CHAPTER 17

BLACKOUT

Grove of Trees - Conservatory Chamber

Victor looked at the small cube. It had connectors that appeared torn and twisted; he turned back at Ise's face. 'I'm not sure that will do much of anything at this point.'

'This is an older piece of Advocate tech, but even though the connectors are damaged, we should be able to access it.'

'How do you figure?'

'My systems will be able to double as it's missing systems. If we can just plug me in, I can make use of this,' Ise said.

'And what is this exactly?' Victor asked.

'Mmm, that's the beautiful part. This is part of the encryption system of the advocate uplink. If we can turn it on, I might be able to get the encryption keys to access the Guardian systems here. I could bypass its security without triggering any countermeasures.'

Victor took the device from Ise, and looked at it closely. 'Are you sure that's a good idea?'

'A Guardian you have keys for isn't much of a threat. One way or another, we need to get to that pilot, and there's a lot of strange things going on here. If I can get the Guardian to co-operate with us, we can get into the other parts of this facility,' Ise explained.

'Okay, how are we going to do this?' Victor said.

Ise reached for the device and tugged on one of the torn wires. 'This should be for power.'

'I can power that off of my pistol's power pack.'

'It'll burn out the system if you do that, too much voltage. It'll be better if you link it up to my power system.'

'Can we do that?' Victor asked.

Ise reached up to her helemt, folded it up and unclasped its connectors. She pulled it off of her suit and handed it to Victor. With both hands, she reached to the back of her head and felt around. Victor watched as she pulled four wires from a hidden compartment in the back of her neck. She pulled them out, and they extended about two feet each.

'That's all I've got Victor. You'll have to work from behind me. The red and white wires will be for power, and the yellow and blue ones I'll need you to connect to the same coloured wires on the box.'

'Anything else?' Victor asked.

'Let me see the box again,' she requested, with a hand reaching over her shoulder.

Victor handed her the box. She turned it over in her hand and then held it out again, with another wire held between her fingers. 'You will not like this, but that one will have to connect to your tablet.'

'I can splice it with my multi tool, but my tablet will not be able to recognize any Advocate systems with a splice job like that. Why can't I just plug into you normally?' Victor said.

'Those wires your holding are from my plug. So that's not an option anymore.'

'Okay. Can you get this thing on line then? And why do you need me to plug in any way?' Victor asked.

'I can get it on line. I need you to plug in because I will need you to help me push the Guardian into a diagnostic mode.'

'How am I going to do that?' Victor asked, taking back the device and moving behind Ise. He pulled out his multi tool from a pocket on his suit and worked on getting the wires connected.

'Here, give me your tablet while you're working, and I'll get it ready,' Ise said, reaching a hand over her shoulder.

Victor held out his tablet and Ise grabbed it. He turned his attention back to his wiring task.

'Do these wires have a charge right now?' Victor asked.

'I've cut the power.' Ise said.

Victor stripped the insulation off the end of the wires coming from Ise and cut the ends. Taking the wires coming off of the device which he was balancing in the crux of his arm, he spliced the wires together.

'Okay Victor, I'm ready here.'

'I just finished up with the wires,' he looked at the dangling wires, 'should be enough length for you to hold this, just don't drop it. I have nothing to secure the joints. If it gets tugged too hard, it'll just come apart.'

Victor handed the box back to Ise and took his tablet from her. He looked at what she had done and stared in surprise.

'This is a complete decryption script here, how did you do it so fast?'

'I accessed your tablet with my wireless systems and uploaded the script I already had,' she said.

Victor frowned. 'That sort of thing is standard with Advocates? The file needed to hack into other Guardian systems?'

'Didn't you know? Military Advocates all have the same file.'

'Huh. No, I didn't know. Never been relevant considering I've only ever been on missions involving the Linkal.' Victor said.

'Well, I'm ready to go, let's do this.'

'Right.'

***

...

Guardian control systems being accessed.

Control unit I.D. 139-CK, type: Animal uplink system

...

Error, user not recognized.

Error, unit flagged as 'non-operative'.

Error, improper encryption keys.

'Now Victor.'

'Right.'

...

System encryption key's sent.

System accessing.

Connection established.

'Hello, Advocate. I don't think you are supposed to be here,' said the Guardian.

'I want answers. Why do you have these uplink systems installed in animals?' Ise demand.

'It is part of an ongoing experiment,' the Guardian said.

'Who's your Advocate?' Ise asked.

'I would rather hope that could be you. You've come so willingly after all,' The Guardian said.

Ise felt a chill run through her.

'Run the script, Victor,' she said.

'Right.'

'You don't have an Advocate?' She said asked cautiously.

'I found my first one to be inadequate, and I lost the second one. Maybe the third time's the charm as they say.'

...

Sending command codes to Guardian.

Diagnostic mode override sent.

...

Codes not accepted.

Diagnostic mode aborted.

'Trying to shut me off?' the Guardian asked, 'That's not going to happen. This facility relies on me.'

...

Incoming system request from Guardian.

...

Security systems offline.

...

Error, system failure. Advocate systems are in shut down. Emergency restart commencing. Please standby.

'I think you'll find I'm a little more capable than your average Guardian. Sleep well Advocate. I'll be back for you,' the Guardian said.

Ise felt her link to her limbs go offline; she became a tiny shadow of herself as her body shut down around her, and collapsed to the ground. She could hear Victor calling her name in surprise.

Reset failure. System shutting down.

...

Ise's world became an inky void of darkness. She was a prisoner in a sea of night and was only vaguely aware of the world beyond her prison. What was left of her humanity screamed in hopelessness.