Following the Plan: Improvising just a little
The path to the Laboratory was through corridors. I passed the Crew Quarters, the Messing Hall and the Security Offices. I was in the Office Supplies Storage. I met other people going through the labs, they don't know nothing about the water going down the pipes. Even better, they had no idea someone was inside their own working place. This made me question who was the agent and why she was betraying this company. Which I didn't know any name.
In fact, I had no idea what company I was really infiltrating. The dossier will contain the information I need. Meaning: my next step in the mission is finding Matias. He had to be in the room where the locker is, so he already knew who, or what, was behind this cover operation. I established a secure communication link with Matt:
"Matt, any new information on this place?" There were no answer for a short time.
"Samuel, you won't believe what I found in the dossier." He was preoccupied.
"Tell me, all details included!"
"This isn't a private company! The Alliance it's doing research on new weapons, mostly." This really surprised me, now I understood his preoccupation.
"But why? They will use it for what?"
"To gain superiority against other species. There are projects researching the Geth, their technology. Even their AI." AI research was forbidden by the Council, only some chosen groups could do it.
"It is like they are preparing for something." An event, big enough to scare the Alliance.
"And not just that, they are moving something from the laboratory. It was frozen, that is why we saw cold water." Wasn't an experience, but it was bad News for us.
"They are trying to remove any proof of its existence. This only mean one thing..."
"I know, we have to be fast." He didn't even let me finish.
We must get out fast. And not alone, Ghost had to come with us. If they were destroying data and moving physical evidence from the station, they surely know someone is giving away secret information. The only thing undetermined was if they knew who Ghost was. If they did, we could access the information, if not we had to discover her identity ourselves.
I wasn't going to the laboratory anymore. Instead I was going to the Security Offices. I was close when I contacted Matt, so in no time I reached the room with little cubicles. I was looking for the manager office, the one where we could find access to the cameras.
It wasn't difficult to find the room. Either getting access to the live feed cameras. Truth was, Matias gave me a copy of all codes and passwords of the place. I began my search on the laboratory, the screen was big enough to support eight different cameras in the screen. So I searched room by room for abnormal patterns.
I noticed something strange in room nine. It was a small cryogenic room. All cryogenic chambers had a number in the middle of the glass door. Probably it is the date when the door will open. But one didn't have a fixed number, instead it was alternating between zero and one. Suddenly I realized, that was a code.
A binary code. It took me a while to distinguish letters in the code. It was a loop, repeating four letters: "L", "E", "P" and "H". An anagram, I called Matt the moment I see the danger someone was in.
"Matt, go to room nine now, Ghost is there." This time he answered almost instantly.
"I am in the corridor, going now." It took two minutes, but I was hearing Matt opening the door.
"Where is she?"
"In the chamber where the numbers are changing." I could see him in the screen of the terminal I was using.
"Opening it now."
From the video, I saw Matt opening the chamber. He hesitated, what was inside shocked him. He got closer to the chamber and put away his weapon. He grabbed something inside the chamber and was carrying it. Was a person. A woman in some type of all purpose suit. If she was using normal clothes she would be dead by now. But I knew she was alive, I could see Matias begging with his eyes for answers, he was looking directly to the camera.
"Matt, you have to wake her. Someone tried to kill Ghost. But why the encoded message?"
"She won't wake up now, her body is in some kind of stasis, it will take time to recover."
"Sorry Matias, you will have to carry her." I was going to say more but he said first.
"To where? And how will I protect her?" It was dangerous and he knew it.
"I will serve as bait. You two go to the ship and get off planet."
"And how will you escape?" Improvising was necessary now.
"I will hijack the fighter with the prototype cannon. I will draw all the attention to me while you take her to the ship. You just have to pilot the furthest away you can get."
"No way! You will get hit by the anti-air weaponry. Not just that, they will follow you with all that fighters."
"It is a risk we have to take. Now go we can't lose more time."
I saw Matt carrying Ghost outside the room. He had to escape. I was thinking what to do to protect myself from the anti-air weapons when I got a message in my comms. It was a woman voice, but with static. I knew that voice, it was a quarian. Faesa.