AN: I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed my stories. I'm sorry but this chapter took a little longer to finish than I thought it would. Please let me know what you think by reviewing my story.
Chapter 2
X walked out of the teleporter room helping Slag keep a slightly woozy Charger from falling over. The orange armored hunter had tried to help X break up a fight at the reconstruction camp between a pair of construction reploids. The fight was started when one of the reploids accused the other of hoarding supplies, a serious charge given the limited amount of provisions the camps managed to procure on a monthly basis. One of the brawlers had taken offense to their intervention and had taken a swing at the two hunters. X had ducked in time but Charger, who had been restraining the other reploid involved, had gotten nailed in the back of the head. The worker responsible had nearly freaked out when he realized what he had just done. Once the fight was over, the brawlers were turned over to the camp's constabulary who thanked the Hunters for their help and promised to make sure the offenders were punished. There had been no need to bring the perpetrators back to base since the camp had its own jail.
"I'm fine you guys . . . I don't need to see the doc," Charger slurred as his teammates helped him along.
"Sure your fine, that's why you're walking about as straight as you shoot," retorted the blue and silver armored Slag.
"At least I don't need to use a spread buster to hit my targets," was Charger's comeback.
"At least I hit them," Slag replied lightly.
X listened and chuckled as the two members of his team as they fell into the familiar pattern of taunting each other. The two of them had always done it ever since Charger joined up during the Repliforce War. There were no real ill feelings between the two Hunters and despite what appeared to most people as the two constantly insulting one another, Slag and Charger always backed each other up whenever they entered battle.
Charger slipped out of the supporting grips of his friends and took a few shaky steps before turning around to face them. "See," he said, "I'm fine."
"I still want you to go see Lifesavor," X told the Hunter, sounding just stern enough to let Charger know he meant it without sounding harsh. "That hit really seems to have thrown your balance mechanisms off and getting it checked out won't hurt."
"Don't worry boss, I'll make sure he gets there without falling on his face in front of the half the base," Slag said. The demolitions specialist grinned as he continued, "Besides, we wouldn't want to keep you from doing the after-mission reports and we know how much you love paper work."
X almost winced at the reminder of one the downsides to being a unit commander. He didn't even want to think about the all reports that he'd have to file despite the fact the only thing that happened was breaking up a fight. He'd have to make a general report which would be available to the unit commanders, a situational report for the intel division and Signas that would contain X's thoughts on the mission's outcome and any data too sensitive for the general report, an evaluation report on his Unit's performance during the mission, a report detailing the exact circumstances of how Charger got injured, and several others. On top of that some bureaucrat had decided that all reports had to be done in triplicate. X often wondered how Zero seemed to have so much more free time than him when they had the same amount of paperwork. Maybe the rumors are true and Zero just 'files' the report forms into the paper shredder, thought the Azure Hunter.
Slag and Charger walked towards the medical wing of the base while the rest of the 17th's members exited the teleporter room and went back to the barracks, leaving X by himself. He sighed and began walking down a deserted hall towards his office to prepare his reports. It was still odd to see the halls of the HQ empty, prior to the Eurasia crisis the Hunter's base had been home to thousands of reploids and the halls had rarely been deserted. Now the Hunters were barely up to half strength even with the recruits from the refugees and former Reploid Forces warriors joining up. X normally tried to avoid thinking about the situation since it inevitably led him into a fruitless cycle of wondering what he could have done differently to prevent the spread of the Maverick virus and the colony's fall. Why hadn't he been able to stop any of it from happening? X tried to clear the thought from his head but the oppressive emptiness of the corridor only served to affirm his failure to stop the events of the fifth uprising.
