The team worked out a quick rota for continuing their surveillance of the plant, moving up and down the cleared corridor to the ridgeline and maintaining a careful eye on the site. Marius spotted a steady patrol of drones high up in the sky, almost invisible with their colour scheme and low-observable design.
"They are Samsung Glidertrons – a model roughly equivalent to the LS Condor that we are familiar with. For all intents and purposes they can be treated the same – the differences are very minor, enough so that Samsung were threatened with a corporate law-suit for infringing their design. Not that this is an important factor here… but there are six of them, on a very slow patrol of the perimeter. They appear to be evenly spaced out, and doing a fairly slow clockwise patrol, about four hundred and sixty metres apart. With the suncells on the top charging during the day, I estimate that they will have enough power to maintain constant surveillance short of any maintenance they require – very similar to the prison. Their footprint covers the fence and a good area of ground inside and out, that we need to be careful of."
"So we'll be seen by the drones if we cross the fence, unless we're magically hidden, is what you're telling me, Marius?"
"In essence, Tads, yes."
"Well, ok then. There's good news and there's bad news about those bunnies. At least I think so…I'm not entirely sure. The good news is that I don't recognise them as any particular species or type of hostile para-critters, and I'm seeing no signs of common traits like poison glands or massive fangs, or anything like that. The bad news is that I have no idea what they are, at all. They do have an aura to them, there's definitely some kind of magical touch to them. But I can't see what it is, or what it does. It's more…." Tads closed her eyes for a moment, trying to work out how she could explain things to Marius. It wasn't that he was stupid – far from it, she was pretty sure he was the most intelligent member of the team. But her worldview and his were so vastly different, that they often saw things from a very different perspective.
"I do magic – I cast spells, that affect things that are mostly not-me. Aswon, Kai and Shimazu, though – they're physical adepts. Nearly everything they do affects themselves. They jump further, run fast, strike harder, walk with a lighter touch… these creatures are more like that. I think whatever magical power they have is an enhancement to their own abilities, or affects themselves. We're not going to get close to them and find them throwing lightning bolts at us. At least I really don't think so."
"That is reassuring." The pilot's tone of voice was as dry as a desert, and Tads grinned.
"Take what we can get. I'll keep watching for a bit and see if we can find out from observation what they do."
Later on, they were back at the Broadsword, and explained everything they'd seen over the last few hours.
"I wonder if those rabbits have been engineered to be used as an alarm signal. Perhaps they thump their feet if they see people approaching from the outside, or something like that?" Aswon theorised.
"Tads – is there a spell you can cast to let you see through the eyes of another creature? Are they like a living camera system?"
"There is a spell that can let you do that – but you have to be able to see the creature you want to affect, and if you can do that, you can probably see what the creature can see anyway…" she responded, watching Shimazu nod. "You are also limited to just viewing or receiving their senses. You can't cast a spell through them, so I think it would be more effective for a mage to be up in a tower, like at an airport – in the middle of the facility, where they have good lines of sight out to the fence and the surrounding area."
"Think it's just best to stay away from the fences then overall, if we can." Aswon studied the map they had assembled of the base. "Though I'm not sure where we can get in otherwise. Unless we really trust to the concealing spirit and just fly in nice and high, and drop down in a clear area of the parking concourse. There's a lot of room after all."
"I didn't see any of these rabbits at either of the other ETC facilities I checked out – but both of them were located in areas much more urban and built up, so I'm not sure they would have been suitable. Perhaps if Hunter can find me another rural site, I can check them out…"
"If we do go in, then perhaps the north-west corner is our best option. Though it's near the gatehouse, it's also close to what looks to be a large pond or small reservoir, so there might be softer soil or easier access there."
"I don't like the idea – we're very close to the buildings, and all those cameras. So that means concealing us and holding up spells to make us invisible or silent, or both… and that makes using an earth-shaping spell much harder."
"I understand. But the fence is pretty much on concrete or road edge all the way along the north side, and half of the east, and there's very little room on the south side. The western edge pushed out a bit further, but is also closest to the main road from the gatehouse, and is probably more heavily watched and trafficked. So it's not ideal either way. Maybe if we can get to a tree, we could get a grapple line over to a building, and go in over the rooves?"
