Reception

Chapter 26 - Root Access

The five of them sat around the same table as before, only this time Richfield wasn't there to accompany them. It was mostly quiet aside from the occasional squeak of an office chair as someone adjusted themselves. The Operator at the front of the room moved her fingers through the holographic display with ease, quickly finding what she was looking for.

"Allow me to explain the parameters for this operation," she began, double tapping the small box-like icon on the holo-display with her finger. The window blew up to triple its size, the contents now easily visible to everyone. "As you can see, these are surveillance photos taken recently of the storage facility you five are attacking." The images drifted slowly in continuous animation around the table to each new Holos member, hovering slightly above them before it moved on.

Once everyone had a chance to see them the Operator moved on, flicking some of her red hair back behind her shoulder, "The only difficulty my team has encountered is your exit route. Entering the compound is easy enough."

"Wait," began Damien, puzzled, "it's easy to get in? But not out? Why?"

She inhaled sharply, and with waning patience the Operator responded, "Allow me to explain, Coordinator." She moved closer to him, obviously trying to mask her frustration.

Damien held up his hand, "I apologize if I've made you angry, Ms.-?"

"Hales. Operator Hales, Coordinator."

"Hales," he corrected, "Are you feeling alright?"

"Honestly, Coordinator, my team has been up for four days solid going over this information." It was easy to see the exhaustion.

"You can barely keep your eyes open, MO Hales. You and your team go take a break, we'll piece together what to do from here." Damien knew she couldn't refuse his order, but it didn't much look like she wanted to, anyway. With a humble nod Hales saluted Damien and the group and she left the room.

"That was awfully nice of you," commented Michael. Damien grinned, "There's just one problem."

"Oh?"

Sarah picked up, "Piece it together?"

Damien shrugged. He stood up, walked over to the holo-display's spheric interface. With less confidence than he intended he spoke, "How hard could it be?"

*****

The five mulled over photos and information for the course of a few hours. Their evening meal was brought to them directly to allow them to keep at their work.

Between bites Joshua pointed to a 3D-imaged map that floated in front of them, "We're entering through the main gate, right? With fake IDs and such?"

"Yes?" confirmed Sarah hesitantly, using her fingers to lace back her rebellious blonde locks.

"Well," Joshua said, swallowing a bite, "why not go out this service exit at the back? Use the same IDs?"

Michael sighed, annoyed, "Because the moment we use the IDs at the front the system will do redundancy checks on them and they can't be used after that."

"Why?"

Michael rolled his electric emerald eyes, "Normally a check like that takes, what, five minutes? After that the system clears the ID and it can be used to exit the compound at other check points. When our IDs get checked, the system will make several attempts to clear the ID information and will, ultimately, fail. While those checks happen our IDs are put on a temporary suspension, making leaving impossible. We'd just draw unnecessary attention to ourselves if we tried to leave like that."

Joshua nodded, "Ah."

Michael's explanation over, Sarah spoke, "I think we might be able to get around that."

"Really?" Damien was instantly curious.

She nodded and pulled a few blonde streaks back from her face, "It might be possible to delay the suspension of the IDs for a while and keep them usable."

"Then let's do that!" Alice said happily.

Sarah held up a finger and wagged it back and forth, "There's no way to stop from being caught or setting off the alarms."

"Oh, I see where you're going with this," Michael said, thinking to himself, eyes lowered.

"Want to clue those of us in who aren't geniuses?" smiled Joshua, head in hand on the table.

Sarah smiled apologetically, "Yes. Like Michael explained, the system will do checks and keep attempting until it can confirm the IDs are real, yes? All we would have to do is put a digital stop-gap between the system's repeated checks."

"So, that sounds like it will work, what's the problem?" Alice questioned, still not following.

"The problem," Sarah began gently, "is that there's a big-brother system in place that checks the smaller system. Once it does its sweep the ID system of checks will reset and there won't be time to insert another stop-gap measure. The alarms will go off and everyone will be in lock-down."

"How much time will this digital stop-gap or whatever give us?" Joshua questioned, his eyes fixated on Sarah.

Sarah gave one thoughtful pause, her eyes to the ceiling, "Well, if everything goes perfectly, add an additional twenty minutes, maybe more?"

"How much 'maybe more'?" Damien stood, moving to the head of the table.

"if it gets inserted perfectly, and right after the normal sweep of the higher system, I could imagine a total of fifty minutes."

Michael whistled, "A whole hour, huh?"

Sarah nodded, her blonde bangs attacking her face. This made Michael chuckle a little.

Damien nodded, peering fiercely at the holo-display. "Fifty minutes on top of the previously estimated thirty. A little under an hour and a half."

"This seems totally doable now," commented Joshua, taking a long draw of water from a medium-sized glass.

"Then let's get to it," said Damien, pressing the digital switch that turned off the holo-display. "We've only got one shot at this."

"We're behind you, Coordinator," said Alice, standing to salute him, left hand balled up in a fist over her right shoulder.

Everyone followed suite, each standing and saluting.

"Begin Operation Truth," commanded Damien, returning his Taskers' salutes.