His victory over Gate during the Nightmare incident had done little to ease his conscience since he had failed to keep his promise to Alia about bringing Gate, her old friend and colleague, back alive. It relieved X to know that she didn't blame him for Gate's death. X felt better since Alia knew he had done everything he could and would have succeeded except for Sigma's interference. She had also made it clear how grateful she was that he had tried and how much it meant to her that he had at least brought back Gate's body so they could try to repair him. Her not blaming X bothered him a little because he felt responsible for putting Gate into a position where he couldn't defend himself against Sigma's sneak attack. What really tore him up was the pain Gate's death had caused Alia and how she had tried to hold herself responsible for Gate's actions because of the mistakes she made in the past. X had succeeded in convincing her that it wasn't her fault that her colleague had chosen the path he took. The Maverick virus had driven Gate insane and was the only reason someone like him would have even considered something as horrible as the Nightmare virus to create an ideal world. Since Gate's damage had proven irreparable, X's feeling of failure had only been reinforced. The irony of it to X was that while he had been trying to comfort Alia during her grief, she had tried to absolve him of his feelings of guilt over his failure. Still, the grief-stricken look on her face when she learned Gate was behind the Nightmare and when she found out he couldn't be repaired haunted X, he'd have gladly done anything to spare her that kind of pain.
"Hi X," a soft, familiar voice called out from in front of him. It startled the Hunter out of his train of thought and he looked towards its source, a pink armored reploid with blond bangs sticking out from underneath her helmet leaning against the wall next to his office door. X smiled as he returned Alia's greeting, glad to get his mind off of wondering what he could have done differently during the last two uprisings.
The spotter looked at X with concern showing in her eyes and said "Is something bothering you X?"
"No, I was just thinking. Why?" X asked caught little off guard at how Alia had picked up on how he had been feeling moments earlier.
"The look in your eyes . . . when something's bothering you they usually get this distant, distracted expression," she replied, "especially after an uprising."
"If you can read me that easily then remind me never to play against you in poker," X joked.
Alia smiled sweetly and responded "I wouldn't be a very good spotter if I couldn't tell when something's bothering you or when you're trying to bluff."
X felt his mood improving and was glad he had run into her, but he was also curious about why Alia had apparently been waiting down here to meet him. Usually when they got a chance to meet and talk for a while it was in the 17th's rec room or the mess hall when they were both off duty, though the longer duty shifts imposed since the last uprising had really cut down on how often that happened. X decided to sate his curiosity. "So Allie, what brings you down here?"
Alia rolled her eyes and gave X a slightly annoyed look. The Blue Bomber knew it was because he had called her Allie. For whatever reason, that nickname irritated her and more than a few Hunters had gotten on her bad side by calling her by it, X was among the few people who were good enough friends with the spotter to get away with it. "Well, Signas told me to inform you about a staff meeting at seventeen hundred hours and since my shift ended a few moments ago I thought I'd catch up with you to let you know."
"You could have told me over the com when I got back from the mission," countered X.
"Well uh . . . yes, I suppose I could have . . . I just felt like telling you in person . . . I mean with all the false Maverick alerts they've sent you on recently and my working on the computer glitches . . . it's just been a while since we had a chance to just talk," Alia stammered uncharacteristically. "Besides it gives me an excuse to take a break from running analyses on the computer system for a while," she added blushing slightly and with a hint of embarrassment in her voice.
X looked sympathetically at his friend. Running analyses on the Hunter's computer mainframe was no simple task; there were hundreds of programs and millions of lines of code to check, any one of which could be the cause of whatever problem a programmer could be trying to track down. It could be a long, tedious, and mind numbing job, even for someone who excelled at it like Alia. It was only natural that at some point a person working on such a project would need to get away from it for a while. Though X was curious about whether or not Alia had made any progress on the situation, he decided to avoid discussing that particular subject with her right now since she was apparently a bit touchy on the subject. It was hard for the spotter to admit when something was proving difficult for her or beyond her abilities to handle.
"I can understand the need to get away from something for a while," X told her. "Back when I used to work in Dr. Cain's lab, whenever I got frustrated while working on a project taking a break from it usually let me view things with a clear head when I went back to finish it."