"I don't think so." Hunter zoomed in on the map a little. "Most of these trees are barely taller than the warehouses, so by the time you have some weight on the line, you're probably only going to make it half way then have to haul yourself up the other side of the bow. With gear, that's going to be tough. And also, the gap between buildings is a good twenty metres. Shimazu might make that jump, but I'm pretty sure none of the rest of us will. And same thing for putting a line over – they're all the same height, so we can't zipline about the place easy."
"So that takes us back to going in overhead, in the aircraft. Or being levitated in over the fence, but then we're going one at a time, and there's risks in that, too."
"I have a theory." Kai gestured to the map, getting Hunter to move down to the parts storage building and the bend in the fence that separated the developed part of the site from the undeveloped. "This bit here… it makes an L shape. We've got the eight buildings top left, empty ground top right, and the rail tracks and parking on the bottom. So this bit here is like an inside corner, right… it's close to buildings seven and eight, but looks out onto rough land."
"Yeah… so?" Aswon looked at the area, but couldn't see what Kai was getting at.
"Well, I think there's a psychological element at play here as well. That corner… it's enclosed, on two sides by the fence. It's easily viewable, and goes out onto fairly open land… but it probably feels like it's 'inside' the base, because of where it is. I think they'll actually not survey it as much as they would the other parts, that look to the 'outside' – even though technically they're the same."
"Hmmm – that's interesting. I can see how that would work." Shimazu nodded, as he considered what Kai had said. "I can imagine people getting complacent in that situation."
"Interesting. Ok, I'm going to go for a hike, and work around the south side of the compound, and check out the far side of the facility, so we can see what it looks like from the east side. Shouldn't take me long, and it should be safe enough in the dark."
"Alright, Aswon… I'll head back towards the tree and keep up obs to cover you. If something happens, I can warn you, or provide a distraction." Hunter grabbed his assault rifle and made sure the under-barrel grenade launcher was ready to go, giving Aswon a broad smile.
It didn't take them too long to get in position – Hunter was set up and had some time to maintain observations while Aswon worked south along the ridgeline, before turning east to maintain his distance from the outer fence. The woodland here was old, but not particularly dense, and there was only moderate ground-cover, so he was able to move quickly enough over the terrain, his long legs helping him cross the brush and undulations of the ground. If anything it was perhaps a little too easy, and that may have lulled him into a sense of complacency. He was most of the way to his destination spot when he almost strode into a clearing, his foot making a twig crack underneath. On the far side of the suddenly appearing open space, he saw a dark shape move…
He froze in place for a second, and then very slowly leant to one side, letting his form merge into the darker shape of a tree, gradually moving to become one with the shape. On the far side of the clearing he saw the shape of a person sitting up, their head looking around for the source of the noise, and he heard their low-pitched voice, sounding with alarm.
One hand reached around the tree, fingers spreading wide to grip the rough bark and steady himself, and he continued his slow meld, now sidling around the tree until he was almost completely behind it. The figure in the clearing shifted, and a second silhouette appeared, sitting up from where it had been hidden in the grass. It too spoke, concerned tones carrying across the still air. A female voice… suddenly the situation became somewhat clearer to Aswon, and his mind flitted back to the map, trying to work out where the trails and nearest villages were, or the farmsteads, wondering just how far this pair of lovers had come.
He watched as they hurriedly got dressed, listening in to their whispered speech. He didn't understand Korean – at least not yet, and the limited amount that he heard now wasn't going to help him learn much, but he was listening as much to their tone of voice and the stress of their speech, and got the distinct impression they were more worried about being found, rather than who they might have encountered.
As the figures rose, he could see that she was quite short, with an average figure – but he seemed tall, and quite slender. He wasn't tall by Aswon standards – very few were – but he seemed to tower over her, and he got the impression that the man might not have been Korean, from the tiny amounts of light reflecting off of his skin, and even just the way he stood. Perhaps this was a forbidden relationship, which might explain why they were so deep in the woods at this time of night. The couple watched the darkness, on edge and nervous. It was clear from how and where they stood, and how they acted that they were not trained in stealth or silent movement, and their positioning was tactically unsound – not that Aswon minded at all, as that made it easier to see what they were doing.
After a minute of noisy breathing and quiet whispers to each other, they seemed to be convinced that perhaps it was just an animal nearby, and pressed up against each other in a fierce embrace, and a lingering last kiss, before moving to the south and disappearing through the woodland. He waited for a slow count of three hundred before moving off himself, working his way around the north side of the clearing and slowing his pace, thanking fate that he'd not been seen and deciding not to take any more risks.
