From chm173s@nic.smsu.edu Wed Apr 6 18:30:15 1994 Date: Wed, 6 Apr 1994 18:30:13 -0500 (CDT) From: Robotech_Master Subject: [Oberon, Inc.] TARN Up the Streets To: alt-pub-havens-rest@cs.utexas.edu Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Status: O X-Status: As nonchalantly as possible, Kevin and Louis got up from their table and moved toward the door. The Undertakers were setting up as they left, and Kevin glanced momentarily at the young Vargr who had won one of the Excalibur bikes in the Oberon giveaway. Odd how it seemed like such a long time ago now... However, Sergeant Van Fossner happened to notice the two as they were getting up--and more specifically, he happened to notice Kevin Wycoff. He pulled out a small comlink and activated it. "Barfly to mother one. Barfly to mother one. Target acquired. I'm on him. Better send someone here to relieve me, just in case." "Roger, barfly," a voice responded. "Just don't lose him." "Affirmative. Out." Sgt. Van Fossner got up and slipped out, and was shortly thereafter relieved by a private. Said private would be somewhat unfortunate shortly, in that a commie cow would find him attractive a bit later... [As seen in an earlier Undertakers post that was sent long enough ago to have expired a dozen times over.] Kevin tabbed his wristcom. "Eve, do you read me?" Eve's face appeared on the screen. "This is Eve. I read you loud and clear." "I need you to meet me in front of the 'Rest. Pronto." "I'm on my way." The last panel had been secured, and the maintenance workers stepped back. "Thank you," Eve said over external speakers before powering up and pulling out of the drive. So far, the intruder hadn't tried again, but it certainly would not be long now. Eve diverted part of her attention to the road ahead, and called up her navigation files to determine the fastest route to the Haven's Rest. She wasn't going to let Kevin down. Kevin glanced back at the entryway to the 'Rest, then swore and ducked behind a convenient hovercar. "Wha--huh?!" Louis gasped as Kevin grabbed her and pulled her down beside him. "That TARN guy is coming out. I think he's looking for us," Kevin whispered. He looked around. "We have to get out of here!" Louis sat there, shivering. Something clicked in her ratty little mind, if she could just remember what...Dark! "Hey, Dark," she whispered. "You there?" ^Where else would I be?^ Dark's voice reverberated through her earbuds, pitch, volume, and balance adjusted so the voice seemed to be coming from right behind her. Louis nearly jumped. "That's not funny, Dark!" she scolded. "Can you find where I am?" ^I can triangulate your transmission, yeah.^ "Then get over here! There's a guy from TARN who's trying to find us, and I think he has a gun!" Kevin peered over the hood of the hovercar. "Offhand, I'd say he has several. Who are you talking to?" "Dark, my bike's AI." She tapped her earbud. It nearly fell out of her ear, and she readjusted it to make sure it stayed in. ^Hmm, I'll see what I can do,^ Dark replied. "Do that," Louis said. ^I will,^ Dark said. Across the parking lot from where Louis and Kevin were located, the motor of one of the Oberon, Inc. Excalibur mechabikes came to life. Dark's sensors pegged the man who'd just come out, and took note of the guns he was carrying. The sensors were nowhere near as advanced as Eve's, but even Dark could recognize a rifle-shaped silhouette when he saw one. Dark considered coming up behind the armed man and running into him or grabbing him, but such steps might lead to the ventilation of his central processing unit. Even though Dark's personal image did not match his physical body, he was rather attached to that body all the same. But then he recalled that many of the hover vehicles' operating systems were computerized, and most of them were quite simple to hot-wire. Even though the civilian Excalibur AIs were programmed against breaking laws, they were also equipped with an "emergency clause" which countermanded this programming in the case of a life-or-death emergency, in much the same way that humans would break the law if doing so would save a life. It was this clause that allowed Dark to tap into the on-board computers of these hovervehicles, turn their ignitions on, and head them toward Sergeant Van Fossner. As soon as the good Sergeant was thusly distracted, Dark peeled rubber for where Kevin and Louis were hiding. It was night. Nothing moved in the parking lot. The hovercars, aircars, and groundcars sat there, still. It was almost too quiet. Sgt. Van Fossner peered around cautiously. Where had that boy and that rat gone? He couldn't see them. But they had to be here. No way could they have gotten away that fast. Van Fossner was just about to pull his nightsight goggles on, when he heard something. Engines, several of them, starting up. Then the hovercars' and groundcars' lights came on, and they started moving in on him. "Yah!" Sgt. Van Fossner exclaimed, trying to move out of the way. But the vehicles turned to follow him, and block his every movement. "All right, that's it!" He unslung his pulse rifle and opened up with it. As the gunfire sounded, Louis and Kevin clambered onto the mechabike that had just pulled up behind their hiding place. Louis let Kevin take the front, since she thought he was probably a better driver. "Ready?" Kevin asked. "Uh-huh." She held on behind him, and made sure her tail wasn't dragging on the ground. ^Hey, who said you could drive?