Alia was grateful that X didn't ask about how the search for the source of the computer problems she was tracking down was going, it had reached the point that if there had been any real progress she would have been ecstatic enough to not even wait for him to ask before letting him know. She was glad that X actually seemed to agree that taking a break from the problem for a while was a good idea and that he understood the need for it at times. She sometimes forgot that X had been something other than a Hunter long ago; he had helped Dr. Cain create reploids after all and adapting Dr. Light's more advanced technology to work with the mainstream robotic technology of the time couldn't have been easy given how little of it anybody really understood. What she hadn't told him was that part of the reason she hadn't been able to concentrate on her work had to do with the fact she kept thinking about what would have happened if the 17th had not been called away and had done its assigned patrol instead of the 10th unit, who had filled in for them. X and his team probably could have pulled off one the successes that had given both them and Unit 0 their reputations for doing the impossible and escaped the ambush with no fatalities. Then again they could have fared just as well as or worse than Knight's unit had. That had something to do with why she had decided to deliver Signas's message personally instead of over a communicator, the manner in which she had told Zero about it. Alia had just felt a need to see X face-to-face. She still couldn't figure out why she had felt embarrassed when X had asked her why she hadn't just sent him a message or why she had stumbled over the first part of her response.
"How's Charger doing?" Alia inquired. She knew the Hunter had gotten injured during the scuffle at the work camp and since X wasn't down at the infirmary checking up on him, it couldn't have been too serious.
"From what I can tell it seems that his balance sensors were knocked out of alignment, I had him go to Lifesavor to make sure that it's nothing serious since they hadn't recalibrated themselves by time we got back," X replied. "How did Knight's unit enjoy the patrol?"
The downcast look that swept over Alia's features was all the answer X needed. The next words out of his mouth were, "What happened and how bad was it?"
Alia looked into X's concerned, green eyes as she tried to figure out the best way to tell him what had happened. She was caught off guard, assuming that someone else would have already mentioned it to X by now. She had also assumed that that was what X had been worrying about when she called out to him.
"They were ambushed," she began quietly, "Knight's team picked up some unusual energy readings and were investigating them when they were attacked. The Mavericks managed to split them up in the mountains . . ." Alia paused for a moment trying to think of some way to soften the rest of the news, Knight and several other members of the 10th were X's friends, before continuing, "There were seven survivors total. Knight, Maxter, and Maggie were all badly injured and sent back to base . . . Lifesavor expects them to all recover, but it will be a while before Maggie and Maxter are well enough to be put back on duty."
X felt simultaneously relieved and upset. He was upset because his unit was the one that was supposed to have been doing that patrol today. If the ambush had been planned in advance then it had probably been meant for him. The false alarm at the work camp had been a high enough priority to draw his team off of their normal duty and be sent to investigate. That had meant that the standby unit, Knight's team, had gone on the patrol in their place instead of being the ones to respond to the camp's alarm. He was relieved because unlike the previous ambushes the casualties had been comparatively light. Unit 23 had been completely wiped out in a matter of minutes and Unit 12 had only had two survivors left by time an extraction team had gotten there to evacuate them. X didn't recognize Maxter's name but he did remember Maggie from when Knight had introduced her to him. He could only imagine how Knight felt with his sister badly hurt, probably the way X would have felt if Zero were the one injured, especially since he had been leading the mission and hadn't been able to protect her. He was glad that the injured Hunters would recover, but it didn't quite counter the pain caused by knowing that several of his friends were never coming back. X felt the confusing emotions of feeling it should have been him caught in the attack, but at the same time glad he had avoided it, and feeling guilty and mad at himself for being glad it had been someone else.
"X?"
Alia's voice snapped X back to reality. "What Alia?" X had trouble keeping the gloom out of his voice.
"I know Knight's your friend and I'm sorry about what happened to him, but it's not your fault," Alia began, knowing what was running through X's mind. "You couldn't have known what would happen and we couldn't risk not sending your team out to the camp if there really had been an attack there . . . I just wish I had been able to determine that the alert was false . . ."
"It probably wouldn't have changed anything except that I would have been walking into the trap . . ." his reply came out stiffly. "Anyways the computer problems aren't your fault. The only reason we even went to the camp was because the base computer thought it was under attack," X said in a softer tone. Right now Alia's skills were needed too much and the last thing the Hunters needed was for them to be adversely affected by her feeling responsible for the problems that resulted from the glitches in the base's mainframe. Since Alia refused to let the Azure Hunter blame himself for things he couldn't control, X figured that he would return the favor and not allow her do the same.
