Read Making the Grade (Omnia Online Series Book 2) Online
Authors: Christopher Booth
Ash’s shot hit the avian male on his left shoulder, which may have been the cause of his shot missing Drake, since it went by a half meter high.
The Karurian was still on its feet though when Drakes shot impacted on his right arm. The small dart gave off a shower of sparks and seemed to deflect off the Karurian’s feathered arm.
Drake dived for the cover of a push cart to his right after his first shot was fired.
The Karurian somehow managed to recover from both shots and get off another shot at Drake, scoring a hit on his left leg. Drake still had the momentum to get behind the metal push cart, and he heard some shots hit the far side of the cart.
Drake dropped his stun gun while diving for cover, so he unslung his carbine. He briefly looked at his left leg; the damage was more severe than the almost healed wound to his chest. The blaster bolt had hit him on the side of the leg, in an area only partly covered by his leg armor.
Drake also noticed that Ash had taken cover behind the corner of the cross corridor, and was returning fire on the man with the blaster.
Drake pushed the cart out a little, so that he had a gap between the cart and the wall to shoot between.
As Drake trained his carbine blaster on the Karurian, who was still standing in the hall, he noticed that the Elf was still on his knees and had yet to recover from the stun charge.
Since the Karurian was still focused on Ash, Drake took aim and started to fire his carbine down the hall.
Drakes experience with his brainwashed foe suggested it would take multiple shots to bring them down.
His first shot hit the Karurian in the chest on his left side, the shot had more impact than Drake had expected. The Carbine blaster bolt pushed the avian man back causing him to stumble and some feathers to fly into the air.
The man’s motion caused Drake’s second shot to hit him in the left arm, instead of the chest, which caused him to spin and go to his knees, with more feathers and blood flying into the air.
Drakes third shot hit the Karurian in the lower back, throwing him forward onto his face, with his arms going out while the blaster pistol he’d been using went flying off to his right.
Drake was sure the Karurian was out of the fight, for now, so he looked at the Elf.
The Elf was getting up on his feet; he still looked unstable like he might fall any second, though. Drake turned and tried to find his missing stun gun.
The weapon was about three meters away in the middle of the hall.
Drake hoped he had the time to reach it, with his leg injured he would have trouble getting up and walking so he rolled three times to his left to get to the gun.
Drake heard the sound of the Elf running, and then Ash firing his weapon and he knew he was out of time.
As Drake reached the stun pistol, his imagination had the Elf swinging his ax down at his back.
Drake grabbed the stun gun and made one last turn to bring up the weapon. The Elf was still on his feet and only four meters away, but Ash's blaster fire seemed to have stopped him.
Yet even as Drake brought his stunner up, the Elf seemed to recover just a bit and tried to move forward.
Both Drake and Ash fired one more time.
Drakes shot hit the Elf in the stomach, and Ash’s hit him at the top of his chest.
The Elf fell to the ground in a way that suggested complete unconsciousness or death, with his ax slipping from his loose grip as he fell.
Drake looked at the guard, who hadn’t been hit in the fight.
“Ash, can you please check to see if either is alive?”
The guard checked both men and could not find any signs of life. Ash stopped for just a second to pick up the dead Karurian’s pistol and put it in the back of his waistband.
He just shook his head at Drake after checking the Karurian.
At this point, Drake was about to pull out his medical kit when he remembered he was in a hospital.
“Ash, see if you can find something I can use to treat my leg wound please,” Drake asked.
After Ash had found Drake something to clean his wound, a local anesthetic, and some bandages, Drake cared for his injured leg.
While Drake’s nanites went to work, the anesthetic would make using the leg easier.
After treating his leg, Drake and Ash checked out the room the two men were trying to break into. Drake wasn’t surprised to find out that the room was occupied by the Dwarf he had captured a few days before.
The door was damaged, but Drake thought that it would hold the Dwarf inside, even if he made a determined attempt to escape.
As Drake looked into the room, the Dwarf looked drugged and not really aware of what was going on around him.
When Drake asked Ash about the Dwarves condition, he responded that the staff sometimes had to medicate patients that were hard to deal with or suicidal.
With the area cleared, Drake and Ash turned to head back out toward the emergency room section of the Hospital.
Before heading out of the psychiatric ward of the hospital, Drake needed some more information.
“Just a second Ash, I need to ask a friend a question,” said Drake.
“Samantha, how long do you think it will take before the A.I. can brainwash more people into working for it?” asked Drake.
“When we found out that we were dealing with someone who used mental conditioning, I looked up some information on the subject. The time it takes to fully condition a person varies based on the individual’s mental stability and resistance to suggestion. But the A.I. could start getting results in just a few hours. Anything less would just leave it with someone too shocked by the treatment to cooperate. Full conditioning could take days to complete, though,” said Samantha.
“You estimated that the van they used could only hold six to eight people, right? Did that include the droid you mentioned? If so, are we down to three to five people, one droid and one A.I.?” asked Drake.