Marius, meanwhile, had rolled out a length of fibre-optic cable, following the route up to the ridgeline and passing the cable and a small receiver module up the tree to Hunter, before returning back to the Broadsword. Once there, he connected up the other end of the cable to his deck, and fired up the new protocol emulation unit and the decryption software, setting his equipment up to start sniffing for signals. It was an almost certainty that they would be using frequency-hopping radios and their signals would be heavily encrypted, but unlike their previous encounters with drone security, he now had the equipment to deal with that. It would take time – but that was something they appeared to have at the moment. Scanning a wide variety of frequencies, he started to detect the strange hisses and blips of transmissions, and set the algorithms to work, trying to analyse the pattern of hopping, and then to start crunching the numbers on the cyphers used so they could be decoded. His rigger deck started to hum, and the fans went to high-speed as the system began the mammoth task of breaking the security protocols in use by the facility.
Through the night, they remained vigilant, swapping in and out of their hiding spots and reporting on observations. When Aswon returned in the early hours of the morning, he confirmed that buildings seven and eight did have the same pattern and arrangement of cargo and personnel doors present on the eastern side, and that the access road there was roughly similar to the one they had already seen on the western side. He also let them know that the large area of undeveloped land to the north-east had some strange markings on it, geometric patterns that were far too straight and regular to be natural, in his opinion.
At dawn, they risked a drone flight, sending up their own recon drone from the Broadsword and deploying it west of their position to start, looping around the facility and approaching from the opposite direction and high up in the air, well above the site security. Marius did a few orbits from well outside the perimeter, then spiralled in, one eye on his own drone, and one on the receiver connected at the other end of the fibre-optic run, watching for any signs of trouble from the base – but his own stealth systems seemed to be doing their job, and an hour later they had a much higher resolution map of the facility to work from, without the grainy, blocky and pixelated deficits of the commercial sat-scan they'd been working on previously.
From directly overhead they could clearly see the large rectangular areas in the ground on the north-east of the base, and quickly figured out that they had roughly the same dimensions as the existing buildings, along with similar orientations and layouts.
"I reckon this is groundwork for a later phase." Hunter checked the distances once more, feeding some measurements into a program on his deck, estimating volumes and sizes. "Yeah – this looks like when they got the site, they dug out the foundations for sixteen large factories, and put in the groundwork – but then only built the first eight. Maybe it was always designed for a two-phase approach, or maybe they ran out of funds, or demand for their goods lowered."
"Isn't that just a waste of money, though, to build them and then leave them?"
"Not really, Tads. They're designed to be in the ground, so the materials they use are resistant to water and the temperatures you'll see here. They're good for hundreds of years. So they'll last… but it does get a lot of the messy stuff done. Now if they want to build, they need to strip off the vegetation and level the dirt, but then just lay a concrete pad over the top. Very little digging needed. Also, if they've put down water, gas, electric that kind of stuff already, they can cap those off and just leave them in place. They're not going to need to dig up the existing working side to extend the services later, and that stops a lot of disruption. And they won't need to bring in the trenching equipment again. Nah… makes a lot of sense to me to get all the groundwork stuff done at once, and then just mothball what you don't need. It's probably not even that much of an investment, compared to the overall costs for the first phase."
A little while later, they saw the workers arrive, a small fleet of buses and a number of cars bringing in the workforce from the local towns and villages. The whole team set to, watching the video feeds from their observation posts, tracking each vehicle and working out who was aboard and how they were treated.
The staff seemed to be split in a number of different ways, but with their combined efforts, they'd soon broken them down into what seemed like sensible sets. The vast majority of staff wore blue boiler suits emblazoned with the Daewoo logo, but a small subset wore pristine white versions, with a muted grey logo instead – all of which headed over to building seven, the paint shop. Everyone there also wore white hard-hats, with some having flashes of colour, that seemed to correspond with the coloured hard hats in use elsewhere.