^ Dark asked from the bike's screen. "This is no time for argument. Let's go!" The Excalibur mechabike's engines revved, and it raced off down the street. "Barfly to mother one," Van Fossner said, standing there with a smoking pulse rifle amid the wreckage of a few dozen miscellaneous ground and hovercars. "Target has flown the coop, headed north and east." He stepped over to the TARN pursuit bike he'd been assigned. "I'm in pursuit." "Crud!" Kevin Wycoff muttered, glancing at the rear-view. "He's following us..." With a PTHOOM! sound some sort of fireball launched from a muzzle on the pursuit bike. A nearby car exploded. "He's armed!" Louis squeaked. "C'mon, Dark, gimme all you've got..." Kevin murmured, leaning low over the handlebars. There was something...he searched his memory...from the datafiles that hacker'd cracked for him. A command that unlocked a particular section of the civilian Excaliburs' control computers... "Unlock engine boost protocols," Kevin said. "Codekey Gawain." ^Whatever you say.^ Inside of the Excalibur, modular components slid around, unlocking and reconfiguring into a new format that allowed much more efficient power generation. The primary reason for this was, of course, to enhance the mecha's strength in robot mode, for hand-to-hand combat. However, the side-effect was much more desirable right now--a marked increase in velocity. "Yiiiii!" Louis squealed, gripping tighter as the Excalibur picked up speed rapidly. It was fortunate for the riders that it did, for another blast passed right through the spot they'd occupied a split second before, and caused another car to explode. Kevin leaned low, cornering as best he could with a passenger, trying to pick up as much speed as possible. If only this were his military Excal, THEN they'd be in business. Eve could...hey, wait a moment. "Dark, get me Eve, ASAP." ^You got it.^ Sergeant Van Fossner chuckled wickedly as he weaved his bike between the few ground vehicles out on the streets at this hour. No matter where that little twerp went, he wouldn't lose them. The navcomp on the pursuit bike was crosslinked to the TARN starship's computer bank, which in turn had sunk a high-level tap into several areas of SereNet. Thus, he received the same classified positioning information that cops and other important people on this pitiful little planetoid were privy to. Targeting lined up on the mechabike again. Just blast a wheel out, crash it, and take Kevin alive. Easy enough. And if that wasn't possible, there was always the alternative... As Eve navigated the streets toward the Haven's Rest, she received an open communication request. It was Dark, the AI in the mechabike they'd awarded Louis. ^Someone to talk to you,^ he said, splitting the screen. It was Kevin, and he looked all but frantic. "Kevin? What's wrong?" Eve asked. There was a bright flash from off the screen--energy discharge explosion, Eve estimated by a spectrographic analysis. "We've got a TARN guy on our tail. We're northbound, and trying to shake him!" The background canted as Kevin leaned hard right into a turn. "We need you pronto! Find our position and intercept!" "Affirmative." Eve reconfigured the Excalibur into its humanoid form and fired thrusters. Flying would be faster than driving, in this situation. Even as she took off, she was tapping into Traffic Control through SereNet, using her advanced processing power to push through her commands without being detected, and rerouting aerial traffic so as to minimize chances of a collision. She then used a satellite uplink to get a picture of ground traffic at the point where transponder signals indicated Kevin was. There were two bikes, moving at high speeds...and the rearward one was discharging some kind of an energy weapon at the forward one. Even as she watched, another energy bolt narrowly missed. Realizing she was running out of time, Eve zoomed in on the vehicle to the rear. TARN Outrun-class pursuit motorcycle. Three-dimensional blueprints appeared in one corner of her perspective and rotated. Armaments: Plasma bolt-thrower, mini-rockets, strobe lasers. Maximum speed: 310 kph. On-board computer...Hmm, this was interesting. There was a direct link from the onboard computer to...to... She traced the link until it got lost in the net. Whoever they were, they knew how to cover their tracks. She could untangle the threads given time, but time was a commodity in limited supply, even for her. But, if she could access that on-board computer... Eve tried to open a link to it, but failed. Apparently it was configured for only one remote link at a time, and that one was busy. But wait...if she could somehow interrupt the link and fool the computer into thinking that HER datastream was the valid one... It was something that no human could do, but for a machine intelligence such as herself, it was a fairly easy task. Eve's icon, a beautiful Eurasian woman with flowing silvery-white hair that fell