Mary took another puff on her pipe and again checked the comms channels – setting three was set to interrupt all other communications. It was currently dead, not even static interrupted the silence of the usually ever-busy Trouble Alert broadcast overseen by the mysterious Dispatch, yet the Police Scanner next to her seat confirmed that Meta villains were having a field day out there.
In all the time that Mary had been in this world, she’d never known Dispatch not to be available and active 24/7, 365 etc. identifying major crimes in progress often before the Police themselves knew and then allocating the most appropriate Certified Responder to assist.
Instead, the encrypted channel had been completely silent for over 24 hours now and the criminals were having a field day. The Balance, like other teams across the country, had either fallen back on patching into the encrypted Police channels directly or using illegal scanners to try to get information, but given that the police were usually responding after the crime had already occurred that didn’t really help.
Mary felt useless. Her abilities were best used as an immediate response or for covert infiltrations, not for investigations and clue searching after the event. Though Akira and Mace had been called in to help Inspector Tolliver investigate and trace a series of high-tech robberies, she’d elected to stay behind. Frankie meanwhile was searching for clues as to what might have happened to take Dispatch and Trouble Alert off the encrypted airwaves.
She had always suspected that Dispatch was either an artificial intelligence multi-tasking or a team of individuals working together but sharing a single online identity and vocal pattern given her/their ability to deal with multiple crimes occurring at the same time. Mary thought the latter more likely as Dispatch was capable of making mistakes, never anything major, just the occasional mispronunciation or emotion that seemed unlikely in an A.I. unless it had deliberately chosen to make them of course. It was enough to make your head spin.
At that moment, Jeeves popped his head round the corner. “Guests to see you Ma’am, and I do wish you would refrain from that filthy habit in shared communal areas of the habitat, I will now have to run the air filters full blast to remove the stench…”
Mary smiled at Jeeves’s comments, it was a sign that he was feeling at home here that he was willing to openly chastise his ‘boss’ for her bad habit. The smile on her face grew even bigger when she saw whom the guests were; Sam and Annie.
“Come in and make yourselves welcome. What brings you down to the ‘dungeon’ then, business or pleasure?” It had been several months since the pair of them had paid a social visit. In fairness, their detective agency was keeping them extremely busy and they had even been talking last time about potentially opening satellite offices in London and Edinburgh. Mary wasn’t sure how that would work as the ‘magic’ behind their success was Annie, Sam and of course Frankie multitasking behind the scenes (though officially the team weren’t supposed to know that Annie had left herself a back door into their network).
Sam sat down on the large sofa opposite even as Annie folded herself in under his arm. The extreme closeness wasn’t needed on such a large and luxurious piece of furniture, it was all Annie. She just loved being close to her partner, who as usual seemed oblivious to his extremely good fortune in having her in his life. A second later Jeeves arrived with a large hot chocolate piled high with melting marshmallows for Annie and a large mug filled to the brim with the toxic brew that Sam thought of as coffee. Jeeves set the tray down on the coffee table, accepted a peck on the cheek from Annie as a thank you and vanished.
Sam sighed, “Business I’m afraid. We’ve had a repeat visit from an old client, Mallory Chao, though she preferred to be called Rez? You met her; she was the one who indirectly put us onto the P.I.S.C.E.S. connection to the shipment of Nanites back when The Balance first formed. The non-existent girl who used a holo-bee projector to look like a missing patient with a blue streak in her hair, or she could change her appearance to become someone else?”
Mary had a vague memory of her; she’d mentioned something about links to a company called KessKorp that had eventually led them to the Island of St. Kilda. They had never re-investigated that link, having been distracted by everything that had followed on from their discoveries on the Island.
Sam smiled a gesture that in his Dragonkin form was more sinister than comforting. “Anyway, she returned a few hours ago and asked us to try to find a friend of hers, who is also an acquaintance of Annie’s, a hacker that goes by the name of Motherboard. Apparently, she is rarely seen I.R.L. and practically lives on the Internet. Rez seemed to think she was about to hack into the KessKorp facility in Silicon Dell which is their main UK distribution facility before everything went quiet. The facility is heavily shielded so the only way to access their files and security logs is to physically get inside and check for ourselves.
KessKorp is a weapons manufacturer specialising in reverse engineering Ziru Sirkan and other alien technology. They have a reputation for supplying to anyone who will pay, so they weren’t too keen on allowing us or anyone else for that matter to access their facilities. Their links to government black ops such as P.I.S.C.E.S. have kept them out of the public eye so far.”
He paused and Annie took the opportunity to jump in, “If anyone was capable of hacking their systems it would be Motherboard but their security means she would have to get physically inside the facility to gain access. Oh and there’s something else that’s very shady – their CEO is listed as an Arwin Kessler but he’s rarely seen in public. It took me a while but I finally figured out why. Mr Kessler is in fact played in public by a small-time actor called Sid Carston, recruited just over seven years ago. There were no records of this Kessler prior to that that weren’t created during that period. He’s had some plastic surgery done and his own identity as Carston has been expunged from the Internet but I’m sure I’m right. Why would a legitimate company, even if they are a weapons supplier, need a fake CEO to front their company?”
Mary nodded, “Okay so let me get this clear, you think this hacker Motherboard, is being held captive inside their building, you obviously plan to break in but you’ve come to me first. You want to tell me why?”
“Annie can’t hack in, their facility is a complete dead zone and my chameleon scales aren’t effective against their security sensors. We need someone, you, to break in and see if she is being held captive there and if not, find a way that Annie can access their network and search for her that way.”
Mary grinned and drew deep on her pipe. “Well, I can see why you came to me, and glad I am that ye did. It’s been a little dull sitting around here with only monitoring stuff on offer. Now, I don’t suppose our old friend Rez was in actual physical contact with this Motherboard? All virtual contact I expect?” Annie explained that Rez had walked out the door and vanished immediately after commissioning them and she was still trying to trace her. Mary shook her head, “That’s a pity because if we could get a hold of something this Motherboard had owned then maybe we could do a little scrying for her whereabouts. Ah well, let’s call that Plan B shall we? I assume you do have a location for this building, and some sort of floor plans, however out of date, and maybe what it looks like from the outside these days?”
Annie nodded and the big screen on the wall suddenly flared into life. Seems the bases’ own A.I., Frankie was already a co-conspirator. They were the original building plans and showed a number of large open warehouses on the ground level with offices and various rooms located above. None of their functions were listed on the plans. Not a lot of help in locating what offices were what or even where a prisoner might be being held. Oh well!
