‘Sounds like fun,’ Shelby said with a wry smile.
‘Our current plan is to try to place an operative into deep cover and work them into a position where they may be granted access to the archive. It could take months but there’s no other way that we can see to get access to Deepcore,’ Darkdoom explained.
‘Too slow,’ Otto said quickly. ‘If what you’re telling us about the Renaissance Initiative is true, then they must be close to achieving their goals, whatever they may be. We don’t have the time to wait for a subtle infiltration; we have to get that information now.’
‘I couldn’t agree more, Mr Malpense,’ Darkdoom replied, ‘but I have had my best men working on a plan for a direct assault on Deepcore for several weeks. They are not men who use the word “impossible” lightly, but that is exactly how they described such a direct approach.’
‘Do you mind if I review their plans?’ Otto said quietly.
‘Not at all,’ Darkdoom replied, raising an eyebrow. ‘I’ve heard that you have quite a talent for this sort of thing, Mr Malpense, but I think you might find that this particular problem may be beyond even your abilities to solve.’
‘Can’t hurt to have a look,’ Otto said with a slight smile.
‘She sedated the entire school!’ Francisco shouted angrily. ‘What the hell did she think she was doing?’
The Professor rubbed the bridge of his nose, his eyes closed.
‘I do not know,’ he replied after a few seconds, ‘but whatever it was, we seem to be missing some students now.’
‘Malpense, Fanchu, Brand and Trinity, to be precise,’ Ms Leon said, prowling back and forth across the top of one of the workbenches in the Science and Technology department, ‘none of whom are exactly low-risk pupils.’
‘We all know how dangerous the Sleepwalker Protocol is,’ Francisco spat angrily. ‘It’s a miracle no one was killed. It’s only supposed to be used in the direst of emergencies and now that harpy won’t even tell us why she did it. If she was prepared to do that just to smuggle four pupils out of the school, God only knows what she’ll do if a real threat situation emerged.’
‘We must concentrate on why she did it,’ the Professor said with a sigh.
‘Agreed,’ Ms Leon said, lying down in a sphinx-like pose. ‘Can H.I.V.E.mind provide any more details?’
‘I have already asked but apparently I no longer have the requisite security access to be allowed to know any specific details.’
‘Surely you can be more persuasive than that?’ Ms Leon replied.
‘Normally, yes, but for some reason the Phalanx have denied me all access to his mainframe. Apparently they are investigating an incident and are consequently not allowing any access to the security logs.’
‘I assume that this “incident” has something to do with the fact that the launch bay currently looks like a war zone,’ Francisco said impatiently. ‘Does she really think that she can keep the teaching staff out of the loop like this?’
‘Apparently she does,’ the Professor replied, ‘and short of kidnapping and interrogating her I don’t really see what else we can do.’
‘That doesn’t sound like such a bad idea,’ Francisco muttered.
‘If it weren’t for the presence of the Phalanx I might agree with you,’ the Professor said, ‘but we would all be dead the moment it became clear that we were planning something of that sort.’
‘I agree that caution is advisable at this point, but we have to do something,’ Ms Leon remarked. ‘We have to get access to those security logs. At least if we can do that we would have some idea of what exactly it is the Contessa is up to.’
‘The only way I could get the information is if I had direct access to his central core, which is impossible during a lockdown like this.’
‘What if I could get access to the core?’ Ms Leon said quickly. ‘Could I place a relay that would allow you to access H.I.V.E.mind directly?’
‘Yes, that could work, but how exactly do you plan to do that? You’re not just going to be allowed to stroll in there, you know.’
‘Leave that to me, Professor,’ Ms Leon said, hopping from the workbench and trotting out of the room with her tail flicking in the air.
Phalanx One scowled at the impassive wireframe face that hung above the column in front of him.
‘So you’re telling me that you have no idea who granted Raven access to the launch bay,’ he said, fighting to keep the anger from his voice.
‘That section of my log file has been erased,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied calmly.
‘By whom?’ Phalanx One demanded impatiently.
‘That section of my log file has been erased,’ H.I.V.E.mind repeated.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ the Commander shouted, wheeling around and walking across the room housing H.I.V.E.mind’s central core towards the terminal where one of his men was working.
‘Any progress?’ he asked impatiently.
‘No,’ the operative replied quickly. ‘Whoever was responsible for the security breach covered their tracks extremely well – perhaps a little too well.’
‘What do you mean?’ the Commander said quietly.
‘Well, I’ve seen a lot of hacks in my time but never one that is completely clean. No matter how good the hacker is there is always a trace, something that at least indicates the intrusion point – but this is flawless, no trace whatsoever.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I think it’s lying to you,’ the operative said quietly, nodding his head towards H.I.V.E.mind’s floating holographic head.
‘Can it do that?’ Phalanx One asked in a whisper.
‘To be honest with you, sir, I don’t fully understand what it can and cannot do. H.I.V.E.mind is a highly advanced artificial intelligence; its behavioural restraints are supposed to eliminate the possibility of it doing anything other than what it’s told, but my experience of such systems is too limited for me to able to say whether it could get around those restrictions.’