Most of the staff had yellow hats, and seemed to be workers on the factory floor, forming the rank and file of the work population. A much smaller subset had orange, red or green hats though, and by watching where they went, and backtracking to confirm the vehicles they'd arrived in, the team developed a working theory on who was who. The orange hats mostly came in on the buses along with the yellow hats, along with some of the greens. These seemed to be supervisors, or perhaps lower level management, moving along with a much larger number of yellow hats to their respective buildings. There seemed to be some deference shown to them, and they were clearly organising things, even before they got to their assigned workplaces.
The red hats seemed to be the more senior management – they all arrived in cars, without exception, though all of them also seemed to car-pool. Strangely, given the nature of the site and the goods they produced, staff parking seemed to be at a premium, and that perhaps explained the car-sharing protocol, though it could also have been a cultural aspect, the team suspected. Mixed in with the red hats though were the bulk of the green hats, and they suspected that these were first-aid or fire marshals, or perhaps members of the health and safety team. They seemed to be also respected or deferred to, along with the red hats, and were a tiny proportion of the overall workforce.
The split of workers and vehicles arriving in the morning matched what they'd seen the previous evening, and by the looks of things that meant the plant worked from eight in the morning to eight in the evening, but only worked a single shift, with nearly all of the staff going offsite each day. The exception was the security patrols – they'd seen security staff at the main gate, wearing black boiler suits and body-armour, carrying conspicuous weapons, but they'd still not seen any security staff actually on site itself – only the patrolling vehicles.
"It may be that the vehicles are autonomous. The turrets for those foam cannons do not look big enough for a person certainly. But it is possible that the entire vehicle is unmanned, and controlled remotely. Or, they may have just not had a reason to get out. If that is the case, we are looking to between four and six people in each vehicle, based on the overall size."
"Tell me about the guards we have seen." Kai asked, looking over to Hunter.
"Ok, nearly all human – no orks or dwarves spotted so far, and certainly no trolls. Elves are kinda hard to distinguish at this range, but I'd guess none either. So, mark one humans, mostly about one point seven five centimetres tall – there's a little variation, but not much, and less than we'd see elsewhere. Remarkably consistent body shape and size as well. Black boiler suits as we've already said, but they're wearing reasonably good armour over the top – you can tell from the stiffness when they move, and the bulk. It's probably good against anything up to rifle sized ammo, but Aswon will get straight through it. It's not going to stop rounds from my rifle – but it'll slow them down to turn a fatality into a serious injury, and it'll probably keep them in the fight for a while." Hunter pulled up a somewhat grainy low-angle shot, showing one of the security troops by the gate.
"This is a Samsung-produced rifle, used by several Korean corps for their security forces. It's reasonably well regarded, a bull-pup design with a solid stock, integrated sights and Smart-Link, handles well and comes with a selectable fire mode – single shot, three round burst or fully-automatic. Variety of magazines available, from stubby fifteen round versions up to much longer thirty-eight round banana style. These aren't that big, so I'd estimate about twenty to twenty-four rounds in the clip. The weapon handles well, and is generally regarded as a decent bit of kit. Very similar in a lot of ways to my Alpha," he patted his own Ares branded weapon fondly, "but with less market penetration. No idea what kind of ammo they'll be packing, but it's a competent weapon system, and we shouldn't take it lightly. They also appear to have a fairly lightweight pistol as a sidearm, and I think they have a long knife on the belt – possibly it can be affixed to the rifle to use as a bayonet."
"So in terms of threat?"
"Serious Kai, serious. Shimazu and I will probably be able to soak a few hits from them with the amount of armour we normally stack up, but the rest of you will feel them. They all look fit and trim, and seem to be switched on about their job – none of them looked slovenly or half-assed when I was watching them, so they likely look after themselves and their gear well. Oh – and the other thing I noticed, they all wear the same style helmets. Not hard-hats like the workers, but combat domes. So they likely have decent communications gear built into it, and may have thermographic or low-light visors. So yeah… we should avoid engagement with the guards if possible. These don't feel like rent-a-cops."
"One thing I did notice, while watching the guards," Shimazu interjected, "is that they seem to show a great deal of respect to all the workers. Not just the management, but all the yellow hats as well. They bow before entering the buses to check the IDs, and again when they leave. With the same degree of depth and seriousness as when they're checking the senior management in their cars."
"Oh great… true believers." Aswon sighed. "That means they're probably willing to engage bad odds, or push a position when there's serious risk to themselves. All for the sake of the honour of the corps."