Having examined and memorised the plans for stairs, window locations and worked out the best path through the labyrinth of corridors above the warehouses Mary again wanted to know how they could keep in contact. Unfortunately, Annie made it clear that once inside Mary’s comms would no longer function and they couldn’t use Tinks as all control signals would be blocked even if Mary were to control it herself. Some sort of alien energy field in play that smothered or blocked radio signals apparently.
Mary continued, “Now this mystery CEO, was there nothing on him physically, or at all, from before the ex-actor appeared? I know maybe the internet has been wiped, but there might be some old files left on side-lined machines, or physical newspaper remnants?” She looked hopeful.
Annie smiled, “That’s how we uncovered the other identify in the first place. I found several inconsistencies in Alwin’s official background but nothing offline to confirm he had ever existed in the real world until he became CEO. That led eventually to a match with Sid. Sid himself is an orphan, no family though I discovered a foster mother who still had fond memories of him. Starred in local theatre only but I was able to track down an agent that had represented him way back when and still had a paper file on him.” She reached into her bag and pulled out a slim envelope of cuttings and a CV. “The photos are different, Sid’s obviously had plastic surgery done but the facial shape and dimensions match and I’ve tried to carry out iris recognition using photos of Sid compared with Alwin. I’m 95% convinced they are the same person but not sure what we could do with that information at present. Unfortunately leaking it to the press wouldn’t help us rescue Motherboard.”
Mary nodded, “Whatever, when it comes to breaking-in to such a super-hi-tech place I guess we’d best go careful, assume the worst and not be too surprised when that’s not bad enough.” She grinned again. “I’d suggest I fly in, invisible and unsubstantiated like a ghost, from a very good long way out, try to phase in through the walls at some place that looks like it might be slightly minor in the interior. Best keep you two well clear but keeping some kind of long-range optical view of where I’m going in, and poised to race in if you do see anything amiss. Which brings up the big question, how can we stay in touch if comms are out, and I’m insubstantial anyways? Best I can think of is if I stick close to the outside wall, at least at first, and have some kind of coloured banners with me that I can shove out and then turn substantial by letting go, so’s you get a flash of colour with a meaning according to some pre-agree code. Or can either of you come up with better than that, maybe?”
They couldn’t, so an hour later Banshee found herself flying over the security fence heading for the main distribution block. In her ‘I’m not here, honest’ state of both insubstantial and invisible, she was able to cross the carpark and reach the inner wall undetected whilst Sam and Annie stayed in their van on the lane outside. It was as close as they dared to get. Banshee just hoped that what she was looking for would be at this side of the building and that Sam and Annie would see the signal if she needed to use it.
The KessKorp facility was built round a massive mechanised distribution centre slap-bang in the middle of Wessex’s Silicon Dell. Security, at least those that operated by communications were restricted to being external to the buildings themselves. Annie had stated that she’d found no communications passing between the inside of the complex and the outside, not even cabled telephone lines.
Banshee headed towards the upper floor and tried to phase through only to find some sort on energy field embedded in the walls that impeded her ability. She tried one of the windows and it allowed access but she immediately withdrew when a nearby secretary screamed. Apparently, although easier to pass through, the weakened field covering the glass made her arm visible for a couple of seconds. An alarm rang out as she tried to figure whether to try again somewhere else or retreat.
She moved down to the ground level and to her delight saw a security guard exit by a sealed fire door and use a radio. Seems they did communicate between indoors and out by the very practical method of sending someone outside before calling. As the door began to close behind the guard, Banshee flew down and through before it slammed shut, effectively trapping her inside.
Around her, she could see she was inside an automated manufacturing plant with almost no one in attendance. There was a solitary supervisor on the floor and he was holding a large computer tablet. Curious about how it might work given everything Annie had said, Banshee flew over and checked it out.
The supervisor typed in some data, which appeared to save onto a memory stick protruding from the unit’s solitary portal, which he then removed. The tablet immediately went dead. He then walked over to one of the manufacturing units and inserted it into its data port, which caused a screen on the unit to flare into life as another identical memory stick was ejected out of a concealed port beside it. The supervisor removed that one and inserted it into his tablet, which immediately rebooted and activated.
Mary or Banshee in either form was hardly a computer wiz but she had lived through the early days of computing and recognised a dumb terminal when she saw one. The perfect security against hacking really, go so old school that physical theft was the only way to access their corporate secrets.
They only worked when a memory stick containing what she assumed would be their own proprietary operating system was plugged in. As soon as the stick was removed, the computer lost all functionality. Data was also stored only on the sticks, which would be physically passed back and forth between the staff only as needed; compartmentalised security.
As she floated invisible above the supervisor, she saw a uniformed security guard approach him and mutter something about getting off the floor and get to safety as they had released the Kraken to carry out a sweep of the premises. The guard removed the memory stick from the man’s tablet then ran over and ejected the other one from the manufacturing unit. Both the terminal and manufacturing units immediately went dead.
The supervisor waved to his engineers at the far end of the plant and they also began to rush towards what appeared to be a secure room on the ground floor, leaving the guard with both memory sticks to head towards a nearby stairwell. Following the supervisor now dashing across the open floor seemed pointless. The security guard on the other hand..?
She had to stop herself physically humming ‘Me and my Shadow’ as she proceeded to follow the guard through the inner door (which sealed behind them) and up the stairs into an office where everyone seemed in a panic to leave and several other security personal were doing their rounds gathering up all of the memory sticks. Even the office staff used dumb terminals… It was brilliant in its simplicity.
Their data sticks were removed and then handed to Banshee’s ‘tour guide’ before he headed off down a corridor. Banshee followed and a few minutes later, he stopped in front of a heavy metal door. He typed in a sixteen-digit code into the keypad, sweating profusely as he did so and entered. To Banshee’s surprise, they were in a large sealed room filled from floor to ceiling with thousands of small safes stacked on top of each other, laid out in rows. Beside the inside of the door was another tablet affixed to the wall and the guard reached over, inserted a drive into its portal and it came instantly to life. This seemed to contain a database of safe locations listing which safe was to hold which memory sticks; each drive revealed three numbers showing presumably row, storage column and safe level. As the guard left to store one of the drives in a specified safe, she could see that there was a query function though to use it she would need to risk becoming physical. She wondered what would happen if she were to turn substantial and type in ‘motherboard’?
