Read Online The Only Game in the Galaxy by Paul Collins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Paul Collins
Tags: Science-Fiction, Children's Books, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Children's eBooks, spies, Science Fiction; Fantasy & Scary Stories, Mysteries & Detectives
Ads: Link
inexplicable pangs, sadness making her teary.
She smacked herself mentally. What next? she wondered. Poetry readings?
Night found her crouched in a small room half a mile east of the Fortress’ outer walls, inside a treatment plant. There, scanning to make sure the building was as empty as her earlier surveillance had shown, she climbed into a sealed skin-tight suit that covered her from head to toe and was equipped with a miniature jump-gate breather, delivering breathable air via a tiny Dyson gate.
An airtight moulded helmet fitted over it. Hatsu sealed herself in. She opened the door of the small room and peered out. Dim lights dotted the large mainly automated space, which at this time of night did not have much security.
She padded out, coming to a large concrete holding tank, and climbed down a ladder. Within moments she was dipping into a huge pool of raw untreated sewage – some of which flowed from the Fortress.
Sinking below the surface, Hatsu allowed herself only a tiny shudder. Then she was on the move, navigating by field radar, proximity detectors and superimposed blueprints. She disabled a pump at the mouth of one of the main sewers from the Fortress; she half walked and half swam into the tunnel, then reactivated the pump, its rhythmic throb filling her head for the next hour and a half – the time it took her to make her way to the main cesspit beneath the Fortress.
As foul and disgusting as the journey was, she only once felt a jag of revulsion. She was glad she had requested an inhibition during the neuronosis sessions. Otherwise, she would have gagged to death by now.
The cesspit was designed when the Fortress was built, at which time it had been repaired, serviced and monitored by human workers, many slaves under the old evil regime. As such, it provided egress via huge stone steps and old gyp-iron ladders.
Hatsu found a faucet, washed herself clean, and removed the suit, stowing it in a small dark recess in case she needed to return this way. She did not, however, remove her nose filters. Not yet.
Thirty minutes later she stood inside a huge pantry in the maze-like cellar of the Fortress’ east wing and breathed air, pungent with the smell of ripe apples and aged Ruvian coffee.
Taking several deep breaths, Hatsu sank to the floor and meditated briefly, inducing an icy inner calm, like the eye of a storm. Then she stood.
She checked her field generator and set her cloaking devices at max. The Fortress’ security systems would pick up her signature fairly soon – that was part of the plan.
For the next hour, she planted non-lethal explosive devices, designed to cause mayhem with noise and smoke, and to shut down vital systems, including the main surveillance hub. The hub would only remain out of action for twenty minutes max but that was no problem.
By then she would have recovered Jeera Mosoon – or at least the lost data – and set in motion events that would lead to the termination of Bodanis and Sasume.
Or Hatsu herself would be dead.
Once ready, Hatsu boldly took a cargo elevator to the tenth floor. Now wearing the typical blue overalls favoured by the Fortress’ army of maintenance workers, she moved through the crowded corridors unchallenged. At any minute, however, she expected the alarm to sound. Indeed, her mission required it to.
Hatsu moved purposefully along several corridors, following the mental map downloaded into her wetware implant. She made her way to a large cafeteria, collected a tray of food supplied by automatic vendors, and sat down at a crowded table. A device attached to her field generator activated and went questing for Brown. The device created a ‘field’ virus (an EM field process that Brown called webbing ), infecting all adjacent fields, piggybacking a replica of one’s signature (or any desired encoding) onto the signatures of those nearby; these in turn ‘infected’ other adjacent fields, and so on. A by-product was that other ‘signatures’
She smacked herself mentally. What next? she wondered. Poetry readings?
Night found her crouched in a small room half a mile east of the Fortress’ outer walls, inside a treatment plant. There, scanning to make sure the building was as empty as her earlier surveillance had shown, she climbed into a sealed skin-tight suit that covered her from head to toe and was equipped with a miniature jump-gate breather, delivering breathable air via a tiny Dyson gate.
An airtight moulded helmet fitted over it. Hatsu sealed herself in. She opened the door of the small room and peered out. Dim lights dotted the large mainly automated space, which at this time of night did not have much security.
She padded out, coming to a large concrete holding tank, and climbed down a ladder. Within moments she was dipping into a huge pool of raw untreated sewage – some of which flowed from the Fortress.
Sinking below the surface, Hatsu allowed herself only a tiny shudder. Then she was on the move, navigating by field radar, proximity detectors and superimposed blueprints. She disabled a pump at the mouth of one of the main sewers from the Fortress; she half walked and half swam into the tunnel, then reactivated the pump, its rhythmic throb filling her head for the next hour and a half – the time it took her to make her way to the main cesspit beneath the Fortress.
As foul and disgusting as the journey was, she only once felt a jag of revulsion. She was glad she had requested an inhibition during the neuronosis sessions. Otherwise, she would have gagged to death by now.
The cesspit was designed when the Fortress was built, at which time it had been repaired, serviced and monitored by human workers, many slaves under the old evil regime. As such, it provided egress via huge stone steps and old gyp-iron ladders.
Hatsu found a faucet, washed herself clean, and removed the suit, stowing it in a small dark recess in case she needed to return this way. She did not, however, remove her nose filters. Not yet.
Thirty minutes later she stood inside a huge pantry in the maze-like cellar of the Fortress’ east wing and breathed air, pungent with the smell of ripe apples and aged Ruvian coffee.
Taking several deep breaths, Hatsu sank to the floor and meditated briefly, inducing an icy inner calm, like the eye of a storm. Then she stood.
She checked her field generator and set her cloaking devices at max. The Fortress’ security systems would pick up her signature fairly soon – that was part of the plan.
For the next hour, she planted non-lethal explosive devices, designed to cause mayhem with noise and smoke, and to shut down vital systems, including the main surveillance hub. The hub would only remain out of action for twenty minutes max but that was no problem.
By then she would have recovered Jeera Mosoon – or at least the lost data – and set in motion events that would lead to the termination of Bodanis and Sasume.
Or Hatsu herself would be dead.
Once ready, Hatsu boldly took a cargo elevator to the tenth floor. Now wearing the typical blue overalls favoured by the Fortress’ army of maintenance workers, she moved through the crowded corridors unchallenged. At any minute, however, she expected the alarm to sound. Indeed, her mission required it to.
Hatsu moved purposefully along several corridors, following the mental map downloaded into her wetware implant. She made her way to a large cafeteria, collected a tray of food supplied by automatic vendors, and sat down at a crowded table. A device attached to her field generator activated and went questing for Brown. The device created a ‘field’ virus (an EM field process that Brown called webbing ), infecting all adjacent fields, piggybacking a replica of one’s signature (or any desired encoding) onto the signatures of those nearby; these in turn ‘infected’ other adjacent fields, and so on. A by-product was that other ‘signatures’
Similar Books