"You're right X. What bothers me is that we still don't know how the Mavericks sneaked up on the 10th . . . their own internal sensors should have alerted them to the presence of any Maverick power readings . . ."
It didn't take X long to reach the same conclusion as his spotter. He bitterly thought how ironic the crack he made during the last mission about Mavericks with stealth equipment was. If Mavericks can hide their readings from a reploid's sensors, then even if the base were functioning right we may not have been able to detect them with its scanners.
"That's not good," he finally said. "If the Maverick's have developed some new stealth device to hide them from our scanners, they could be massing an army right outside the base and we'd never know it until they attacked."
Alia didn't like that thought one bit. Then she remembered the strange readings the 10th had been investigating just before the ambush. "Well if those energy readings that were picked up by Knight are a result of the device, then we could at least know where they are even if we can't tell how many are there."
X nodded. "It wouldn't be much, but I guess we'll take what we can get. Thanks for telling me about it Alia. I'll stop by the infirmary later and check up on Knight and Maggie."
The discussion about the ambush had put a damper on the otherwise pleasant conversation. Alia hated being the bearer of bad news, but X would have found out anyways so it was probably just as well he had heard it from a friend first. She wished they could get back to the more cheerful mood that the conversation had started in, but she couldn't think of anyway to do it. Alia decided to try and switch subjects. X beat her to it by asking if she had heard the rumors that an area in South America might be safe enough for humans to live aboveground.
"Yeah, I have. I heard that Signas is waiting for the survey teams to report in before he sends a proposal to the council to relocate people there," she replied.
They talked a little bit longer about the possibility of humans returning to the surface and a few trivial things, regaining a little bit of the talk's earlier upbeat attitude, before hesitantly bringing the conversation to an end.
"Bye X, I'll see you at the meeting," Alia said before heading down the hall.
"Later Allie, good luck with the computer system," X said, watching her leave. He caught himself wishing Alia could have hung around a little longer-he really enjoyed chatting with her, even if he did sometimes wind up receiving bad news in the process. He hoped it wouldn't be too long before they got another chance to just hang out and talk; something neither had much time for lately. After a moment he entered his office figuring that if he finished the reports quick enough that he would have plenty of time to go by the infirmary to visit Knight and Maggie before the meeting.
Maxter groaned and opened his eyes. He quickly shut them as a bright light flooded his vision. He no longer felt any pain in his torso, just a numb tingling sensation that was the result of the painkillers administered to reploids prior to any major repair. The painkillers also explained why he felt so groggy. Maxter tried opening his eyes again, this time squinting and made out a figure with a clipboard standing next to his bed.
"No offense doc, but I can think of a lot of other things I'd rather wake up to than you're ugly mug," Maxter said, guessing the identity of the person.
"Stop getting shot up every other mission. That way you won't have to look at me after I finish putting you back together again," Lifesavor replied, looking at the readouts on the bed's monitors and jotting down the information on his clipboard, and without missing a beat the doctor added, "Oh and I think those belong to you"- pointing to a cart next to the bed.
The first part of Lifesavor's reply drew a chuckle from Maxter. It wasn't far from the truth since about any combat related mission landed him in the medical wing of the Hunter HQ. Normally he just needed some shrapnel removed or a limb reattached but sometimes he beat up badly enough to need more extensive repairs. Maxter sometimes joked that there wasn't a part of his body, from the neck down, that hadn't been replaced at least once.
It was the last part of the comment that puzzled Maxter. He knew that parts of his armor had to be removed so that the doctors could operate, but normally they just gave the armor back when it was time for the patient to leave. The never left the armor just lying next to a patient. But as Maxter moved his head and his gaze fell upon the cart he knew what Lifesavor had meant. There was a small pile of reploid parts, a few of them actually rather vital ones. His eyes widened to the size of dinner plates and his face paled for a moment.
"That's why I prefer to work on mechanics, they understand when you have leftover parts," quipped Lifesavor.
