5: The Infiltrator

Much of today had been somewhat uneventful for Lyssa Raine. This had allowed her to catch up on some paperwork of hers (or rather, the digital form of such), and as the afternoon passed on by and evening closed in, she found herself with a surprising amount of downtime. Such an opportunity did not come by often, and she found herself loitering in her office, leaning back in her chair whilst she waited for her latest call to be patched through and bounced about the appropriate communications relays.

She tried to think of what time it was on Elysium. Or more specifically, the capital city, Illyria. Her mind was a blank on this subject, and she supposed she would learn the answer soon enough if her sister decided to answer the call. Cerberus was kind enough to allow their operatives some amount of comm buoy use, although as expected every call was monitored. Lyssa could hardly go calling her sister and telling her all about what they were doing out here, after all.

Finally, the ringing stopped and her sister's voice came in through the speakers at her desk.

'Hello?'

'Hey, Jeanette, it's me.' The signal quality sounded clear enough. Lyssa leaned forwards somewhat, feeling some relief at hearing her sister's voice. 'I mean, it's Lyssa.'

'Lyssa?' Her sister sounded surprised, and this in itself was to be expected. Lyssa had not spoken to her for some time, partly because of the nature of her work and partly because they had hardly left things on the best of terms the last time they had talked. Until starting her role in Cerberus, the pair had had a close relationship. Ever since coming out to Anhur to be part of the organization, that relationship had soured somewhat.

'Yeah, you know, your big sister.'Lyssa smiled, even if the audio-only nature of the call meant there was little point. 'You haven't forgotten about me, have you?'

'No, no I haven't.' Jeanette Raine's voice took on a somewhat firmer tone, one dosed with a measure of wariness. 'How could I forget, after our last talk?'

'I want to put that behind us, all right?' Lyssa hardly wanted to retread the same ground. Nonetheless, it seemed as if her younger sister was intent on bringing up the previous sore point again.

'You're working for Cerberus. You know who I feel about them.'

'I'm making good money, Jean. I wanted to send some your way—'

'That's blood money, Lyssa.' Her sister's voice soured further. 'I don't want blood money. You're working for terrorists.'

'You sound so very sure of that,' Lyssa remarked. She would have sighed, but she did not wish for her sister to hear it. Jeanette had always been a smart girl, and that intelligence had seen her through an xenobiology course over on Elysium. Soon enough, she would finish studying her doctorate and likely go on to work at a hospital somewhere. She had already done limited placements at hospitals on Elysium in a training role. Lyssa was proud of her, and she had mentioned as much to her sister in the past. Even during their last talk, which had been anything but amicable.

'Of course I'm sure. I've heard things about them that would make your skin crawl.'

Lyssa did not counter that. The propaganda went both ways: whereas Cerberus was always eager for new recruits, there were groups out there working overtime to paint the organization in a negative light. As smart as her sister was, she could not fault her for falling for the smear campaigns.

'Don't be so dramatic.' Lyssa leaned back in her chair, dimly aware of a faint buzzing that seemed to be focussed about the window behind her. The shutters were partially down, and she spun about in her chair in an attempt to find the source. There was a large fly-like insect buzzing about the glass, a native sort that was of no danger to humans. Nonetheless, the noise was irritating and the insect itself was unsightly. She did have some bug spray around here, although its effectiveness on anything that was not from Earth was suspect.

'What time is it over there?' Lyssa asked her.

'Mid-morning. What about you?' She was pleased to hear her sister's voice soften a little at the change of subject.

'Evening.' She could see the silvery glow of Anhur's moons and the stars outside filtering through the partially open shutters over the window. One hand went for the drawers under her desk, and she pulled open the bottom and largest of them to fish out the can of spray from inside. The Anhurese blowfly was still darting about the window, hitting it repeatedly with an irritating and sharp tap-tap-tap.

'Look, Jean, I called because I wanted to clear the air between us. You know I hate it when we argue. I'm sure you feel the same way.' Lyssa clutched the can of spray in hand. The window was only a couple of feet away, as was the ugly and oversized insect scooting over it.

'But Cerberus, they've done things for me no one else would,' Lyssa continued. She could almost see her sister's frown on the other end of the line. She smiled at the thought, all while she aimed the aerosol can at the annoying insect and sprayed. She hit it with a torrent of the noxious mist, and almost immediately the buzzing noise became sporadic and wavering. The unsightly black bug fell into a heap on the windowsill, its ten legs twitching skywards whilst the noises it made became almost sickly. Lyssa was relieved to see that the spray worked just as well on Anhur as it did on Earth.

'I told you they fixed my injury,' Lyssa added. 'Not even the Alliance was willing to do that.'

'It was experimental surgery, Lyssa. You could have lost the ability to walk altogether.'