"Perhaps. But it also means they take their duties very seriously. If we can put them in a situation where they have to choose between doing something like chase us, or deal with a more serious threat to their corporation or the workers – we may be able to force their hands. If the security guards are all trained fire-fighters and medics for instance, as we've theorised, then giving them wounded to protect, or a number of small but potentially dangerous fires to extinguish, may distract them and allow us to escape."
"There is that, I supposed." Aswon conceded. "Something I did notice when I got close to the fence on my approach to the south – the exterior signs are bilingual. Korean and English. The signs were nothing fancy – just a standard message about private property and to keep out. No mention of critters, mines or anything else like that. But it gives me hope that some of the signage inside might also be in English too."
"Hunter… a thought." Marius had a look on his face, as if trying to work out something complicated. "You said that you thought all of the groundwork would be done as part of the initial build?"
"Yeah?"
"Does that mean they have likely included power lines and water services to those areas already, but just not connected them up?"
"Yeah, I think so. Why?"
"The facility makes cars and light vans. They will have a production line, moving the assembly process in a linear fashion through the facility. Lots of things like presses, welding robots, other tools – all using a lot of power. This is going to be a building with considerable electricity demands, is it not?"
"Yeah – megawatts probably. I think that's why they've got all of the rooves covered in solar panels, to try and maximise their collection. Offset as much demand as they can, and limit their reliance on the grid. What are you getting at?"
"If they were to expand the facility, this phase two process… it is likely they will be also making or manufacturing vehicles. Maybe not the same type, but the principle is the same. So it follows that they too will also use a large amount of power. That, in turn, means the connections between the buildings will be sizeable. We are not talking about a flex for a portable device. This is likely to be a cable that is as much as three hundred millimetres across, including the insulating material. And they will want to ensure adequate cooling – so perhaps a much bigger space?"
"Yeah… oh – I think I see what you mean. If they've built the foundations to new places, then there's probably not just services – but service tunnels. Something big enough for us to get through?"
"Exactly."
"Well, it makes sense. If you're going to build a tunnel, you might as well put your water and sewage lines in as well, gas, electric – throw the network in there, too. Make it big enough for a maintenance engineer to get in for inspections. And that would make a really nice ingress for us, from the undeveloped area into the actual factories…"
"Indeed. I have checked out the railway line, as I wondered if the western end of that went into a tunnel under this ridgeline – but it does terminate here. And the eastern end exits the fence through another gatehouse, but then crosses the valley on a viaduct. But that means there is no transport infrastructure under the factory, that we are aware of. And it is certainly higher than the valley to the east…but I did spot a trail on the eastern side that appears to go down towards the valley bottom. I wonder if that is used by the locals, and might give us an approach."
"Give me a few minutes to scout it out." Tads made herself comfortable and then shot out of her body to go for a look. The rest of the team continued to pore over the maps, looking for additional information, between checking the feeds on the cameras planted up on the ridgeline, watching the facility at work. True to her word, Tads returned less than five minutes later, and gestured to the map.
"There's a river down there, not that big, but fast-flowing and looks quite deep. On the east side there are trails leading to the farms and some buildings, but on the western side – our side – nothing. No signs of human use, no trails or footpaths. It goes into the woodlands and appears undisturbed. The path you mentioned, Marius – it looks like it was once a tarmac road, but it's now covered in dirt, and the vegetation is starting to cover it over – so it's not been used for quite a while. I also found another fence, just in from the river. A wire mesh fence, but only about three metres high, no barbed wire or anything like that on the top, and no sensors or cameras I could see."
"Do you know where it covered to?"
"Yes, Kai – I thought you'd ask. It runs from the bottom of the viaduct along the river, all the way up the edge of the facility, following the river line as it bends to the west along the top edge of the woodlands that mark the edge of site, then breaks away and heads north-west, running all the way to the main security gate. So all of the undeveloped land is actually inside a fence, but just a small one, relatively speaking."
"That reinforces my opinion then about them mentally considering that a somewhat safe area." Kai said, nodding as he examined the map, looking at the line of additional fencing that Hunter was sketching in, moving and shaping it as Tads gave him directions. "If they don't have kids running over there, or people walking their dogs, or farmers putting some livestock on there to graze – if it's just been empty all this time, they'll be so used to seeing that as a safe area, they'll mentally be checked out even if they do look directly that way."