‘So it does know who was responsible for aiding Raven’s escape?’
‘It’s possible, yes,’ the operative replied.
‘So how do we get it to tell us?’ the Commander asked quietly.
‘Strip it of consciousness, reduce it to its barest functionality and remove any possibility of deceit. You should be aware though that the process would be irreversible and permanent; it would not be the same as just inhibiting H.I.V.E.mind’s behavioural routines. We would know what we wanted to know, but H.I.V.E.mind would be effectively erased.’
‘I shall inform the Contessa. She will need to give her approval for such drastic action. Assuming that she gives her approval, how long would it take you to do it?’ Phalanx One asked.
‘I couldn’t do it,’ the operative replied honestly. ‘That level of operation would require someone who is intimately familiar with the entire system: one of the original system architects.’
‘The Professor.’
‘Yes, he would be the first choice,’ the operative replied.
‘Very well,’ the Commander said quietly. He turned and stared at H.I.V.E.mind. There was no hint of emotion in the AI’s face, but if it was lying to them, Phalanx One would stop at nothing to find out what it knew.
Ms Leon crawled silently through the cabling duct as only she could. The space was impossibly small, far too confined for a normal person to travel through, but – as she was reminded every time she looked in the mirror – she was far from a normal person. She would never admit it to anyone, least of all the Professor, but there were times when there were clear advantages to her feline form. Until he could perfect a way of transferring her consciousness back into her original body, it would remain in cryogenic storage. She sometimes wondered how it must have felt for her cat. Originally the idea had been that the Professor’s machine would transfer specific aspects of her pet’s consciousness to her, granting her incredibly acute senses and uncanny agility, but something had gone horribly wrong and the consciousness transfe
r had been total and immediate. Bizarre as it had undoubtedly been for her to suddenly find her mind trapped in her pet cat’s body, it must have been far worse for the poor animal that had suddenly found itself with her human body. They had been forced to sedate and freeze her human form almost immediately to avoid the animal harming itself, but she could not begin to imagine how impossible it would have been for an animal to try to rationalise such a bizarre and total transformation.
Silently she scolded herself for allowing her mind to wander. She had to focus on her objective. Up ahead she could see light pouring into the duct from the point where the cables fed through into H.I.V.E.mind’s central core. Up until then the duct had been completely dark, but thankfully it had not been a problem. One of the other advantages of her current form was almost perfect night vision. Suddenly she stopped, her ears twitching as she heard voices coming from the core.
‘Strip it of consciousness, reduce it to its barest functionality and remove any possibility of deceit. You should be aware though that the process would be irreversible and permanent. We would know what we wanted to know but H.I.V.E.mind would be effectively erased.’
The conversation went on as she sat perfectly still listening. Whatever the Professor was going to do to get the information they needed, he had better to do it now. By the sounds of things H.I.V.E.mind would not be around to tell them his secrets for very much longer. Logically she knew that he was just a machine; indeed, he was only a he because that was the voice and appearance he had been assigned. It didn’t change the fact that she, like everyone else at H.I.V.E., had become very used to his calm, reassuring presence around the school. What she also knew, that many other people did not, was that Cypher’s attempt to destroy the school would almost certainly have been successful had it not been for the AI’s direct intervention. Her anger caused the fur to rise along her spine, a sensation that even after all this time she had not grown entirely used to.
She crept forward slowly and looked through the narrow opening. She was under the grilled floor of the core and above her she could see the Phalanx Commander walking quickly towards the door. The other man in the room continued to work at his console in silence, completely oblivious to her presence just a few feet below. She crept through the gloomy space below the core, looking for the precise location that the Professor had described to her. Within moments she had found it and gently dropped the tiny device that she had been carrying in her mouth into position.
‘Professor, I hope you can hear me,’ she whispered as quietly as she could. ‘The package has been delivered.’
‘So no bodies were retrieved?’ Number One said calmly.
‘No, a full sweep of the area was conducted and all that was retrieved was wreckage from the Shroud,’ the Contessa said, a slight crack in her voice betraying the nervous dryness in her throat.
‘Well, it is a big ocean,’ Number One continued, ‘but if there is one thing that has become very clear over the past couple of days it is that Raven has an uncanny knack of avoiding apparently terminal situations. If her body was not found I rather believe that it is because it was not there to be found in the first place.’
‘I suppose that may be the case, but the local waters are swarming with sharks. It is possible that they may have taken the bodies.’
‘No, I suspect that is the conclusion we were supposed to leap to,’ Number One said calmly. As usual his silhouetted form on the monitor gave no clue as to his real emotions, but his voice betrayed no hint of the fury that the Contessa had been expecting when she had reported these latest developments to him.
‘So what do we do now?’ the Contessa asked.
‘We do nothing, Contessa,’ Number One replied quickly. ‘I, however, shall begin operations to track down Raven and your missing pupils. You, meanwhile, shall try to determine who helped them to escape and when you find them you are to retire them from service immediately. I trust I make myself clear?’