Then the door opened and through it came a monster built onto the slender frame of a woman. Multiple mechanical arms shared body space with four additional manipulative tentacles each terminating in sensor units with equally spaced claws around the tip. The extra limbs made her look like a human cephalopod. This had to be the Kraken – clearly an illegal cyborg and a heavily altered one at that and yet it/she seemed to be suffering no obvious signs of cyber-psychosis. It stood in the doorway as its sensor arms wove around in an apparently random manner though two of the red-eyed sensors seemed to keep on coming back to where she stood almost as though they could sense her somehow.
Weaponised Cyborgs were banned in most countries in the world except America with its right to bear arms and China where they formed a significant portion of their Army – only the effects of early onset cyber-psychosis in such a high proportion of adaptees acted as a deterrent to their wider use in the military.
Other than war zones the only place that actively welcomed cyborgs was Libertalia (or as Mary knew it, Madagascar). Any cyborg returning to their own country was forced to have all of their weaponry decommissioned at their own expense and limiters fitted to their cybernetics.
It was an expensive process. That and the fact that most of society ostracised them for their conversions meant that a few had ended up homeless and on the streets. A couple had ended up living at Container Town when their psychosis had become too much. Reliving a form of schizophrenia over and over again, receiving phantom sensory readings that meant they could never actually rest. Both had eventually committed suicide.
Her thoughts were interrupted as the creature screeched a high-pitched “Intruder” followed by the sound of her integrated weapons systems coming online…
Banshee’s first thought was to dodge round the creature in the doorway and make a run for it, even as one of the ‘red-eyed’ arms fired as it swung in a wide arc towards her. The discharged ray went right through her phased form as it sliced across the room leaving a smoking red ‘wound’ on everything it touched, but she wasn’t totally immune to its effects as it left her experiencing severe pins and needles as she felt all of her muscles spasm.
She dived towards the door and as soon as she reached it, turned substantial and pulled the door shut behind her. She heard the door lock, followed seconds later by the sound of someone hitting the internal keypad multiple times as her attacker entered the security code. The door swung open again to once more reveal, standing in front of her in the doorway, the multiple-limbed female. Banshee had to choose – make a run for it, down an unshielded long corridor with nowhere to hide or try to head back into the room and possibly still try to get the information she came for. If she didn’t try, it would mean sacrificing for the moment at least any chance of looking-up where Motherboard might be held. Two of the cyborgs’ tendrils fired simultaneously. Again, they failed to focus exactly on her position but did a sweeping motion that dissected her invisible body. This time the rays fired were set at a higher pitch; when they dissected her insubstantial form, the pain was indescribable and she inadvertently gave out a moan. The blasts were changing their frequency and at some point would likely match her own phased state. When that happened, the rays whatever they were, would be capable of hurting, possibly killing her. Even at her top speed, she wouldn’t be able to outrun the creatures’ blasts.
Banshee unleashed a shattering shriek, aimed specifically at the two red-glowing sensors that seem to be the ones detecting her presence and smiled as a steam of smoke emanated from one of the mechanical tentacles. She ran towards and phased through the cyborg, heading back inside the shielded room. Seeing the security guard running back towards the door, banshee slipped behind him in an attempt to hide from the cyborgs sensors. To her horror, The Kraken unleashed a series of blasts that sliced even as it cauterised the guard into several slabs of roasted meat. The cyborg was clearly a killer. Even as her human ‘shield’ died, total bewilderment plastered on his face, the creature went to step further into the room even as Banshee resubstantiated and rushed forward to slam the door shut again in her attackers face then shattered the lock with a focused shriek. The creature hit the door hard and Banshee saw the door bend slightly. She had a minute at most, probably less before the Kraken gained entry. Did she flee through the room’s only window or..?
It didn’t take Banshee more than a second to dismiss the idea of leaving through the window immediately – she was not done here yet and she remembered all the trouble she had getting inside in the first place. The main door stopped being hammered and a red glow began to emanate from around the frame. Presumably, the cyborg had given up on using brute strength and was trying to cut through the locks using her energy beams.
Banshee turned substantial and back into Mary at the same time as she cast her Young Mary glamour on herself just in case there were cameras. It occurred to her that her decision to use her younger personae as a disguise whenever she elected to circumvent the law might come back to bite her one of these days. Oh well, still better than being identifiable as a member of the Balance!
She rushed over to the still active terminal by the door and typed in “Motherboard”. She hoped against hope that it could identify where Motherboard might be being held within the building. Instead the screen read “Motherboard – see Karen Ross; 27, 12, 5 security level seven and above only.”
It didn’t take a genius to find row 27, located halfway across the room close to the window, then she ran down the narrow corridor to the twelfth stack of safes, each of which were about 30cm square with a keypad. She counted up five safes and stared. Each safe was secured to the column and securely locked, presumably all security level seven had access to the code that could unlock the safe. She needed to access the contents and quickly, but how?
Behind her, she heard the door slam open as the monster-woman finally succeeded in gaining entry. Damn! She reached up and tried to pull the safe free but it was securely fixed to the rack. Before she could figure out what to do next, a red beam suddenly flared down the row towards her striking her in the shoulder. She let out a scream as the beam burnt her badly, cauterising the wound at the same time. Thankfully, it didn’t rip through anything major such as an artery and despite the pain she responded with a gesture aimed at one of the red sensors and was glad to see a pair of crystal spikes materialise in the air even as she allowed the Ban Sidhe out as a way to combat the constant pain.
The crystalline spears flew true and completely shattered the tentacles and caused the cyborg to stagger back as in response she experienced several massive waves of painful feedback. The cyborg forced itself onto its feet and staggered forward jerkily, almost falling on her face as she tried to bring one of her other weaponry arms into play, its energy beam firing wild.
Banshee knew she had to leave the building but she didn’t want to leave emptyhanded but still hadn’t a clue as to where Motherboard might be. The answer hopefully lay inside the safe, if only she could figure out how to get into it. She had seconds at best before the cyborg came fully back online. If she couldn’t open the safe then perhaps there was another way? She focused on the brackets holding the safe in place and unleashed a series of shattering shrieks at them. She was rewarded with the security struts fracturing and she reached up and pulled the safe free from the rack. It was not light, she turned herself and her prize into her ghost-state again as she tried to rush towards the window, aiming a sustained shattering shriek at the stacks of safes hoping that her scream might that somehow affect the piles of memory-sticks concealed inside.