"I also had a quick scan over the building area, the place you're calling phase two?" The rest of the team looked at her expectantly, and she continued. "I did find a couple of metallic structures – like drain covers? Manholes – is that what you call them? But they seemed to be laid out in a regular pattern, and once I'd found a couple, it was pretty easy to find the others. They're laid out in a pattern…" She guided Hunter to putting down some circles on the map, as close as she could remember where they were. A few moments later he took over, sketching in a plan, putting some prospective lines in that joined those dots up, extending them out and to the ground already covered by the phase one buildings. Each of the lines neatly joined in with the existing buildings, forming a ladder-like arrangement, providing redundant services to each of the factory units.
"That's how I'd design it, for resiliency and to cover in case of accidents. And it's pretty suspicious that those dots all line up if they've not done something like that. I mean… there's only so many ways to solve that kind of problem." Hunter leant back and looked at the map, then started to nod as much to himself as anyone else. "Yeah. It might not be exactly like that, but I'd put money on it being close."
"It is likely that they have dug only one tunnel, and put multiple services in it. Tunnelling is generally expensive, so they will minimise the costs where they can – and it will make it easy to maintain multiple services that way." Marius added.
"Yeah, I agree. Sewage and water at the bottom probably, gas and electric above them. Maybe some data… all the pipes running down the sides of the tunnel, with a walkway in the middle. Maybe some kind of suspended floor, depending on the waterproof levels they've built too. Doubt it's an open sewer, not these days – but you never know."
"If there's tunnels under there, then that becomes my number one interest here." Kai tapped on the screen. "The chance to get close and just avoid that double fence – oh yes. Let's investigate this. Avoid all that security on the top and just sneak in underground. Even if we have to get through a maintenance section or past some doors – we've got skills and tools for those." He looked around at the team. "Haven't we? I like this a lot. Can we get some more info?"
"Sure, Kai. Let me get some help…" Tads headed outside the Broadsword and sank to her knees on the ground, letting her fingers dig down into the loose loam soil. She attuned herself to the mountain and forest, calling upon a spirit of the land to her aid, then detailing what she wanted. The immaterial spirit absorbed her intent and then nodded once, disappearing in a flash. She headed back inside to update the rest of the team. "I got a new spirit, a more powerful one, and asked it to very carefully look for underground tunnels under the land to the north-east, and to see if it could get an idea of where they went, and how big they are. Starting from the metal covers. It's going to take it a little while – but probably not too long, not with that to start off from."
"Ok – while we're waiting for that then – Hunter, can we find the server room by the heat signature? Like we did down in Muscat?"
"Not here I don't think, Aswon. It's a manufacturing plant. Arc welders, paint ovens, massive presses that crush steel with five thousand tonnes of force. There's going to be a drek-load of heat from all those kinds of processes, especially at that kind of scale, that's going to dwarf the heat output from a couple of racks of servers. I doubt they've even got any real impact on the overall heat levels for the building as a whole, compared to the other sources."
"Those plants on the field over there," Kai gestured to the phase two site, "do we think they're natural? Or planted? Did they just leave it to run wild, or did they cover things up." There was some examining of the map, and the recon images from the drone over-flights, with both Aswon and Tads deciding that the foliage seemed to be natural and organic in terms of its spread and development, rather than something had been planned. "Interesting. So they've not hidden them, not deliberately obscured them – just left them there, for later. I'd expect security in the tunnels of some kind – but not anything too heavy. They seem to be a little bit too complacent about this, in terms of the underground access. Like it's just not been considered a factor."
"It does seem to give us a good way to enter the facility. Maybe then split into two teams," Aswon suggested, "one to go after the data first, and when that is secure, they head back out the way they came in. The other team goes after the sensors, and we secure those in a vehicle, and smash our way out… maybe out to the south, towards the farmlands and those rough tracks through the woods?"
"That seems like a good idea. From what Marius was saying, those sharp corners will be very difficult for the security vehicles, because of those turrets? And I can have a spirit or two waiting by each corner to help try and tip them over or delay them?"
"Yeah, that'll help lots. If we can break line of sight and disappear into the woods, get away from the immediate facility, then we can get picked up by the Broadsword and disappear at high speed – before the response force gets here from the city. Because I'll bet money there'll be one!"