to her ankles, manifested itself in the net. She stood next to the glowing green thread that represented the datalink between the Outrun's tiny processor and whatever was feeding it information. Taking the electronic equivalent of a "deep breath," and kicking in all boosters to maximum processing speed, Eve turned "transparent," ghostlike, and stepped into the thread. Nothing happened. Eve sighed with relief, and willed herself to solidify around it, gradually, until the thread now passed directly into and out of her. In net.physical terms, she had just caused the link to switch routers, as it often did anyway in order to avoid netsplits. Now the thread was routed right through her home site. Eve reached down to the thread and tugged. The link broke, on the side of her which led back to the mysterious source. The other part of the thread gradually shaded from green to silver. Eve had control. Sergeant Van Fossner was justifiably startled when the Outrun bike came to a full and complete halt in the middle of the road. This startlement began approximately .3 seconds after he had been tossed over the handlebars of said bike, and ended approximately .05 seconds after he landed on the hood of an oncoming car, knocking himself out and quite severely denting the car. "Hey!!!" the driver yelled. "You're gonna have to pay for that! I hope you have insurance!" And then the Outrun bike exploded most in the most picturesque manner as Eve caused the safety interlocks on the power core to disengage (after first making sure that no one was within the blast radius who might possibly get hurt). Virtually smiling with the satisfaction of a job well done, Eve located the position of Louis's mechabike and put through a connection. "You did that?" Kevin asked. "Uh-huh," Eve replied. She moved the Excalibur's head, gazing out across the city that was spread out beneath her and cross-referencing the grid coordinates for the other bike. "Where are you heading?" "We need to lay low for a while," Kevin replied. "Meet us at the entrance to the Lower Warrens." "The Lower Warrens?" Eve asked, putting a shocked tone into her voice. "Kevin, are you certain about this?" "Positive. Besides, if we go anywhere else, they'll track us down. There should be enough metal and concrete down there to confuse any sensors past the first two or three levels." "Um, I don't know..." Louis squeaked. "It's dark down there. Scary. Lots of bad people." "Don't fret it, Louis. I'll be there to keep you safe. And Dark, and Eve." ^Hey, don't be counting on me too much,^ Dark interjected. ^All *I* am is plastic and microchips, remember? YOU'RE the one with the armor stuff.^ "Don't worry, Dark, we'll keep that in mind," Kevin said. "Anyway, you know where to meet us. I'll be breaking contact now. See you there." Keeshaw looked up from the terminal, eyes refocusing from VR to reality. "Damn!" he swore. "Something's gone wrong." McNichol turned to him. "Explain." "We've lost Van Fossner. The guidance link went down thirty seconds ago, and then the transponder glitched and vanished. I'm running a trace now." "I want to know what went wrong, and I want to know ten minutes ago," McNichol said. "Almost...got it, sir. Apparently there was an unauthorized node shift just before the link went down." He looked up into McNichol's eyes. "There must have been an AI involved. An advanced one, too, from the way it did this without tripping any alarms." "It must be that new computer site," McNichol said. "That oberon.command1.ser you reported. Have you made progress on that yet?" "No, sir. It repulsed my attempts so far. I plan to wait for..." He checked his watch. "3.7 more minutes, then try a more gentle approach." He cracked his knuckles. "I'll have that site yet." "Where is Wycoff now? You reported a transponder lock on his vehicle." "Yes, sir, that's the data I was feeding through to Van Fossner's Outrun's computer. Hold on, let me..." His hands clattered across the keyboard, and he sent a probe through his neural datalink. "This is not good. Sir, they've headed into the Lower Warrens." "Lower Warrens?" McNichol asked. "Yes, sir, a system of underground tunnels and levels originally used as housing by the construction workers who built much of the settlement. Now it's the domain of various street gangs, and there's so much metal and concrete in it that it'll be difficult if not impossible to track them. I'll do what I can, but...it's going to take some time." "Keep on it. Lieutenant Harridan, see if you can get a commline to Van Fossner, wherever the hell he is. See if his personal transponder is still active." "Yessir." McNichol took a seat at the command station of the AVENGER and rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I'll get you, Kevin. I'll get both of you, and haul your sorry asses back to Terra IV to stand trial. You'll not get away with what you've done." -- Chris Meadows | Robotech_Master's First Law of Superguy: CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | Continuity is Overrated. CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | Robotech_Master's Corollary: ...but sometimes CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | necessary all the same.