----- Chapter 7 : Empty Space out of Control -----
The loading area at which she had found herself had signs that indicated that she had arrived at the Razorback Mines. These mines were situated over fifty kilometres away from the Central Dome and a considerable distance again from the geothermal plant downstream. With the elevators working she ascended into the unknown. This mining facility also doubled as a research facility, home to the renowned Doctor Osto.
As before, this place too was abandoned, with no sign of anyone. But there was a difference too, namely indications that before they had disappeared there had been panic and maybe an attempt to escape whatever fate had eventually befallen them. The research labs were messy with notes, disks and other materials scattered and piled into boxes haphazardly. She also had encountered her first hostile force in the labs, robots. Clearly they were used for mining, but these walked through the rooms with a purpose and each had modifications that seemed unnecessary for a strictly mining purpose. Was she just being naive or was there something more sinister at work here?
While looking for a suitable terminal so that she could check the logs for a clue of happened, she stumbled upon the Intelligence called Calus. Flowen had explained to her once several years ago that the military had created three Artificial Intelligences for their needs called: Calus, Vol Opt and Olga. Unlike the Intelligences for the Central Dome, Siris and Weatherman, the military designed theirs to be adaptable as well as multifunctional.
"Calus? What happened here?"
"Unknown."
The one word reply had caused a small shiver to pass down Rico's back, but she persisted with the question. Calus informed her that the people had anticipated something was going to happen mere minutes before it had and that an energy surge had caused Calus to shut down in order to protect his core functions. When he had rebooted, he had found that the labs had been abandoned but that he had lost access to most of the internal sensors and so was unable to verify this accurately. Asked about the robots, Calus informed her that the robots fell under the control of Vol Opt who was not only in charge of mining operations but security as well, which meant the outer doors and elevators leading to the surface. With internal communications severed as well, she would have to physically reach Vol Opt in order to disable the alert status.
She was about to leave when she remembered something important. She uploaded the data from the two pillars she had encountered and instructed Calus to see if he could make any sense of it. If Calus discovered anything he was to mail her via the BEE system, his one form of working telecommunication. Upon this, Calus flashed up a route on one of his monitors which Rico rapidly committed to memory. Setting off, she descended into the lower levels of the mines themselves.
She had found the lower mines much harder going, many of the halls were populated with robots altered far beyond their original design. One such robot, Baranz, was outfitted with heat seeking missiles and a shell formidable enough to withstand a photon blast generated by Kabanda, her mag. Coupled with the sheer attack speed and ferocity of the Sinow class machines, she could not deny that this was a robot army, created to fight some unimaginable force.
The greatest shock by far was the discovery of a third pillar. Surrounded by cameras and other pieces of analytical equipment there was no doubt in Rico's mind that this thing had been well studied. She had recorded its detail and mailed the data to Calus almost immediately, but would have to wait an almost unbearable length of time before his initial analysis came back. She stared at the small display on her arm.
"Light, darkness, pair, exist, unlimited, rule, seal..."
She knew the words but she could not discern meaning yet. It had also occurred to her that the route Calus had given her seemed quite indirect, as if he had planned to lead her there. She had considered questioning Calus at that point however the steady clank of metal feet on stone growing ever louder meant she was not safe until she could get Vol Opt to halt the electronic assailants.