Maxter regained his composure and looked the physician right in the eye and said incredulously, "I see you've been taking comedy lessons from Douglas . . . real funny." It wasn't always easy to tell when Lifesavor was joking since he could behave as though the most absurd thing imaginable was perfectly normal and he almost always had a dead pan expression when he said anything.
Lifesavor continued jotting down notes on his clipboard as though he hadn't heard Maxter and half mumbling, "Coolant levels, check . . . hydraulic pressure, good . . . humor module, broken . . . patient status, irritable . . ."
The doctor lay down his clipboard and looked at Maxter. "I'm glad to say that you'll make a full recovery. Also Knight is just fine, we finished his repairs a little while ago and we need to make sure his new joints are properly calibrated, and Maggie will be okay. She's resting right now."
"Thanks doc, did anyone else make it back?" Maxter asked Lifesavor.
"If we didn't then you're about to be talking to a ghost," came a mechanical sounding voice from behind Lifesavor.
Maxter recognized the voice and grinned, "Hi Mirage! I'm glad you made it back. Where are the others?"
The grey reploid silently, smoothly moved to the side of the bed in spite of his bulky armor. Lifesavor recognized Mirage's model to be an old RF-27 Pathfinder, a unit that had been built for the Repliforce as a scout and equipped with a camouflage system that caused its armor to match the terrain surrounding it. The system was why the armor on the reploids was so bulky and since it drew its power from direct feeds off of the reploid's reactor that model could not remove its armor. Lifesavor knew that a lot of the old Repliforce's soldiers and equipment had been consolidated into the Reploid Forces after the fourth uprising. Mirage must have been one of the survivors that had joined up with the hunters after Sigma had spread the virus during the fifth uprising. It must have been odd for the soldier to be working alongside a group that he once considered enemies, but he didn't seem to be holding a grudge to Lifesavor.
"Daniel is taking care of the paperwork while Jade and Garland are checking to see if there is anyone available to fill in the empty slots on our roster," Mirage replied solemnly. "They did tell me to let you know they'll drop by later to see you guys."
"I'm just glad they made it back . . . Thanks for the save out there Mirage, you were awesome."
"Don't mention it," Mirage turned to face Lifesavor. "Is it okay if I check on Knight and Maggie?"
"Sure, Knight should be over there waiting for us to do a final check on his new parts-" Lifesavor pointed to an obviously empty cot a short distance away. "-but knowing him he's with Maggie-who's still out from the sedatives we gave her earlier."
Lifesavor pointed to the other side of the room where Mirage saw Knight, minus his helmet and shield, sitting next to his sister's bed. The siblings resembled each other very little. Knight's gold and black armor looked like something from the Middle Ages while Maggie's sleek, futuristic silver armor looked like something from an anime or sci-fi movie. Maggie's flame red hair was a stark contrast to her brother's pure white hair. Knight was often calm and reserved while his sister tended to be excitable and sometimes let her feelings get the better of her. The only traits they shared were their blue eyes and the desire to put an end to the Mavericks.
"How is she?" asked Mirage as he approached Knight from behind.
The 10th's commander didn't seem to hear the question. Knight seemed to be lost in thought or somehow trying to will his sister back to health. Mirage was about to leave when Knight finally responded.
"The doctors stabilized her condition, she just needs a few more minor repairs before she can rejoin us," the commander said in a tired voice. Knight leaned back, his expression and demeanor of someone who was exhausted emotionally and mentally. Who could blame him though, his sister had been seriously wounded, several of his friends had just been killed, and he had been powerless to prevent any of it.
"Mirage, I appreciate your coming down here to check on us," Knight said. "Just please don't start telling me about how this isn't my fault and I shouldn't blame myself. I know I made the best choices I could under the circumstances and that there was nothing I could do to prevent the ambush from happening . . . but that doesn't make it any easier to see my sister lying here or to accept the fact that I led people, who counted on me, into a trap that more than a few didn't walk away from."
"Okay. Just as long as what happened isn't going to interfere with your ability to lead us and you don't blame yourself for what happened. You trained most of the people in our unit and that training is part of the reason most of us survived the ambush," Mirage responded.