“I would agree that we likely have three to five people left to deal with, but depending on what the hospital has in the way of droids and bots, we might have a lot to get through to get to the A.I. still.” replied Samantha.
Drake looked at Ash, “You know this hospital better than I do. The direct approach leads up past the emergency registration and waiting rooms. That’s the approach you tried last right?”
“Yes, and where we lost Doreen.” The guard confirmed.
“But I looked at the floor map, and there’s a back way through imaging… Where do you think the A.I. would feel safest? It would have to be somewhere where it could connect to a data jack and power… Is there some office area in that section that you might consider safe?” Drake asked Ash.
“Maybe… I need to look at a map.”
“Samantha?” asked Drake, “Can you display a map?”
“Yes, but it won’t be as detailed as a true holo-display, or your helmet’s display.” replied Samantha.
With that, Samantha projected a blue map from the data bracer. The map displayed the floor layout in shades of blue.
“You see this area here southwest of the registration desk… You can see that there’s just the one hallway into this section, it can only be reached by going through the emergency room area. This is the furthest area from any entrance into the emergency department. Its office space, so it would have power and data jacks.” said Ash.
Drake examined the map and had to agree that it was the most likely area.
“How about this section in the southeast corner though?” Drake asked. He agreed with Ash, but he also found an area on the map that looked almost as good from the perspective of the enemy.
“You can’t see it on this map, but that section is mostly storage. It doesn’t have any data access.” replied the guard. “And if the A.I. is in the office area, it’s going to be a battle to get to it.”
Drake had an idea, “Maybe, or maybe not. What can you tell me about the buildings construction?”
***
“Ok, so step one, we need to knock out the enemies eyes, which means taking out all the cameras in these halls and anything electronic that has optical or audio pickups. Where ever we can, we’ll just unplug equipment, like in these areas of the imaging department.”
“Step two; we plant my distractions in these two areas, hoping to draw their attention.”
“Then after a few minutes, we’re going in through this section. Drake pointed to an area in the imaging department.” Drake finished outlining his plan to Ash and waited for a response.
“It might work, but I hope we find more guards soon. I would feel better with a little more help,” replied Ash.
“Well, let’s take out the cameras in these halls and look for help while we’re at it. Were there any other… what did you call it… rally points in this section?” asked Drake.
“Yes, this stair area here, but it’s in the line of site of the emergency waiting area…” said Ash.
“Well, we need to kill the cameras in that hall, so will look and see if there are any guards in the stair area, ok?” asked Drake.
After a nod of agreement from Ash, Drake continued, “Good, we only have about another hour or so before the A.I. conditions its first reinforcements.”
Drake and Ash headed back out into the main north-south hall of the hospital and after looking both ways, headed south. The next camera they came across was mounted at the next hallway crossing, the one that led east into the emergency room, and was right next to the other set of stairs to this floor.
Drake took out the camera with a shot from his blaster, which was becoming his preferred weapon for this mission, after coming close to dying in the last confrontation.
“I’ll cover the corridor to the East, check the stairs and around the loop to the west there.” Drake directed.
Drake waited, and after Ash had nodded his confirmation, he took up his position.
While Ash was busy, Drake covered the empty hall to the east. Drake could see another camera down near the Emergency entrance, about seventy meters away. Since he had nothing else to do, while waiting for Ash, Drake decided to try to take out that camera.
The camera was the size of a baseball, and would make a hard target to hit from so far away. At some point Drake wanted the A.I. to believe that he might be making an assault down this hall, so a little target practice served two purposes.
It took Drake four shots to clip the camera. Since he wasn’t confident it was knocked out, and there was still no activity down the hall, Drake continued firing and managed a solid hit that destroyed the camera on his sixth shot.
Drake still had to wait a few minutes for Ash to make his sweep. There were no sounds from behind Drake; however, he did see some movement from the hallway leading south.
When Drake turned his head to look, he didn’t see anything.
“Samantha, I think something was moving to the south a minute ago. Did you catch anything on the sensors?” asked Drake.
“Yes, I think someone is down there, a door opened and closed. I think someone was curious about the sound of your shooting and looked out the door,” replied Samantha.
“Which door, the one to Imaging?” asked Drake.
“Yes,” replied Samantha.
At this point, Ash returned alone.
“What did you find, Ash? You don’t look happy, what happened?” asked Drake.
“There was a guard detail in the stairs at one point. I found two dead guards, people I worked with.” Ash took a moment to compose himself.
“There was also a dead woman, I’m not sure that she was one of them, though.” said the guard.
“All the A.I.’s current support has been in the woods for some time… from a few days to a couple weeks, if the woman was dirty, she was probably one of them,” said Drake.
Ash nodded at the information.
“Yeah, she looked like she hadn’t washed her hair in a week.” said Ash.