"The production line is where they fit the sensors into the vehicles, right – but the vehicles are already made… could we steal one of them, and just load additional units inside to make our getaway?" Shimazu suggested. "Stop us having to make multiple journeys."
"I'm not certain that splitting up is a good idea." Tads argued. "Hunter has to go get the data, I think, – he's the one that knows how to work the computers. But he shouldn't go alone… and I get the impression that Marius was going with him, to deal with doors and electronic locks and things like that, or to hack the building systems." She glanced over to Marius and got a nod in return. "That means they have no magical cover – but just as important, if we're in the second team, we've got no electronics cover or ability to affect machines. And if Marius is supporting us, his attention is split. I just don't want to ask that much of you…"
"I have every faith in Marius. If he thinks he can remotely pilot the Broadsword to support us, or control the doors and systems, while supporting Hunter – he can. I have no doubt at all. He has never let us down so far."
"Well, there was that crash in England…" Kai said, with a wry grin on his face.
"Come off it – a freak mana storm, lightning blasts, being chased by the Wyld Hunt? That was fate – and you know it. But he got us down to the ground, in one piece, and able to move. I don't know of many other pilots that could have done that!"
"Fair enough, I suppose. But he's not getting a payrise." Kai joked, but then suffered a barrage of finger poking and assaults on his parentage as the rest of the team reminded him once more that NONE of them were getting paid for this, and it was all his fault…
"This is a timing issue." Hunter announced after they calmed down a little. "It might be tight – but we can do both. One after another. Concentrated efforts, just planned out carefully, preparations made, and ready to go. But you're right – we should do the stealthy part first, the data steal. Make that go quiet and smooth. That's essential. Then the smash and grab, hopefully with us deciding how long it is until we go loud."
"I agree. We have a very rough timeline on the construction of this place now though – the difference between phase one and two. Based on the overgrowth of the foundations and manholes, we're talking about two, maybe three years. So whatever defences they have, will likely be also the same time old. Means they're not ancient – but they're not cutting edge either. At least one or two generations behind the state of the art, and maybe older – they could have used stock components from a previous job or recycled some kit for this. But they've also probably not had too much trouble in the last few years, so I think they're going to not be expecting much in the way of trouble." Kai pointed out.
"Maybe we need to get some cutting gear – it's possibly based on a lot of passive security down there. Mesh or grilles welded over tunnels, sealed doors, that kind of thing." Aswon suggested.
"Be right back." Tads slumped again, but was out of her body for less than sixty seconds this time. "I got down close to the manhole covers, and found a bar slotted through some hoops, with a physical padlock on them, one at each end. I went through the cover, carefully – no sign of a ward, and it leads into a vertical shaft, goes down a good few metres to a t-junction, then tunnels leading off in two directions. Looks similar to what Hunter has suggested and mapped out, as far as I can see. There's no light down there, so I can only get vague astral glimpses, and everything looks dead – but there are big tubes and things sticking out of the walls, all down one side."
"So, bolt cutters or demo to get through the locks, or Shimazu and his set of picks to work their magic if we want to do it subtly. But very doable."
"I also went along the tunnel a way, and found there is a covering over most of it after a while. Like a door – but it has cut-out sections in it to let it go past the pipes and shelves. It's not entirely solid, and there's probably enough room for a mouse or a rat to squeeze through."
"Ahh – interesting… so you could do the same for us as you did for Spook, turn us into snakes and let us slither through?"
"No, Kai… sorry. You perhaps, maybe Marius… but the spell I have isn't that powerful. I can turn you into animals for a while, but only things near the same size as you actually are. I can't make Shimazu or Hunter into a mouse, not without learning a much more powerful version!"
"We could always try a repeat of the Nigerian plan? Follow one of the buses home, and try and track one of the workers, maybe one of the lower grade supervisors, back to their house. Go in at night and do a snatch, probe his mind, then make him forget it happened. Learn the layout of the place, get some better ideas of what it looks like and where we need to go?"
Hunter's deck beeped loudly, interrupting Aswon's speech. Then it beeped again. Then twice more. Then there was a flurry of beeps, each one so close together that they merged into a single ragged tone.
"What's wrong with your computer?" Tads asked. Hunter ignored her, grabbing the cable and jacking in, checking to see what alarm had been tripped. He sat still for a few seconds, then blinked, his head starting to shake.
