“Why are there so many?”
“Your father would often have project managers here for long periods of time to collaborate on projects. He did not like to use phone or video conferences. He would always say there was no way to do any actual work with those things. He did most of his work here.”
After showing us the first bedroom, we walked over to the left wing of the house, "this is where your father worked, there are two workshops. In one he worked on personal projects and the other is for the projects that were work related. I’ll take you to his office.”
Ryder’s phone rang, "I’ll catch up.” he put his phone to his ear and wondered off in the opposite direction.
The Android and I walked deeper into the left wing of the house. I stopped him, "Hold on before we go any farther. My father had to have called you something other than PCD-003.”
“Yes ma’am he always would call me Alrick.”
“Did you like that name?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Alright that’s what I’ll call you. And you can stop calling me ma’am. Call me Grace.”
“Thank you, I loved the name that your father gave me. Shall we continue?” He smiled again holding out his hand directing me.
“Sure.” We went into the office. The lights came on when we walked through the door. There were several monitors mounted to the back wall surrounding one computer station with bay windows on both sides.
“It will be nice to see someone back in here working. It has been a long two years. You will be continuing your father’s work? Won’t you?”
“You keep saying things like you love, or it will be nice aren’t those emotions that androids wouldn’t be able the feel?” as the words came out I felt like an ass, "Don’t get me wrong it’s cool. I’m just trying to understand all of this.”
“All of us PCD’s started out the same, but given a different set of tasks and knowledge pertaining to those tasks. What he also gave us is an ability to learn and to develop emotions.”
“Unbelievable, well I don’t know if I will be continuing his work. Only time will tell.”
He hung his head and his shoulders drooped in disappointment. I couldn’t believe the realism in the actions.
Ryder came into the room, "Grace we have to head out. Things are moving faster than Sam thought that they would.” he had a sense of urgency about him.
“What is the mission?” I wanted to stay at the house and speak with Alrick and meet the other PCD’s.
“Sam will explain when we get back.”
“I’ll be waiting; the rest will love to meet you. We will be standing by.”
“It was nice to meet you. Maybe when I get some time, we can talk about my parents, and you can tell me what kind of people they were.” I nodded.
He returned the nod, "I will look forward to it.”
Chapter 20: Cram Session
The sun fell behind the mountains as we drove back towards Eastcroft. Ryder drove straight to the hanger at the edge of town. He parked next to Sam’s truck.
“Let’s get inside, they’re waiting for us.” He seemed very worried.
We got out of the car and joined Sam and the others where they patiently waited. They were standing in a group talking quietly. When Sam noticed that we had arrived he met us halfway.
“Good, now we can get started.” He was impatient and somewhat agitated.
“Wait a second here; you are the one that dropped this on us last minute.” I became quickly irritated with his tone.
He stopped with his back to us and took a breath, "Look, I’m sorry but we have a very small window of opportunity that we have never had before, and we cannot let that window shut on us.”
“I got it and I want to help, but calm down. Been through a lot in the past month.” We all gathered around a table at the back of the hanger.
“All of this is equipment that we put together for you.” He picked up a handgun, ejected the clip slid it back in and primed the chamber.
“What is all of this?”
He picked up a smart phone, "This is your Last Line issued phone, but it’s so much more than that. You will have one hundred percent uptime and a constant connection to the ATN. If you spot anyone not in the network please snap a photo for your debriefing. These are headsets already set up for each phone.” He held up one of the headsets, when in the ear it was almost invisible.
We all picked up our phones.
“Why are you giving us guns?” Ronnie picked up one of the pistols from the table.
“You don’t have to take them, but you have the option.” Sam handed the pistol he held out to me.
I took it.
“I think I’ll stick with my electricity.” He put the gun he’d picked up back down onto the table.
“The watch has a holographic imager, it can overlay maps, and other things onto your surroundings.” he picked up a small box, "this has an antigravity generator. It can only do short bursts, but it will allow you to land gently when you jump out of the plane.”
“Jump out of a plane?” Kenny protested taking a few steps back holding his hands up.
“The plan.” we all followed him over to a table with a black glass top, "I have to thank Rachel for the Intel, and it has been verified.” He pressed a button on the table. A perfect image of the facility that we escaped from appeared hovering over the table, rotating slowly.
“Has it already been rebuilt?” I asked looking for my cell where I had spent so much time.
“It has and as far as the public is concerned, they begin producing power tomorrow. Here is the part that we are interested in; their communication network goes back online tomorrow morning with the power. Which means they haven’t backed up their computer system since the incident.”
Rachel nodded.
“Wasn’t everything destroyed?” Ronnie circled the table taking in every detail.
“The local computer core is far underground.” Sam zoomed into a room that was underground; the walls vanished showing a computer the size of an SUV.
“Why is the information so important?” I asked.
“There are hundreds of petabytes of information, that could lead us God knows where. We could help more like us.”
“We might be able to get some insight on what they had planned for you.” Ryder commented.
“Exactly right.” Sam said.
“What does it matter if we do it now or after the back up?”
“When they back up the computer, any and all data that is not in use for particular projects will be removed, and only available on the main database. To this day we do not know the location of the main database.”
“So what’s the plan then?” I asked.
“We will fly over the complex in the early morning before the sun is up. The five of you will jump from the plane, and land near the complex, and then you will get inside. Once inside you will make your way to the local central computer database.” He held up one of four thumb drives. "Once there, the system uses custom encoded keys, these thumb drives are wirelessly tethered to your phone so that when they are plugged in I can hack the system remotely to allow access.”
“Then what?”
He opened a small metal case, "Once we are allowed access we will do a back up onto this storage device. There are twenty petabytes worth of storage. It may not be enough, but we’ll get what we can.”
“What is the plan for exit?”
“Break out using any means; you should only find minimal resistance. Head north, there is a small helicopter tours business that went under years ago. There will be an evac waiting for you.”
“When do we head out?” Sandy finally spoke up from the back of the group.