“Ok, so cover me while I go down this hall toward the emergency rooms and plant my first distraction.” Drake carefully walked down the corridor, there was a sitting area just south of the waiting rooms that were next to the Laboratory. Drake still didn’t see anyone but killed another camera at the Lab door.
After hiding one of his radios under a chair, Drake retreated to where Ash was waiting and covering him, while watching the halls.
The next step was to sweep through the imaging department and make sure it was empty and unplug any machines.
Drake entered the imaging department; he was expecting to find someone inside and discovered that person right next to the door. The person he found was a middle-aged Human man who seemed frightened. Since the man was clean, not trying to kill him and had a hospital I.D. badge, Drake was confident he wasn’t under the A.I.s control.
“I’m Marshal Horatio Drake, what are you doing here? Didn’t you hear the alarm earlier?” asked Drake.
“Y…yes, but it stopped, so I thought it was a mistake?” the nervous man gave the statement an inflection at the end that suggested he was asking a question.
“Well, since you’re here, I can use your help. I need you to go around and unplug all the equipment you can find.” The man began shaking his head like he would refuse.
“This is important, this is no drill and no game, there’s a rogue A.I. in the hospital, and it’s taking over any computer system it can. So we need to unplug these to protect them from the A.I.” Drake said. He figured the man to be some sort of lab technician and would understand protecting the equipment better than any other longer explanation that Drake could offer. And with all the live machines around him, he was sure the A.I. was listening.
As the man started to comply, Drake added, “Oh, and I suspect the A.I. can track people through that badge you're wearing so I would get rid of it, if I were you.”
The technician acted like his employee I.D. had turned into a snake, the way he paled and clawed to get the thing off him.
With that, Drake started to hunt cameras. He found another three and took them out.
Drake thought,
‘Damn this hospital is full of cameras.’
With the man working on shutting everything down and the cameras dead, Drake prepared to join Ash again in the hall.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes to make sure everything is ready here, and all the systems are off,” Drake said to the imaging technician just before exiting out into the hall.
The back hallway, into the emergency rooms, was clear of people too.
After Drake and Ash had cleared the halls of cameras, Drake placed his second radio near the wall next to the back door into the emergency room area.
Now with steps one and two complete, Drake and Ash returned to Imaging, to check on the progress of the technician.
“Are all the machines shut off?” Drake asked when he found the technician working on a system.
“I need more time to shut them off right. If I just unplug the machines, it could damage or misalign some of their systems…” said the man.
Drake responded by pulling the power cord to the machine the man was working on.
“Listen to me, if these machines aren’t all unplugged in five minutes, I’ll start shooting them, rather than unplugging them. I’m sure then you won’t have to work on realigning the systems or whatever you do with the damn machines,” said Drake.
Drake started looking for any machine the still had a functioning display or lights and started unplugging the devices. He really had no intention of harming the delicate equipment any more than he had to, but he wanted to motivate the man, they were running out of time.
While Drake worked to shut down anything electronic he could find, he closed his helmet to talk privately with Samantha.
“Sam, as we were chasing the A.I. out of the forest, you mentioned something about a reward for killing it? How does that work? Do I need to register to hunt it, like a bounty?”
“No, any party to kill an A.I. traditionally earns a reward from the Imperial family directly. It’s not a bounty, but as a gift from the Empress, it’s not taxable either. The reward has traditionally been 100 thousand credits split among the people directly responsible for killing the A.I.,” replied Samantha.
“That’s a lot of money, but at this point, I would need to split it with Ash?” asked Drake.
“From what I understand, that will only apply if he is there when we actually kill the rogue A.I.,” replied Samantha.
After shutting down all the machines he could find, Drake moved into an eastern room where the third part of his plan would take shape.
Drake stopped and calmed his mind to focus his psionic senses on the wall and what lay beyond. This took a little more time than normal since Drake was so stressed by the events of the night.
The office room on the far side was empty.
Drake went to the next room to the south and tried again.
It was on the third try that Drake found what he was looking for. He sensed something about the size and shape of the box that contained the A.I., and there were a couple machines and two humans nearby that seemed to be holding weapons.
Drake carefully and quietly checked this room out. He made sure nothing was plugged into any walls. Drake went as far as moving everything near a wall away. He double checked the ceiling and floor for any hidden devices, just to be sure. Once Drake was sure there were no betraying electrical eyes, he pulled open his green backpack and pulled out the sixteen-meter roll of det-tape. Using the whole roll would be overkill for what he needed, but he thought that he only had the one chance. So, he stuck the whole roll to the wall with all three timers he had in his bag. It was all set to go off in one minute.
Before turning on the timers, he exited the room to check on Ash and the technician.
“Everything shut off?” he asked
The technician nodded.
“Ok, listen, I’m not sure there’s a safe place to be until after I deal with this A.I. threat,” Drake said to the technician.
Now Drake would see if he could get rid of his help.
He didn’t want to share the reward with someone he met as a chance encounter. Drake felt that he had been the one to take all the risks and injuries, so he should also get any rewards for his efforts on the job.