'But I didn't. Besides, that was a risk I was willing to take. It was either that or go on dosing up on painkillers. And I don't want to go through that again. You've never had that kind of dependency. It gets to you, crawls under your skin. You find yourself willing to do anything for another hit, anything to make the pain go away.'

'What happened to you was wrong, I know that. But you shouldn't turn your back on the Alliance.'

'They turned their back on me.' Lyssa scowled then, and she tossed the can of bug spray back into the bottom drawer. She shoved it closed with one foot. 'They abandoned me, Jean. Cerberus picked me up and made me better. For that, I'm willing to look the other way, no matter what they might be doing that I don't know about. At the end of the day, their intentions are good. For the betterment of humanity and all that.'

'The end justifies the means, is that right?'

'Sometimes.' Lyssa recalled the batarian doctor from yesterday. She had done what she had deemed necessary to get results. Sure, the results had been disappointing but it had been more than what most had gleamed from him. From what she could tell, that batarian was still locked up in the detention area, likely to be left there for a while to stew before he was transferred to a more specialised prison facility. What she had done to him would seem tame compared to what the more specialised interrogators would do.

'I suppose with that mindset you can justify just about anything,' Jeanette remarked.

'I'm a soldier, Jean. Sometimes I have to do things others might deem unpleasant.'

There was a pause then, and she suspected that Jeanette was carefully mulling over what she had been told, and what more she could add to it. At least it was not the heated argument they had had last time, one that had seen raised voices brought on by heightened tempers. Jeanette did not like yelling at her sister, and she had done so rarely. However, it seemed getting a job with the so-called "terrorists" had brought about a serious point of contention.

'What have they got you doing, anyway?' Jeanette asked her. 'I mean, you haven't even told me where you are and I'm getting nothing off of the signal data.'

'It's a secure channel. No caller ID here.' Lyssa knew there would be operatives listening in. As much as she would have loved to tell her sister all about her work here, she knew better.

'Besides, you know I can't tell you,' she added. 'Top secret and all that. I could get into a lot of trouble if I let anything slip. What I can say is that it's not as exciting or dangerous as you probably think it is. But it also pays damn well.'

There followed another long pause from her sister. Lyssa wondered if she had said too much even then, but she quelled that thought quickly. In these situations, one would do well to be vague.

'All right then, Lyssa. I won't pry further…' Her voice trailed off, the volume of it seemingly receding. Lyssa sat up, her instincts telling her immediately that something was wrong. The loss in volume was then joined by distortion, and she thought she caught a few words from her sister before the signal cut out altogether.

'Hey, Jean, you still there?' She tapped at the holographic keypad of her terminal, trying to reestablish the connection. Unsurprisingly, the usual commands did not work. Communicating with someone over such a vast distance was unreliable at the best of times, so Lyssa assumed it was simply a disruption with the communications buoys. However, there was also that nagging feeling in her gut that all was not quite right.

'Shit.' Lyssa switched off her terminal then, wondering how her sister would be reacting. No doubt she would simply assume it to be a typical disruption. Even so, to be cut off in such a way grated on Lyssa deeply. She was about to put in a call to those in charge of the facility's communications, complain that they were not doing their jobs properly, when suddenly, the lights in her office went out.

There was still some light from outside, the dying rays of the sunset, and those provided ample illumination through the partially open shutters. Yet the sudden darkness set Lyssa on high alert, and she rose to her feet at the loss of power. Even her computer terminal flickered, the holographic display disappearing altogether.

The backups kicked in within seconds. The lights came back on, slowly. Even her computer booted itself up again. She put a finger to her standard-issue earpiece, patching herself through to the operations centre.

'Control, this is Chief Raine. What just happened?' She was already partway across the office then. As Chief of Security, she would have to attend the operations centre in person to ensure that nothing untoward was occurring.

'External power source was just cut off, Chief.' The voice of the technician responding was tinged with a small measure of unease. 'On-site generators are kicking in, as expected.'

'Sabotage?'

'Well, I can't rule anything out. It wouldn't be the first time the local power grid's gone down. This planet isn't exactly known for its reliable public services.'

'Keep on it. I'm on my way there.' Lyssa emerged into the corridor outside of her office. The backup lighting was somewhat more subdued than the usual variety. There were a few others from the security team poking about, no doubt suspecting something awry. Lyssa made her way for the elevator at the end of the corridor. As she stepped inside of it, her communicator beeped again, and the same technician chimed in:

'Chief, looks like we've got a motion detector alert down in the mainframe. The place should be empty and no maintenance is scheduled.'

'Anything more to it?'

'That's it, Chief.'

Lyssa tapped the button to take the elevator down. She mulled over this latest piece of news for a moment, before she tapped another button lower on the control panel.