The Kraken staggered towards her, blocking her path as it tried to bring its weapons online. Banshee flowed through her even as she tried to unleash her corrupting touch on its fleshy parts before flying towards and through the window. The energy field in the window here was stronger, harsher and the pain was immense. She emerged on the other side of the ‘glass’ but the intense pain she was experiencing caused her to drop the safe onto the tarmac below even as she had to resubstantiate herself. The safe hit the ground hard and its door buckled but still failed to open. Behind her, she heard the sizzling sound of melting as a laser beam hit the window and melted the armoured glass. Then she saw marching towards her several fully armoured figures. Initially Banshee assumed they were security dressed in power armour but the suits were too well fitting and she realised they were either full body cyborgs or robots.
A hundred metres away she could see the security fence and a hundred metres beyond that, a large, familiar van. The side door opened and Sam stepped out and unfolded his wings.
Banshee landed and grabbed hold of the safe just as the troop began to run directly towards her. Banshee dived towards the fallen safe, thinking rapidly. The thing about cyborgs or robots was, they had lots of moving parts… She aimed a shattering shriek in the direction of the group even as she reached out and made contact with the safe. Not waiting to see if her scream had been successful, she grabbed hold of the safe and ghosted (for what it was worth) again and flew straight towards the van and the open door.
Behind her she heard Sam from the other side of the fence shout something about “Are you the droids we’re looking for?” and something about “No damage, no foul. It was your own security thingy that did the damage; that’s who you should be arresting…” trying to talk down the opposition using his Draconic Suggestion and his somewhat naive verbal skills. A couple of the identical humanoid figures seemed to hesitate for a second or two which might confirm her theory that they were cyborgs – she was pretty sure Sam’s persuasion couldn’t work on machines or computers. If they were cyborgs, nothing flesh remained unless it was their brain. Best just think of them as robots then.
Regardless, it was an additional distraction and thankfully, these ‘robots’ were not armed other than with stun guns, which they discharged in her general direction. The laser-guided blasts failed to connect with her insubstantial form. Banshee flew as fast as she could carrying the safe even as Sam unleashed a powerful wing blast to hold the them back and even knocked a few over.
As soon as Banshee was on the other side of the fence and within what she thought was a reliable distance she threw the safe-box into the van, and Annie’s ‘safe-keeping’. The safe turned substantial as soon as it left her hands and landed with a loud clatter. Banshee then did a U-turn and looked to see if Sam needed any help. The main priority now is not to destroy every enemy in sight but to make as clean a getaway as possible (at least for now). To that end, she deployed another shattering shriek followed by a wail of the Banshee, reckoning that any fear attacks would be a waste of effort.
It was Annie shouting that they needed to move now, that forced them to retreat into the van, which immediately sped away as fast as Annie could manage. Sam finally managed to close the door as Annie Ignoring the road, cut across some nearby wasteland at speeds that were reckless even by her standards. Banshee turned substantial again and watched as Annie, steering onehanded, reached for her laptop and began to type blind while continuing to watch the route ahead. To Banshee’s surprise the van colour outside morphed from black into white. She heard Annie mutter that she had “also changed the registration plates using the van’s chameleon circuits.” With that, Annie did a 90-degree spin off the waste ground and down the slope onto the motorway, cutting in front of a large HGV. She ignored the angry horn tooting at her reckless escapade as she sped back towards Wessex, concealed amongst the regular caravan of white vans that travelled that route. They quietly passed the KessKorp security vehicles searching for them in the opposite direction.
Half an hour later, they pulled over into a service station and parked up. Sam smiled as he examined all sides of the safe, flipping it around between his hands like oversized dice. Having satisfied himself that all sides were as armoured as each other he proceeded to rip the door off to reveal its contents; just three memory sticks, which he passed to Annie. “Anything you can do with these, sweetheart?” Annie scowled, “They’re probably booby-trapped the data somehow… I need some time to investigate.” She walked to the back of the van and began to fold back the interior panels to reveal multiple computer screens and a fold down worktop. She accessed Frankie online and they went to work.
Banshee turned back into Mary and allowed Sam to patch up her injured shoulder as she wondered how KessKorp would cover up the death of their security guard? Would they try to frame her younger, alter ego for the murder? The thoughts festered inside her while Annie and Frankie took the drives to pieces then tried to access the data.
Annie later explained that she’d had to bypass a small explosive charge in the drives set to destroy the memory stick if there was any attempt to plug them in to an unauthorised computer. Once that had been bypassed she’d discovered that their integrated operating system was based on a hybrid form of ‘Malbolge’ an esoteric programming language, named after the eighth circle of hell in Dante’s Inferno. It was specifically designed to be almost impossible to use, via a counter-intuitive ‘crazy operation’, base-three arithmetic, and self-altering code building on the difficulty of earlier, challenging esoteric languages.
She believed that it had been designed by Ayan Qureshi, CEO of e-Dynamics and a programming genius (having successfully taken his Microsoft technician certification at 5 years old). He went on to set up e-Dynamics at 17 and won his first multi-million contract a year later supplying encrypted communications networks for businesses across Europe including Dalton International, Institute of Applied Weapons Science, Orwell Technology and KessKorp amongst others.
The system had taken all of Annie and Frankie’s skills to crack. Annie was excited and it was hard to follow everything she said. It turned out that Motherboard was in fact a Doctor Karen Ross. Who Karen Ross was took some time to make sense of unfortunately. An experimental physicist and weapons designer, it seemed that she was also a Meta with the ability to create multiple, psychic personae’s, mental doppelgangers if you will, capable of functioning online independently of her body and each other. It made her an outstanding researcher and multitasker, especially as she could absorb her ‘doppelgangers’ memories.
A comment on one of the data sticks indicated that they believed that these mirror personalities could be used essentially as a type of secondary rear brain to reduce the effect of cyber-adaptations on adult cyborgs using experimental techniques created by a Professor Prometheus decades before.
The records showed that Leonidas Industries had hired Dr Ross back in 2010 to develop smart weapons for the UK and the European Community military. She thought it would help make her reputation, while also doing her country a great service. Over time, she discovered how misguided she had been. Alexander M. Helmes, her employer, had apparently no intention of fulfilling his government contracts; instead, her work was being funnelled overseas through KessKorp though it didn’t say to who. She was appalled and the records claimed she established what she thought was a safe contact within CI-5, one to whom she thought she could pass incriminating data to help bring Alexander Helmes down.
