(Battletech/Doctor Who) Operation: Revival

Tainted Heritage - 7

Moseby Street HPG Centre
Civilian District
Unity City
North America
Terra
21st March, 3052

The empty HPG station was lit only by the dull glow of transmission systems on stand-by. The faint hum of equipment lent the station a sense of occupancy despite it being eight minutes to midnight. The Adept in charge of the station had left over four hours ago, closing down the primary power systems and locking the doors behind him.

Without warning one of the consoles that controlled the power systems hummed to life and monitoring systems glowed brightly with energy. The dish calibration console was the next to spring to life, followed a few seconds later by the main transmission station.

Deep within the core processing units of the HPG system a program sprang to life. It was foreign to the usual make-up of HPG software, some might describe it as alien, but it quickly began communicating with the main hyper-pulse generation routines. Within a few nanoseconds it had exerted its control and taken over all the primary processes of the station.

It quickly began sending out orders; set the dish to this alignment, began the primary receiving routines. Then something very different happened.

The little alien program suddenly grew. It quickly outgrew the bounds of the HPG station and expanded through the local commercial net. It tapped into generators and processors from all over the district, drawing power into the station. Several blocks when completely dark as the program redirected all the power it could find to the HPG station. When its job was done it then retreated to the relative safety of the station terminal where it had sat and paused.

Minutes passed and then a system ping indicated that the time for waiting was over. With a few commands the program overrode the security protocols, message scanning and data restrictions allowing the inbound digital signature to be received. An arc of raw of power shot forth from the main console and hit the floor of the room. Gradually a shape formed within the stream of energy and within a minute the shape had coalesced into the form of a person, hunched over on the floor.

The arc of power stopped as suddenly as it had begun and the consoles began to fall quiet and lifeless. The program, its job done, slowly started to dismantle itself. On the main console screen command lines were being deleted until all that remained was a single question mark, then that too disappeared.

The figure on the floor slowly stood up and looked around. The woman had shoulder length black hair, tied back in a pony tail. She wore tight fitting black t-shirt and pants and carried a small backpack. She smiled at her surroundings then quickly set off out of the room.