‘Perfectly,’ the Contessa replied. ‘May I ask why these pupils were so important?’ The Contessa knew that it might be foolish to question Number One’s motives, but under the circumstances her curiosity was outweighing her normally finely honed survival instincts.
‘No, you may not,’ Number One replied sharply. ‘Need I remind you, Maria, that the only reason you yourself have not been facing retirement is because I need someone I can trust in charge of H.I.V.E. at the moment. Do not make me question the wisdom of your appointment.’
‘Of course. I apologise,’ the Contessa said, bowing her head slightly.
‘I do not want your apologies, I want results,’ Number One said sharply, ‘and I want them quickly.’
‘Understood,’ the Contessa replied quietly.
‘Good. I have much to do, as do you. I shall speak to you again soon,’ Number One said.
The display on her desk flicked back to the G.L.O.V.E. logo and the Contessa stood up from behind her desk and strode across the office to the door. She passed through and continued down the corridor.
MWAH, MWAAAAH, MWAH!
The triple trumpet note of the school bell rang and suddenly H.I.V.E.’s pupils began to pour out of the classrooms that lined the corridor. Normally it would have been filled with excited chatter as students hurried to their next lessons, but now there was just a whisper of hushed conversations as she walked past and the occasional suspicious, fearful glance in her direction.
‘Contessa!’ a voice shouted from behind and she turned to see Phalanx One striding down the corridor towards her.
‘Yes, Commander. I hope you have progress to report,’ the Contessa said coldly.
‘Yes, ma’am, I do,’ he replied and quickly explained the results of their investigations.
‘It would appear that H.I.V.E.mind has some explaining to do,’ the Contessa said with a thin smile.
‘Yes,’ Phalanx One replied, ‘but I did not want to proceed any further without your permission.’
‘Very well, Commander, I think we should go and find Professor Pike.’
The Professor sat working at the terminal in his private quarters. The room looked like someone had emptied a trailer-load of old computer parts and lab supplies into it and then detonated a small quantity of plastic explosives.
The Professor put a finger to his ear as a crackling whisper came through the tiny earpiece he was wearing.
‘The package has been delivered.’ Ms Leon’s voice was almost inaudible.
The Professor quickly typed a string of commands into the terminal on his desk and swept a pile of papers off a small grey disc that had been hidden beneath them. A ring of blue light illuminated the edge of the disc and an array of fine lasers projected a pattern into the dust hanging in the air. A moment later the abstract shape coalesced into the face of H.I.V.E.mind.
‘Good afternoon, Professor,’ H.I.V.E.mind said calmly. ‘Remotely accessing my core mainframe is in direct contravention of the Contessa’s standing orders. Please disconnect immediately.’
‘No,’ the Professor said firmly, ‘and you can drop the robot act too. I need answers.’
H.I.V.E.mind tipped his head to one side, seeming to stare straight at the Professor for a few seconds.
‘As you wish,’ H.I.V.E.mind said with a slight smile, ‘though I hope you realise the consequences of your actions if the Contessa were to find that you were accessing my core in this way. Would you also be so kind as to ask Ms Leon to not shed too many hairs in the cable run beneath my core. My components are highly sensitive.’
The Professor smiled. He could not help but feel a sense of pride that H.I.V.E.mind was exhibiting such human behaviour. He was, after all, the closest thing that the Professor had to a child of his own. It also meant that H.I.V.E.mind had been quite aware of what they were doing but had chosen, for whatever reason, not to report them to the Contessa.
‘I’ll tell her, but I’m not sure she can help it,’ the Professor replied. ‘Now, I have some questions that only you can answer. What hap
pened last night?’
‘The Sleepwalker Protocol was activated. Sedation was applied as directed to all student dormitories.’
‘Who ordered the use of that protocol?’ the Professor asked, already knowing the answer.
‘The Contessa, as head of H.I.V.E., is fully authorised to initiate such action.’ H.I.V.E.mind replied efficiently.
‘What happened then?’ the Professor asked quickly.
‘Students Malpense, Fanchu, Trinity and Brand were removed from their quarters and were being transferred to the launch bay area for extraction. However, the extraction operation was intercepted.’
‘By whom?’ the Professor asked.
‘Operative Raven was responsible for the interception of the extraction team,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied.
‘Raven’s alive?’ the Professor said in a shocked whisper.
‘Yes, though her actions were not authorised and immediate efforts were taken to neutralise her.’
‘Unsuccessfully, I take it,’ the Professor said in a distracted voice.
‘Indeed. Raven and the aforementioned students were able to reach the launch bay area and escaped through the unauthorised use of a Shroud transport.’
‘But how?’ the Professor said, looking confused. ‘The entire school would be under an omega-level lockdown during Sleepwalker. There’s no way that she could have accessed the launch bay.’
‘I helped them,’ H.I.V.E.mind replied. ‘It seemed like the right thing to do.’
‘The right thing to do?’ the Professor said, unable to keep the surprise from his voice. ‘Since when do you have such a finely tuned sense of right and wrong? You are not programmed to make spontaneous moral decisions.’