'll tell you all about it right now I just really need that new sim k?
H_Ron: Yeah, you better fucking explain this dude. I'm leaving now. I'll be there in 20 minutes. You want your usual carrier or a different.
Inder: Different one. I haven't used Lapin Mobile in a few years.
H_Ron Sends Thumbs Up Sticker
H_RON IS AWAY
INDER LOGGED OFF
"Are you sure you can trust this guy Chester?" Rikr asked me. "Yeah, I'm sure he and I have been friends for years. We also are the only people in this city I think that care enough for our own privacy when doing Urbex to not use a regular cellular carrier we both use prepaid networks and swap sims regularly." The elevator had come to a stop a minute ago and Marvin was trying to open the door. "Marvin says the door isn't responding. He's currently out there attempting manual open." I turn to look at the doctor. He looked tired, his face was slack, and his eyes closed.
"Doctor Tate?" I leaned over and shook his shoulder. "Uh! Yes, sorry Chester I closed my eyes for a second." As the doctor voiced this his phone began to ring. He pulled it from his pocket and stared at it before answering it on speaker phone.
"Hello, this is Doctor Kevin Tate speaking." The voice from the other side of the line seemed to drip with an unnatural honey. "Hello Doctor Tate, this is Agent Ovay of the Defense Intelligence Agency's Homeland Department. I'm calling you because of your former association with Project Mjolnir at site X993A. Today the lab seems to have imploded and collapsed. This was after we had gotten an activation signal from the lab's electrical subsystem computer. But it seems someone had cut the main and secondary comms to the lab itself. We tried to gain access but most of the site's entrances and exits we had documented seemed to have been sealed. I was wondering if you knew anything about that?" The doctor coughed. "I'm sorry Agent but I don't know anything about that."
"I see Doctor, well your device's ID was in the vicinity of the lab before the collapse, so I was curious if you had known anything." Ovay's voice was smooth and well-modulated. If she had a suspicion, she didn't show it. "Oh yes. I'd driven by earlier in the day. I like passing by sometimes and thinking about the old days before DIA was everywhere and my lab was doing something good." The doctor retorted with a little malice in his vice. "I see. Yes, well thank you doctor if you remember seeing anything please do give me a call. I'm sending you my virtual business card." A chime and the card appeared on the doctor's phone then the line went dead. "Pleasant creature." He spoke.
"Huh. DIA really has that authority?" I questioned the doctor. "Can they really just pull up device IDs like that?" The doctor scratched his chin. "Yeah, as far as I know they can." Outside the truck came a loud clunk as the cement wall split and shifted back, the door retracting and opening with a loud grinding noise. "I'm sure everyone can hear that." I said. The doctor nodded. The truck rocked as Marvin loaded himself. "Marvin fixed it." Rikr grinned on screen. "Yes, obviously we can see that." I shot back at my AI. The wolf taking on a sheepish grin.
If you'd like to catch up with me or peek behind the veil then you can visit me in a bunch of different places!
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Author's Note:
I wasn't aware there was a Power Armor tag here. Whoops.