The Rise of the Cyborgs

Chapter 32/Big Plans

I managed to leave the small girl with some other and she had kissed me on the cheek in thanks as I left. It took me a little under 20 minutes to reach Brooklyn and the others.

When I arrived Brooklyn was still in his wheelchair. He had taken one of the swat guns and managed to bypass the authorised user code. Now he could use it. Brooklyn and Collin were in a corridor blocked off by some old metal filing cabinets. Valerie was there being looked after by Zoe. Hannah

I rolled my eyes as I approached "guns. I hope that makes you feel good."

"yeah good to see you too," Brooklyn said slightly defensively.

"The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." I quoted from Sun Tzu's, art of war.

"You read the Art of War?" Brooklyn said raising an eyebrow.

"and you clearly haven't. What are you looking at me like that for? I had a spare few microseconds." I said hugging him.

Hannah looked over "We still have to get these people out, destroy the truck, get everyone out and then escape the scene. I don't know how good you're bayesian and inferencing is working but I've got a success probability of less than 12%."

I looked around the room. People were cut and scratched.

"Slight change of plan," I said "we aren't going to blow up the truck. We aren't going to help everybody escape but we are going to escape the scene."

Valerie looked to me "I don't know where you been girl. But I didn't just spend two days puking my guts out to give up and run-off."

I smiled "oh I'm not giving up. Brooklyn, what's the most likely thing they will do after the truck is wrecked?"

"Eerr round the kids up and send in the new one, or fix this depending on how badly we damage it." he admitted. 

I tilted my head, "So we can't totally stop the kids being irradiated."

"But we can delay it. Or are you're saying we should give up?" Coilin said. He was standing behind the doorway looking out while trying not to be shot up. Whatever the virus did to him it was giving him enough control to stand and walk or stumble around. His body was thin an awkward but it was easy to see the joy in the way he was standing again.

"The greatest victory is that which requires no battle," I said.

"Enough with the Art of War quotes." Brooklyn said to me "are you just suggesting we run off after starting all this? Leave them to it?"

"You probably said that because you think there's a great deal of logic to it. Which there is" I began silently "we can't stop it. Even if we had the video it might take ages. Do you know about move 37? No okay, I'll tell you about that later. We're going to let them irradiate the kids. You know why? You know there was this mental institution once, I watched a program about it. The used to do E.C.T whether put electrodes either side of your head and electrocute you. The used to think it was a cure for various forms of madness. So they get this new E.C.T. box. It's new because the causes the patients to suffer less pain and convulsions. Two years after using this box successfully a new Doctor transfers from another mental hospital. He says 'hang on is that working' and They say 'sure it is but it's a new box we got two years ago and it doesn't cause as much pain or convulsions' . So the new doctor says 'we had one in the hospital, well it's less painful it certainly a lot more painful than that'. So they check. Turns out the new E.C.T box wasn't working. An electrical connection was broken. It never delivered the voltage it should have done just a mild tingle. They had been just doing the ritual for the last two years. Weird part was that the 'cures' still happened."

"The Placebo effect," Brooklyn said. 

Zoe understood what I said first.

"You mean we break the box but in a way so they can't notice. Brilliant."

"Then" I continued "we let them think they've irradiated everybody here. The Same in every other place they use it. They won't know it's broken for a few years. IF they think they have won they won't do anything else. All we have to do is breakout and make sure the other trucks aren't working either."

"You want to make not working industry-standard?" Brooklyn said.

"In many ways it already is" I said silently, turning to Zoe. "Zoe do you think you could distract whoever is guarding the truck right now long enough for me to get in"

"It's done," Zoe said.

"We need a distraction. We have to pull people away from the truck away for about thirty minutes. " I asked.

"Well because you didn't use an Art of War quote, Hannah and I can do it," Lee said.

"Why us?" said Hannah.

"My vision, your sense of style." Lee said and they moved off.

"There are some police. We need to keep them pinned down." Brooklyn said.

"Three teams. Hannah and Lee diversion 1. Brooklyn and Collin pin the police down get the kids in ward 5 out of reach of the gas. Stay close to the exit, for a quick  withdrawl. Zoe and I will disable the truck, pull out when we do it.

I could see that Valerie was loving this "bored yet?" I asked her silently. 

"Life is finally up to my levels of interestingness," Valerie promised me silently. 

"Valerie, Can you improvise some kind of escape plan?" I said "I've ordered three Taxis. Three different locations. That gives everyone three different escape routes if one goes down. I'll send the locations to you. You need to get us out of here. "

Ordering a number of Ubrs had been simple. I had done it well still connected to the Internet. Valerie with ADHD should be good in a stressful situation like this. Valerie would be at her most creative.

I turned to Brooklyn and Colin. "We need to keep them here. Get the fires out and get the kids to safety. Can you do that?"

Brooklyn nodded. Now that we did have to save everybody it was a much easier job. The whole thing had taken in the order of a tenth of a second. There was a sense of confidence about everyone. Nothing moves like an idea whose time has come.  Not having a mass escape and  not destroying a truck made everything much simpler. A wave of confidence spread over us. People began saying what a good plan breaking the truck was. It was a big win not for institution 71 but everyone.

Valerie looked 'I'm going to the laundry room. See you at the truck' she silently said back and left.