Mirage lingered for a moment before walking away. Knight wouldn't let what happened interfere with his duty as a commander, most of his grief and self-doubt right now had to do with how he hadn't been able to protect his sister. That wasn't something Mirage knew how to help Knight with, so he decided that it was best to leave the two alone for awhile. As he left the infirmary, Mirage passed two Hunters. One was in a garish orange armor and walking unsteadily as though he were drunk and the other wore blue and silver armor. The second Hunter seemed to be intent on making sure his friend made it to whatever his destination was.
"Hangover?" Mirage asked them.
"I wish," slurred the orange Hunter.
"Come on Charger, if you fall down I am not going to drag you the rest of the way to the infirmary," said Slag, steadying his friend before he fell over.
Douglas studied the readout from the scanner as it analyzed the box shaped device retrieved from the cave near where the 10th unit had been ambushed earlier. The results were nothing that he didn't already know; it was some kind of transmitter that broadcasted an unusual energy field that hid Maverick power readings from sensors. The scanner had also confirmed that the machine had a range of two miles, more than enough to conceal a task force or a small outpost. What the scanner didn't tell him was how he could open up the box shaped transmitter without taking a plasma cutter to it and the Hunter's chief mechanic was hesitant to do so. The recovery team had determined that it was free of explosives, the Maverick Virus, or any other number of nasty surprises that someone could come up with to booby-trap the device. That didn't necessarily mean that it wasn't booby-trapped and using a cutter was a good way to set off anything the recovery team may have missed. Using a cutter also risked damaging some vital piece of circuitry that Douglas might need to study to figure out how the thing worked.
Douglas slid his seat from the terminal to the table scanner the transmitter was on and began to give it a visual inspection. There has to be a seam from when they were putting this thing together or an access panel somewhere, he thought. It was virtually impossible to assemble something like this without using bolts or welds to put the casing together, that meant that if he looked hard enough he could find it and open up the device's casing to gain access to its internal workings. Douglas's normally cheerful attitude began to give way to frustration as a visual inspection turned up nothing, even the ports to plug in the datapad seemed to be part of the outer covering, and he began sliding his hands along the transmitter's sides and edges to see if he could feel anything that might be a panel. On the left side of the box's exterior, he felt a slight indention and pressed it. The mechanic felt something give and heard a soft click as the side of the box separated from it, giving him a full view of the circuitry inside. Bingo! Now we're in business.
Before he could begin examining the inside of the device, Douglas heard the workroom's door open up behind him. He turned around to see who it was; he had made it clear to his techs not to bother him unless it was important. Douglas instantly recognized the red armored reploid with long blond hair standing in the doorway and smiled at his friend in greeting.
"Hey Zero, What's up?"
Zero walked in and leaned against the table the transmitter was on before responding. "Not a whole lot at the moment . . . actually I wanted to see if you reserved those landchasers for my unit to use tomorrow. We need them if we're going to escort that supply convoy to the warrens."
"Yeah, I got them set aside for tomorrow," Douglas said, his smile fading a little bit. "Just be careful with those landchasers okay? We haven't gotten any new spare parts in awhile and I've had to cannibalize a few of the bikes to keep the rest operational." The mechanic looked thoughtfully at Zero and asked "I don't suppose the convoy has any spare parts they could uh . . . let us borrow?"
The crimson hunter shook his head. "Nope, it's equipment for a hydroponics facility and a water purification plant. I could see if the people at the convoy's destination have any parts they could send back or if there's a shipment on the way."
"I'd appreciate that Zero. Anything else I can do for you?" Douglas said turning back towards the captured transmitter.
"No. What are you working on?"
"It's a device that the Mavericks who ambushed the 10th were using, I'm trying to figure out how it works . . ." Douglas replied more focused on the machine than the conversation. He moved back over to the terminal to make the scanner analyze the now exposed circuits and create a blueprint of how it was put together for future reference.
His interest piqued upon learning the transmitter had something to do with the latest Maverick ambush, Zero asked "I don't see any controls or switches on it . . . how did they turn it on?"