'I'll check it out myself. Just keep me apprised if anything else comes up.' Any intruder or saboteur could use the momentary power disruption to get past some of the security around here. Not all of it, especially within the more restricted areas, which would necessitate more specialised means of avoiding the surveillance cameras and sensors dotted about the likes of the mainframe area. Nonetheless, Lyssa needed to satisfy her curiosity and so she rode the elevator to the sub-levels herself. Her security clearance would allow her past any of the checkpoints down there, most of which were automated.

The elevator came to a halt at the lowest level, the doors sliding open with a succinct ding. The corridor beyond was a little darker and a little greyer than those above. A security gate was several metres ahead, this one fitted with a scanner. A single white mech stood by it, a typical LOKI model. It barely even acknowledged her as she passed through the biometric scanner. It took in her weight, her facial features, the ID she wore, just about everything it could scan in order to confirm her identification. She had to wonder how an intruder might get through such a thing, but in her experience it was often a case of the more advanced a system, the more sophisticated the means to get around it. And there were people out there with the time and resources to devote to developing those sophisticated means.

The corridor went on several metres more. It branched off at a T-intersection, with one way going to the laboratory areas that were off limits even to her, and the other to the computer mainframe. There was little security in the corridors itself, but there were plenty of cameras around and even a few more mechs on patrol. Those things were hardly subtle, clanking about the corridors with a stiff and appropriately "robotic" gait. Lyssa ignored the one that milled on by her, and instead went straight for the thick bulkhead that served as the entry to the mainframe area.

As she approached it, the lights in the corridor died again. She swore, with auxiliary power kicking in after a few seconds. Red lights came on, pulsing steadily. Lyssa tried her earpiece, yet even that had filled with static. Someone was jamming them, and the detected intrusion in the mainframe suggested a concerted effort.

The door's computerised lock was still on, drawing from a different and longer lasting power source. As such, it opened as she scanned her credentials before it, revealing the server room beyond. The mainframe was a bulky block of metal towers in the centre of an otherwise sparse room. The lighting was dim, and the air was refreshingly cool. The environmental controls here ensured that the computers within were always kept at a suitably low temperature to prevent any overheating. Lights blinked on the mainframe itself, as they did from the terminals spaced about the surrounding walls.

Lyssa had neglected to bring along her visor, a standard-issue item to all security personnel that she had never actually needed until now. It was dark in here, despite the auxiliary lighting. And looking into the room, she was filled with a sense of foreboding for her instincts were telling her that things were definitely not right in this place. Power outages, communication failures and now a motion sensor going off in a place that was supposed to be empty; Lyssa was certain now that they had been infiltrated.

She pulled her gun, a Phalanx-model pistol, and slowly stepped into the room. There was some light to be had from the terminals and the like around her, and her eyes adjusted well enough to the gloom to move about without difficulty. As she stepped inside, she made sure to activate the control panel by the door behind her, closing it after her. If anyone was inside, they would not be slipping out behind her, not without her knowing about it.

She stopped by the central computer core. Lights blinked and holographic displays glowed a deep blue in the dark. The space was large, but the aisles between each mainframe were narrow, making for a maze of sorts that wound its way between the block-shaped computer servers. There were too many places to hide in here, and Lyssa found herself checking each corner and each aisle with her gun raised. All the while she got the distinct impression that she was being watched, that someone lurked just beyond the corner of her vision.

She stopped by the central core, a rounded column that took up the very centre of the room. There was a terminal there, a specialised one accessible only to select personnel. It was active, which in itself was unusual. It was not often anyone had to access the mainframe from that particular terminal. Seeing the display switched on and glowing, information scrolling along it, Lyssa knew then that someone was most definitely inside this room. They had to still be in here, as there was no other door inside. That in itself begged the question as to how they had broken in to begin with. Lyssa looked up, eyes drifting to the ventilation ducts in the ceiling that allowed the necessary cool air to billow on inside.

She heard footsteps then, and she spun about to face their source, turning to her left. Something seemed to shimmer in the air before her, briefly forming the shape of a person. Suddenly it had barrelled into her, and she realised perhaps a second too late that whoever was in here was using a tactical cloak. Lyssa was taken off-guard, knocked against one bank of computers with her gun wielding hand being swatted away. She put up her hands, trying to get a grip on the invisible figure pinning her. She felt someone underneath, and the cloak shimmered further from the physical contact. Before she could get a decent grip, she felt something jab her in the neck, and within seconds pain was tearing through her. Muscles spasmed and joints locked up, and Lyssa let out a pained yelp as she slumped into a heap at the bottom of the server tower. Consciousness faded all too quickly afterwards, courtesy of the stun device that had been pushed hard against her neck. In the last handful of seconds before she went under completely, she was dimly aware of the invisible intruder darting by her and grabbing something from the main terminal. And then they were gone, little more than a phantom in the night, leaving almost no physical trace that they had been there to begin with.

Elsewhere, weapons fire wracked the facility. Lyssa would come to in minutes, but by that point it would already be too late.