Unfortunately, her contact had been in Helmes’ pocket and when he heard about Ross’ disloyalty, he arranged for her removal. Her doctors were at a loss when she began presenting symptoms of some kind of neurological disorder. While she was dealing with the fallout from her deteriorating health, the company installed an “interim” director in her place, and her carefully compiled evidence on Leonidas Industries and its’ links to KessKorp mysteriously disappeared.
While that happened, Dr Ross was occupied spenting all her time and energy (what little she had left) researching neurological disorders in an attempt to save herself. Instead, all she found were others whose similar fate contributed to her spiralling depression.
What happened next was vague and confirmed that KessKorp was not the source of her recorded ‘death’. Ms Ross apparently was involved in a traffic accident a short time later and a body was found in the wreckage that had been mistaken for Ross.
Somehow, she had survived and over the next few years Ross using the identity Motherboard had struck back at Leonidas and their secret KessKorp subsidiary from within the dark web. She had been rediscovered a couple of days ago in a secret location below the city and had been taken to KessKorp’s Edinburgh research facility or at least her physical body had been – apparently, Karen had been kept alive in a heavily protected life support womb that she needed to survive.
The cybernetic interfaces built into her womb allowed her to access external equipment, including the drones she used to interact with people in the real world. These drones were sophisticated mobile surveillance pods that project a stylized holographic image of Motherboard around the drone. The Balance knew them better as holo-bees, which finally explained their origins. As long as she was in her life support unit, her mental processing were able to be augmented beyond normal human parameters. When she needed “hands” in the physical world, she relies on something or someone known only as the Cybertribe or hacked into an available piece of networked technology and controlled it remotely using one of her multiple personae’s.
The other memory sticks revealed details of several secret subsidiary companies, including Big Belly Burger. Apparently, Motherboard had been targeting them for information. BBB was one of the largest fast-food burger chains in Europe. The restaurant had been founded in Amsterdam and had since expanded across the continent and beyond. Big Belly Burger specialised in large hamburgers, french fries, and shakes.
Another was the Starbase Coffee House, which had survived fierce competition from a series of other cyber-cafés during its early millennium expansion throughout the country. As one of the Last coffee houses Standing in the aftermath, it has become one of the most successful of its kind with locations throughout the United Kingdom.
Although Mary had been to one a couple of times, it was Sam that was a big fan of the chain. Its sleek science fiction theme was popular with its patrons—mostly younger, nerdier people in the high-tech industry and college students especially as all of their locations offered free Wi-Fi connections for Internet surfing. Between its geek credentials and array of excellent coffees, Starbase Coffee had been a can’t-miss business proposition from the start. They had to wonder why a weapons manufacturer secretly needed a Coffee house chain or a burger subsidiary?
The location where they believed Motherboard was physically being stored was similar to their Wessex facility in that it was data-secure but even more protected. They had to get in, physically find Motherboard, get her out in her life support pod and if possible also trace and rescue her psychic doppelgangers in an environment that blocked radio transmissions; simple really.
It was time to head to Edinburgh and Banshee realised that they might have a contact there who might be able to help them; Caitlin Stuart, aka Beltane who was currently interning with the Caledonian Protectorate…
Scratching her nose thoughtfully, Mary admitted she might have made a mistake in only taking the one safe. “Means they’ll pretty quickly figure who it is we’re interested in and either move her, or we can expect a hot reception waiting for us. Probably doesn’t give us much time…” She turned to Annie and Sam, “I think we need eyes on the ground immediately. Given ah, the illegal aspect of this rescue, I doubt the authorities would be willing to assist us. Don’t you have a contact in the Caledonian Protectorate that doubled for Sam while we were offworld; their intern, Beltane? Do you think she’d agree to keep an eye on things until we arrived?”
A few minutes later, Annie had gotten in touch with Beltane and rapidly explained to her what was up and asked her as a favour to scout out the target installation and keep reporting back on what she saw and if possible identify a safe, observation-free landing-spot near the installation where she can meet them in due course.
Caitlin was more than happy to agree though she was shy about talking with Banshee and Sam – after all, she’d only met them a couple of times after their return from the Faerie Realm, primarily at the farewell party for the draftees of The Balance two point oh. She immediately responded, “Ah wull ask mah teammate, Transit tae teleport mer directly tae th’ KessKorp facility. Tis juist ootdoors Auld Reekie, soory Edenburgh, near th’ idyll village o’ Sunnamory sae ah kin tak’ up an observation watch ootdoors.”
Annie thanked her then sped off towards the BASEment. They’d need some heavy-lifting transport to retrieve Doctor Ross and her survival-pod and that meant they needed the Crate.
Half an hour later, they set off for Scotland as fast as they could with Annie piloting in stealth mode. Banshee considered trying to ghost the Crate but realised that it was much too large and if she succeeded, it would cause the engines and other equipment onboard to immediately stop working, causing it to drop from the sky like the proverbial brick. Not a good idea.
As they flew North, Banshee speculated with her companions about the possible links between the fast food outlets and KessKorp. Might just be money-spinning ventures but… what other edge might it give them? Access to the cyber-activity of a lot of young folk or control over what they ingest? Might they be putting “something” in the burgers and the coffee, which would allow them to control or somehow exploit their clientele? It was surely not a “Soylent Green” scenario, though the fact that she considered it even for a second made her shiver! Without some deeper investigation by Annie and Frankie nothing could probably be determined just now, there was not enough time at the moment to do more than speculate. It was something they needed to look into if they managed to rescue Dr Ross though. Annie did suggest that they could be used for money laundering or as a cover for gun smuggling given their global impact.
As they travelled to Scotland, Mary used some of the time to cast a self-healing ritual on herself to speed up the wound to her shoulder. She might not have the Meta restorative ability but the magic of her harp was just as effective.
As they crossed the border, Frankie confirmed that the Edinburgh base was twin to, though much larger of the one down south, and if KessKorp was alerted, there seems little point in trying for a subtle approach.