"They used a datapad that plugged into it," Douglas replied absentmindedly. "I already checked it out and there's nothing special about it . . . the pad is over on the workbench."
Zero walked over to the workbench, saw the datapad, and picked it up to examine it. It wasn't really impressive; it looked just like the thousands of other datapads commonly used by the military and private sector to store information or programs. The only noticeable thing about it was that the base of the pad felt a little loose, like it was about to come off. Suddenly the pad came apart in his hands. After standing in shock for a minute, Zero quickly lay the pieces of the pad back on the bench and turned to Douglas.
"Um . . . Douglas, I think I broke it . . ." he said a little sheepishly.
"What?" Douglas turned away from the terminal, got up, and walked over to the workbench. "Don't worry I can put it back together and I already copied the programs that were on it to the computer," he said after seeing the parts laying there.
"Okay . . . Later Douglas, I hope you figure out a way to counter that transmitter thing," Zero said, deciding that now would be a good time for him to leave and let Douglas do his job uninterrupted.
"I should at least know how it works before the meeting later today. See ya then Zero," Douglas replied as Zero walked out of the workroom.
He looked again at the broken pad; at least it wasn't anything important. Then he noticed what looked like some kind of shielded disk storage compartment on the inside of the pad's casing. It was unusual since most pads like this used memory chips to store data instead of a disc and there were no insertion slots or reader equipment in the pad for a disc. Also why would someone put shielding around the disc to keep a scanner from detecting it?
"Interesting . . ." muttered the mechanic.
Alia sat at the computer station console typing away rapidly. The station was one of many in the large room that the Hunters used to monitor the HQ's systems. The room could also serve as an emergency command center if something happened to the main one. Since there was no uprising or other major crisis at the moment, the room was sparsely staffed and a stifling silence hung in the air-the only noise to dare and break the silence was the sound of Alia working. She had chosen to work here since the computers here, like the ones in the command center, gave her greater access to the Hunter mainframe without having to go through as many security procedures as using the computer in her office or quarters would require.
Her thoughts occasionally turned back to her conversation with X. She was glad that although he was understandably upset about what happened to Knight's team, he didn't seem to be trying to hold himself responsible for it. That was probably one of X's only real flaws, sometimes he would beat himself up trying to figure out what he could have done differently in a situation to get a better outcome even if what happened had been beyond his control. X had long ago learned to accept that during the various uprisings he had made the best choices he could at the time and that worrying about "what-ifs" couldn't change what did happen, but that still didn't always stop him from wondering about it once the fighting was over. Sometimes it seemed like he was always trying to take the weight of the world on his shoulders.
Then again, so many times the fate of the world has depended on his actions . . . is it really any wonder X feels like it's his responsibility to deal with any problem that arises? Alia mused.
She punched up a window on the screen that displayed the results of the program that had just finished running. The program had compiled all of the information on the bugs that had appeared in the system lately and was now using a new algorithm Alia had finished writing to scan for anything that would help find their source. She looked at the results, running them through her mind, analyzing them from every conceivable angle, searching for some answer or clue that would aid her quest. She closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead, frustrated by how there seemed to be no way of tracking the source of the problems plaguing the computer system.
Alia had already ruled out a virus as the cause, looking for a program or file that was the culprit had been the first thing she had done. The spotter had employed every trick she knew that could determine if the problems were the result of a virus and had come up with nothing. That meant that either a virus wasn't the cause or it was some new type of virus that could evade all current detection methods.
She had also checked to see if there was some non-viral program that was responsible for the glitches. She had limited success with that method. The problem was that by the time the bugs in the system were detected, any program that may have been responsible could have been deleted before it was found. There were ways to restore deleted data, but you normally had to know what you were looking for when doing so. The only other possibility was that the program was somehow disguised to avoid detection. It just didn't make sense to make a program that created computer problems that, despite the difficulties they caused, didn't completely cripple the Hunters' ability to do their job.