"Oh man, that's frakked up. News alerts. Lots and lots of news alerts. Let me see if I can find one just starting or doing a summary…" The screens around the passenger cabin flickered as Hunter grabbed their feeds and started to shunt his data over to them. The scene showed some kind of graveyard or mausoleum, somewhere hot and sandy. Clear blue skies were overhead, not a single cloud to be seen, and the position of the sun made it clear that it was somewhere near mid-day local time – wherever that was.
The camera twitched to show one of the low sandstone tombs, a somewhat ornate-looking building that conveyed a sense of importance and grandiosity. The door was open, leading into a darkened interior, the camera unable to make out any of the detail inside with the level of brightness from the rest of the scene. Hunter raised the volume, and they heard an excited and incredulous voice speaking heavily-accented English.
'We're here in the Minna foothills, standing at the edge of the Graveyard Khalad Saad. Momentous news today, as Allah, Peace Be Unto Him, shows his divine greatness and reminds us that we are all his servants. Thirty minutes ago, the door here, leading to the grand resting place, was opened – opened from the inside. Through his will and divine guidance, it is said that the Prophet has been reborn, raised anew through divine righteousness. Badr al Din Ibn Eisa, walked from the tomb, three days after his interment there, five days after unknown assassins took his life. But by the will of Allah, Peace Be Unto Him, his messenger is returned to us, made whole once more to carry his message to us all!' The narrator sounded fervent, excited and his words rushed together. As the camera panned to the side they could see hundreds of people gathered to face the tomb, praying, chanting and singing, their faces shining as belief poured out of them.
Hunter flicked through several more channels, all of which were carrying similar feeds and information – the news had gone global and all of the talking heads were back on the bandwagon, listing the same few facts in several different ways, repeating them and making guesses, trying to seem like they had an exclusive scoop, when it was clear that all of them were equally clueless.
A few minutes later, there was a syndicated news feed from the centre of Mecca, where apparently Ibn Eisa had been rushed. A number of senior Muslim clerics had met him and they had been in meetings since then – but now a single news camera and reporter were on hand to show them entering the Masjid al-Haram, the enormous Mosque in the centre of the city and the centre part of the Haij pilgrimage. A crowd was forming, thousands and thousands of people pouring in as word spread, and the area outside was chaos as the population fought to get inside the walls and witness the miracle. Chanting grew louder and louder, voices taking up the words and spreading them, echoing off the ancient stones, rebounding and reverberating, while Ibn Eisa stood on a high podium, his arms extended, as if reaching out to grab the energy of the crowd and harness it to himself.
'Laqad Qam… Laqad Qam…LAQAD QAM… LAQAD QAM…' the sound intensified, melding with the horns and call to prayer which was now sounding across the city.
"What's that mean, Hunter?"
"Frakking trouble is what it means. But literally? It roughly translates as 'He is Risen'. That's bad juju right there. Man's got a head for starters, and we all saw the trideo feed, right? Yeah. Look at that crowd, though."
Ibn Eisa started to speak, his voice amplified and carrying across the Mosque, and the crowd fell silent almost immediately. Hasty and somewhat malformed translations appeared across the bottom of the screen as someone did on-the-fly conversions to English and broadcast them along with the signal. Ibn Eisa called upon the blessings of Allah on the clerics, the city, the world of Islam. Telling them of a divine purpose, a destiny. The world was made by Allah. Allah was all. Allah was beneficent. Man must be in service to Allah. Allah would show them the way. It was time to spread the word of Allah once more, to show those around the world, that they too must be in submission to his will. The rhetoric grew more and more fiery, his words seeming to electrify the crowd. His voice grew louder, and Kai had goose bumps appear on his arm as he listened to the resonance in his tones – even knowing nothing about what he was saying, he could pick up on the power and modulation of his voice, could only imagine the effect it was having on the psyche of the people actually present.
He built up his speech, outlining the duties of all good Muslims, to carry the word. To preach, to believe, to be willing to do their part. To rise up, and carry out their duty – to join the New Islamic Jihad. They would bring the word of Allah to all who could hear. But their first task was to reunify the middle-east. All of it…
"He is risen, indeed…" Kai said as Hunter muted the feed. "Well, that's gonna make things exciting for a bit! But we need to stay focussed on the job here, for now. But after this, we'll have to see…"