They again contacted Beltrane who confirmed that she had not seen anything to indicate Doc Ross had been removed from the facility, at least since her arrival. Mary rather hesitantly asked if she was up for helping with an attempt at rescue, which might involve major mayhem, disruption and damage. Beltane agreed but kept up a running commentary about being “Hungert ‘n’ ah wish ah’d brought something tae eat wi’ me, bit thankfully ah hae plenty a liquid.” When they contacted her again a short time later, that conversation was replaced with how “Hydration is th’ enemy o’ stakeouts ‘n’ ah pure need tae pee…”
Then they heard a polite male voice over her comms interrupting her, “No sense in hiding any further Miss Beltane, Mr Kessler would like to invite you to attend a light supper. No, I’m afraid it would be excessively impolite to refuse, I must therefore insist, Mr Kessler has a superb wine he wants to share and the canapés are to die for…” Then the comms went dead. They were still five minutes out…
Annie elected to accelerate beyond the Crate’s safety tolerances. A couple of minutes later they could see an animated human shaped bonfire in the hills above the large sprawling complex surrounded by a dozen of the humanoid robots they’d seen previously back in Wessex.
Beltane was surrounded but had ‘flamed up’ and could not be approached without her attackers bursting into flames. Even projectiles were useless against her in this form as they melted or exploded before impact. The problem was that she risked setting fire to the land around her. It was Annie who pointed out that her comms earpiece would have been burnt up when she transformed into her ‘flame-on’ personae.
Torn between Plan A and a feeling of responsibility for Beltane, Banshee made a quick decision – reasoning that if the landscape caught fire, that wouldn’t harm Beltane and might further discourage her attackers.
Leaving Annie in stealth mode monitoring Beltane’s situation on the ground and Sam ready to intervene if there was any risk to the wee lass, Banshee turned invisible ghost and headed down towards the complex. Time to divide and distract; she flew as fast as she could to enact the first part of her attack-plan, heading round the fence and circling the building, smashing random windows, CCTV cameras and any external equipment she could identify using her shattering shriek. She hoped that it would put the building on full security alert and thereby compartmentalise their ability to respond as well as hopefully blindside those inside and spread alarm and confusion; knowing they were under attack but not knowing what direction the main assault was coming from, or when.
Unfortunately, her shrieks weren’t proving as effective in destroying their monitoring equipment as she had hoped, in part due to not being able to stop for long to direct their focus. It did cause the external doors to lock and for the grounds to be flooded with squads of robotic defenders, though these were illegally armed with various weaponry which helped light up the sky around the building as they blasted randomly at any and all possible targets. Banshee had to feel sorry for the number of pigeons being exterminated with extreme prejudice before they could flee the skies.
Smiling to herself at her success, she headed back in spectral form to the hill where Beltane was still surrounded and under constant, if thankfully ineffective, attacks. Banshee responded by unleashing a silent terrorising attack on the opposition and used the confusion it caused to get as close in to Beltane as she could before whispering “Flame off!” and hoped that she’d heard. Banshee moved closer and was forced to back off again as Beltane failed to respond. This time she shouted it and risked turning substantial for a moment. It was a second too long as one of the robots targeted Banshee and fired. The blast never landed though as Sam interposed himself between them and took the hit! The shot bounced off his scales leaving only a bruise but the sudden appearance of Sam in front of her was sufficient shock to cause Beltane to revert to human form. Banshee took advantage of the situation, grabbed Beltane and turned both of them insubstantial again, before ghosting rapidly back into the sky.
As they flew up, Banshee was happy to see that Annie had managed to seed the already dark clouds overhead causing it to pour rain down on the gathered ‘metal stormtroopers’ below as a surprised Beltane realised she was actually flying and gave out an unexpected scream of joy and almost fell from Banshee’s grasp.
Banshee held on tighter to the girl then looked around for Sam. Despite the sudden onset of adverse weather, he was still being targeted and taking hits. Banshee flew in, resubstantated herself and her passenger and tried to hold Beltane in just one arm as he tried to also grab hold of Sam. She failed. In the end, Sam grabbed banshee around the waist and tried to synchronise his flight with hers as she ghosted all three and quickly fled the scene, heading back towards the complex in the valley below.
Beltane was hesitant about entering the factory, as they hadn’t got a warrant. It was understandable as she only had probationary HCP certification and was scared that she was about to do something illegal.
Banshee smiled as she explained that Beltane had actually received an invitation to enter and the subsequent deadly attack on her had confirmed that there was a probable risk to life that required immediate intervention. If she’d prefer though, Beltane could wait outside but Banshee and Sam were going in.
Caitlin hesitated then nodded, “Na, a’m comin’ in wi’ ye. Hopefully ah kin dae some guid.”
Ghosted, Banshee chose a high-level window at random – warning them just before they passed through the mysterious barrier “that this may sting a little”. She pushed forward, through the energy-protected window in front of them and collapsed to the ground on the other side sending Beltane and Sam sprawling as all three uncontrollably materialised. That was a lot tougher than she had expected. They were in a corridor and alarms were sounding seemingly everywhere. They needed to find Dr Ross and fast. Banshee asked Sam and Beltane to start setting controlled fires to activate fire alarms and hopefully overwhelm the automatic sprinklers etc. She hoped that if the occupants could be convinced that the building was burning down they will hopefully concentrate on getting out, and taking anything important with them which would hopefully include Dr Ross in her life-support pod…
Instead, as soon as Sam and Beltane had set off their first set of alarms and found themselves getting wet as sprinklers cascaded gallons of water down on and around them, they were rewarded with three large tank-like mechanoids, twice the size of Sam bursting through the wall. The thing that really set them apart was that each of them had a pair of human-looking brains openly on view in separate bio-support tanks located on the front of the cyborgs bodies. Sam muttered his surprise that such vital ‘components’ were openly displayed even they was located behind plastisteel screens. Obviously, these had been intended as demonstration models. As they looked through the smashed wall, they could see a familiar face being escorted away; Alwin Kessler surrounded by three armed mercenaries, escorting him to safety.
The three cyborgs in front of them blocked their way as their shoulder-mounted weaponry came online and red lasers targeted them. Sam immediately rushed straight at the first of the monstrous creatures and tried to tackle it to the ground as Beltane unleashed fistfuls of plasma at the others. Sam slammed into the cyborg’s legs hoping to knock it down. He felt his shoulder buckle as it hit an unmoving object. Refusing to give up as his opponents’ metallic hand tried to reach down towards his head he responded by lifting his target off the ground, slamming it several times into the ceiling above.