Ultimately even if the cause of the problems were found and dealt with, the Hunters would still need to find person responsible for the whole mess. Somebody was responsible for creating and loading the program that created the glitches. The culprit was most likely a Hunter on the base since there was no sign of the security system being hacked from the outside. The idea of a Hunter turning traitor wasn't new, there had been quite a few actually. Magma Dragoon and Double were probably the most notorious since their actions were not due to the Maverick Virus's influence. It was hard for Alia to understand why a Hunter would want to aid the Mavericks given all of the destruction they had caused; especially now since the Hunters were the only ones in a real position to repair the damage the colony debris had done to the planet. It was true that the Mavericks weren't the only group that wanted an end to the Hunters-several anti-reploid groups had been speaking out against the Hunters for years and some groups like the Brotherhood of Humanity had even committed acts of violence against reploids in general but seemed to target mostly Hunters-but it wasn't likely that those groups would be able to convince a Hunter to help sabotage the HQ, not a reploid one at any rate.
Alia opened her eyes and scanned through the data once more. No matter how you look at it somebody in the base sabotaged the computer, she thought. It's not so much a matter of fixing the system as it is finding the person responsible so they can't just sabotage it again. Maybe once we figure out how they're causing the glitches that will give us some clue as to who is doing it. Alia sighed; it was the base security chief's responsibility to figure out who was behind all this not hers. Her job right now was just to figure out how it was being done and figure out a way to prevent it.
"But none of this makes sense . . . none of the malfunctions have been severe enough to interfere with our duties. They are frustrating and cause us to sometimes deploy troops to a place where nothing is happening, but not even the ambushes our units have walked into were the result of a system error," the blond spotter mumbled to herself. "It's like the saboteur is just haphazardly picking systems to attack and then just waiting for us to repair what they do. . ." Alia's eyes widened as a new realization dawned on her.
She quickly pulled up the reports on when each bug had appeared and how long it had taken to correct each one. She then ran the data through an old training program that gauged how spotters reacted to unexpected situations and how long it took them to respond to it. The results seemed to reinforce her suspicions about what their hacker was up to. The spotter altered the parameters of the program she had been using earlier to include the new information. This time the program yielded better results. Now that she seemed to understand what was happening, Alia just needed to figure out what the Hunter's could do about it.
"Hurry up old man. I can't keep this channel open for long," said a lone figure sitting alone at a terminal in a dark room.
"This won't take long Specter . . ." replied the voice of an old man. "What's your status? Did you retrieve the disk?" he demanded.
"I practically took it from under their noses and the Hunters don't suspect a thing. I don't think they even know about it. If you used the data I sent you earlier, then it should be no problem to use the program on the disk to bypass the security systems here," Specter replied. "Soon they'll all pay for what they did . . . but I'll be happy just so long as he pays for his crime. When can we stop wasting time and put everything into motion?"
"This waste of time, as you call it, is necessary. We need this time to finish the preparations." The glee in the old man's voice was evident as he continued speaking, "The plan is already in motion and there's nothing those meddling Hunters can do to stop it!" Specter waited patiently as the old man began cackling insanely; sometimes the reploid doubted the geezer's sanity. Specter began to grow impatient as the old man wasted what little time the communication channel could remain active without the Hunter's noticing.
The old coot finally calmed down enough to speak as Specter was about to kill the channel. "You are not to make a move until I give the signal, unless you're at risk of being discovered, or the mission is otherwise compromised. That means that you are to stop assaulting the Hunter's mainframe for now and do nothing to draw attention to yourself. I'll let you know when it's time to begin the final phase. Understood?" the cold tone of the geezer's voice made it clear that his statement was a command, not a request.
"Whatever, I'd love to stay and chat but I have to go before they find and trace this signal. Buh-bye." Specter said before shutting off the communication.
"Specter! Wait . . ." was all the old man got out before the channel was closed.
Specter didn't often get a chance to shut up the pushy old geezer like that and found it rather enjoyable. Specter ran a check to make sure nobody had noticed the communication. The reploid imagined the look on the Hunters' faces, especially that of one particular Hunter, once the plan went into motion and they finally realized what was in store for them. The reploid allowed itself a small, slightly insane laugh before leaving the room to report for duty.