Banshee was momentarily distracted by what she could see through the newly formed gap in the wall; a very nervous Alwin Kessler being escorted away. She tried to read the body language of the man relative to his guards – he really didn’t seem like a man in charge, but neither did he appear to be a decoy or excessively cowed. Regardless, there are still the three cyborgs to pass, with their suspiciously exposed brains which she felt somehow reluctant to damage – a feeling no doubt shared by both Sam and Beltane.
Before she could decide what to do next, Banshee was forced to turn insubstantial as the one of the cyborgs unleashed its barrage of armour-piercing shells at her. She felt the effects of multiple small explosions as Beltane’s plasma blasts caused the shells to explode in mid-air, peppering everyone with their fiery fragments.
Sam spun his opponent round as soon as he felt the first shards hit against his scales, using its armoured body as a shield before throwing it/him/her/whatever into the others as a missile, even as Beltane tried to immobilise another of the cyborgs by welding its knees together. She was so intent on her target that she failed to see the last cyborg get back up and target her.
Sam responded by leaping forward aiming a punch to knock the weapon off the middle cyborg’s shoulder before it can fire, while shouting a quip about “knocking that chip off your shoulder” at the same time. Beltane took the hint and focused her hellfire surge on the next cyborg. No time, Banshee flicked out her extendable staff and while insubstantial, thrust the end of the staff into the gun barrel of the final cyborg before briefly turning substantial once again.
In that split second the shoulder-mounted gun and his staff exploded causing a still substantualised Banshee to fly backwards under the force of the explosion towards the wall that separated them from the other corridor. She managed at the last second to turn insubstantial so that the force of the explosion knocked her through the wall behind Mr Kessler and his escorts.
On the other side of the wall, Sam had again power-lifted his opponent and was using it as a club to knock down the one in front of Beltane. Banshee turned invisible and decided to leave the others to deal with the cyborgs as she felt the intense heat flowing through the gap in the wall as Beltane flared again into her ‘flame-on’ form. She just hoped Sam was invulnerable to her while in plasma form.
Still the unexpected blast of intense heat acted as a distraction to the fleeing CEO and the mercenaries and it allowed Banshee to ghost up and flying invisibly up behind the party she turned substantial and unleashed a corrupting touch on the back of two of the guards. They spasmed and collapsed as the remaining mercenary spun round trying to see who or what had attacked her companions. Kessler immediately went to run only for Banshee to dodge between them for a second then for both to vanish from her sight as he was instantly ghosted away.
Leaving the Merc’ alone with her two downed companion, Banshee dragged the struggling CEO back towards the gap in the wall. He tried to pull free and she resorted to a controlled corrupting touch to stun him while she checked on her two companions.
She glanced through the hole in the wall and saw that two of the monstrous cyborgs were temporarily down, their weapons disabled but the third was still going strong and was still armed though that was proving useless against Beltane’s fiery attacks.
The intense heat was causing the paint on the walls of the corridor to bubble and the brain containment tanks looked as though they were ready to crack. Banshee shouted, “Beltane, Flame off!” even as she unleashed a shattering shriek hoping the plastisteel units would survive her attack. She gave out a sigh of relief when the cyborg collapsed though its two brains seemed undamaged, visually at least.
“Best run, I’ve got Kessler and we don’t want to be here when these beasties wake up.” She shouted as they ran down the corridor away from the chaotic scene. A few minutes later, having found an unoccupied office, they made sure Kessler was fully conscious as Sam and Banshee got to work trying to question him.
“OK, Mr Kessler or would you prefer to be called Sid Carston? Where is Dr Ross? There is no sense in delaying, our companion will have already summoned the Police so the game is up…”
To their surprise, Kessler- Carston looked relieved, “Save me and I’ll tell you everything. Dr Ross is in our medic bay, it’s nearby, as are the surviving clone donors… I’ll take you if you ensure I get away safely.”
“What has happened to Ross’s psychic duplicates? How do we liberate them?” He looked crestfallen. “I, I really don’t know. Once transferred into organic brain tissue they are trapped in there permanently I think? Look, if anyone would know it will be Dr Ross or one of the Labyrinth brainiacs.”
Having given them directions to the medic bay, he stood up and was immediately eviscerated as the door was shredded and a large metal claw from one of the monstrous cyborgs pushed through the shrapnel and ripped through him, tearing him literally in two.
Beltane gave out a stifled scream even as Banshee and Sam reacted. Sam unleashed a blast of flames even as Banshee unleashed a powerful wail at the attacker. To their surprise, instead of trying to dodge, it just stood there and took the attacks then it smashed its own blood-covered claw into the top bio-containment tank and the brain inside which caused the robotic body to fit and collapse in a heap on the ground, unmoving. As it did so, a high-pitched female voice nearby gave out a scream of intense pain that echoed down the corridor.
Sam kicked at the robotic carcass and confirmed it was no longer functional. The top brain had been seriously shredded by the attack on itself. It had seemingly elected to commit suicide after killing Carston, or had it been programmed to do so?
The next fifteen minutes saw the KK-folk flee as soon as the three of them got into view. Through the windows it looked as though their security, a very well-armed security at that, had elected to set up up a last line of attack outside in the grounds rather than risk any further attacks inside. That included several more of the brutish cyborgs, though if they were twin-brained they were concealed beneath their armour.
They found the life-support pod and Dr Ross a few doors down, though she seemingly lacked any obvious way to communicate with them given the radio blockade. Sam recognised that a number of Foundry-made pain inducers had been attached to her body, though the active comms blocker inside the complex meant that her torturers had to physically activate the devices rather than activate them remotely to induce indescribable pain, they just didn’t know why they had been installed. She had a number of her avatar cyber-selves surrounding and monitoring the pods systems.
She appeared to be unconscious but was likely the source of the scream they had heard when the cyborg suicided.
Sam kept on muttering under his breath about wishing “Annie were here” as he tried to jury-rig the pod for transport, and then hoisted the unit on his back and stumbled forward. It was too large and too like an oversized coffin to feel comfortable.
The plan was simple; Banshee and Beltane would defend their escape from the building, preferably where they wouldn’t be expected such as through a factory wall. Once outside they would signal Annie to zoom in with the Crate, collect the pod and Beltane and make off as fast as possible from the Protectorate’s headquarters located beneath Edinburgh Castle. Meanwhile Banshee and Sam would mount a flying defence to cover the retreat and hold the opposition back for long enough for Annie to get away (hopefully!)
The first thing that screwed up that plan was finding several corpses of teenagers next door, though that wasn’t as bad as the still living youth who seemingly had underwent some form of lobotomy recently, going by the scars on his forehead. Were these bodies the source of the secondary brains used by the brute cyborgs?
That indicated that they needed to change their plans; they realised that they needed to call in officialdom immediately to deal before the evidence of their crimes vanished.
They slowly made their way down to the ground level and Banshee ghosted up ready as Sam picked a suitable location to break through. He then put down his burden and smashed through the walls of the building into the open expecting to instantly be targeted. Thankfully it also meant their comms were back online. Banshee immediately requested Annie head to their location for an immediate evac’ and was surprised when she responded, “Weee, keep your eyes open, here comes the Calvary!”
From behind, rushing towards them were the remaining cybernetic brutes and half a dozen mercenaries and Sam placed the coffin down and immediately prepared for battle when a dark hole appeared in the sky between them and five figures ran out, intercepting the attack. One of them morphed into a leopard and sped into the middle of the attackers, another female suddenly started to increase in size as she ran forward until she was at least three times her original size, then she grabbed two of the cyborgs and began to bang them together. Another cyborg suddenly started to have fits and they saw that a small Asian man had appeared out of nowhere and had attacked him with a glowing transparent blade, resembling a Gurkha’s kukri of all things. A well-built black guy with dreadlocks suddenly blasted into the air and started to blast away at the Merc’s below him.
Beltane laughed, “That’s mah teammates fae th’ Caledonian Protectorate. Annie mist hae cried thaim in. Either that or Transit didn’t leave whin he transported me tae th’ hill ower thare. Am ah allowed tae jyne mah team, ma’am?” The last was shouted as she had already started to run towards the fight. Banshee joined them, ghosting and unleashing her aura of fear on the Merc’s as she did so.
The battle was over as most of the KK-defenders turned and fled, straight into the arriving armed response units from the Police led by Detective Chief Inspector Lucy Kingdom, the Protectorate’s official liaison.
The Police then proceeded to close down the facility as a major crime scene and requested the assistance of MRC, the Met’s Malfunctioning Robotics and Cybernetics Unit who had to arrange for a squad to travel up from London to assist with safely depowering and deactivating the cyborgs.
After the battle was over, Protectorate’s leader, the giant Rig, began to tear them a ‘new one’ for endangering their intern, Beltane (despite her cries that it had been her choice and they had not broken any laws, they had only defended themselves.)
It was left to the so-believably innocent Sam to be their spokesperson, backing up his claims with some light Draconic Suggestion and sweetly supported by Annie with all the “factual” records she could provide.
They stuck pretty close to the truth, that Doctor Ross – kidnapped, held captive and physically abused by KessKorp – had managed to get out a signal calling for help; and given the current chaos over-stretching the emergency services and the life-or-death need for a very rapid response, they had answered the call.
They had followed the trail from the initial contretemps down south to here. Yes, the apologetically apologised for not discussing what they uncovered, but KessKorp had initially blocked their communications and they were forced to respond to a threat to life already occurring. The bodies they had found inside confirmed how real a threat that had been.
They had hoped to out as much of the corporation’s evil-doings as they could but Annie explained that during the fight the Crate had almost crashed when the datasticks had activated a a weird EMP that crashed their systems. It had meant that Annie had had to land the crate without instrumentation before she could reboot her operating systems.
Unfortunately, all the data they had uncovered on the data stick shad been fried in the process, there was no proof left that Helmes or Leonidas Industries were linked to Kesskorp, other than their own now unsubstantiated testimony.
At the same time as the crash occurred, Frankie confirmed that the ownership of Big Belly Burger and Starbase Coffee House chains were transferred to a series of holding companies worldwide.
The police in Wessex raided the KessKorp offices and distribution facilities as soon as Police Scotland had contacted them. Banshee just hoped the raid had been fast enough – before they had the chance to destroy the corporations records. She knew that they needed to gather a fuller picture of who and what they were and what they were attempting to do.
They thanked Beltane for her assistance (and tried to do the same to the other, still angry members of the Protectorate but in the end gave up) before getting permission to return Dr Ross to a dedicated medical facility in Reading as soon as possible.
As soon as they had set off back towards England, Annie handed the flight controls over to Mary while she linked up the life support pod to the ships’ internal speakers so they could communicate with Dr Ross. She then checked the pod’s functionality, removed the pain inducers and made sure her life support systems were once more under her own control.
A few seconds later Dr Ross, Motherboard, came back online. Her voice was artificial, unmodified as she thanked them for the rescue as she explained that her sponsor, no she wouldn’t say who that was but she did hint that Annie had also benefited from her support and expertise, had saved her and faked her death years before.
She’d now revealed to Alexander Helmes that she had survived, she was still planning to skulk in the shadows as that worked for her but he was now aware that she was out there. She wasn’t sure what part he played in the whole affair, but he acted as though he answered to someone higher up the food chain than him. KessKorp might be busted but Leonidas Industries was still running and she was determined to take them down as well.
“Why did they keep you alive? I mean I’m glad but given they initially set out to kill you, why did they keep you alive this time?” Mary asked.
“My psychic dupes are each capable of independent thought and function. Usually they remain online for about 24 hours before they merge back with me. However, if implanted as secondary rear brains in cyborgs they become trapped and could independently take over most of the autonomous functions and significantly reduce the impact of cyber-psychosis. After the usual 24 hours they continue to survive but unable to be reabsorbed, they are in constant pain and that results in my experiencing painful psychic feedback. They only kept me alive to make more dupes.”
Motherboard went on to explain that the “A.I.” systems created by merging Motherboard’s Duplicate online personalities with the cyborg’s systems depended on significant quantities of harvested human neural tissue, kept alive in bio-support tanks on the cyborgs. Worse, the rapid degeneration of such material meant that it could only be harvested from a living subject – with invariable consequences. She just hoped that if the authorities could be persuaded to switch off the support to the secondary brains that her dupes would reintegrate with herself in time.
They dropped off Dr Ross at the hospital and headed back to the BASEment but weren’t overly surprised when Annie reported that she and her pod had disappeared from the hospital within minutes of their departure; stolen away by someone unknown but Annie assured them that there was nothing to worry about, that Motherboard was again hiding in a safe location.
It was twenty-four hours later that Dispatch once again reappeared on the Trouble Alert channel as though nothing had ever occurred. Coincidence?
Superhero Adventures, UK Style 