Fiction for the upcoming release: Data Center
Jan 3, 2020 10:23:15 GMT -9
squirmydad, emergencyoverride, and 1 more like this
Post by glennwilliams on Jan 3, 2020 10:23:15 GMT -9
Simple, got it?
The mission briefing had begun as they always did with the intel officer’s condescending summary, “Your objective is simple: infiltrate the data center at Pontic headquarters, insert the virus, leave. Without, I repeat, without alerting the security teams. Simple: get in, do it, get out. All without being seen. Do you think you can do that, corporal, I’m sorry, Field Corporal? It is absolutely imperative the company not know this was a military operation, got it?”
Field Corporal Eve de la Vega gave the right answer: “yes sir,” no matter how stupid, annoying, or insulting the officer had been.
Simple, riiiight. Too bad no one told her there was an opfor team with the same objective. She’d spotted their opposite number when a guard shack exploded, lighting up the cloudy night sky. Now it was a race. Eve assumed the enemy was trying to retrieve the very data she was trying to erase. She bit her lip to prevent her profanity from flooding the team net. If this mission went bust, her career path was a steep downward line, from field sergeant last mission, to field corporal now, and field private tomorrow. Tomorrow there’d be a one woman pity party at the enlisted club with enough booze to erase the image of her career like that guard shack being blown ten meters in the air.
Still, their opponents provided a welcome distraction: while the corporate security teams raced to engage a sudden enemy, her team actually did infiltrate the data center’s bunker like building. Private Bodea had easily hacked through the locked doors’ firewalls. Domorov and Taiji had cleared the hallways and rooms, as Eve had given the weapons free order. Any casualties on the corporate side would be attributed to their enemy.
The last door opened, Eve signaled her team to spread out through the rows of server farms and quietly slip toward the data center console at the far end of the room. She stopped, awe-struck by the sheer beauty of the data center console. Three tall crystalline quantum computing towers glowed, and her feet could feel the almost living throb.
“Wow, boss, lookit those tiny flashes of light in them crystals. It almost looks like a city in there. See the little streets of light? The flashes are cars and trucks.”
“Stow it. Eyes on the mission.”
Foolishly, Eve let herself think victory was at hand.
“Central, de la Vega reporting. We’re in and it looks like we beat the bad–“
A flash from inside the crystals swept across the room. They began to melt. This, she thought, was very bad.
It was Bodea who broke her dour mood. “Boss, I can insert the virus in the server banks. Every other bank is a data processing unit. Stand guard and let the genius work.”
He slapped an interface puck on the side of a processing bank and tapped the center button. Little lights flashed around the puck’s rim for seconds, then stopped, flashed, and went out.
“Done. Pontic will think the other guys did it, boss.”
Minutes later the team had extracted themselves and were prone outside the facility’s perimeter fence. Eve scanned the distant ongoing firefight between their opponents and Pontic security. No matter how well-trained or equipped, the civs would be no match for a trained spec ops team. Skill would beat enthusiasm every time. Then she had her brilliant idea.
“Follow me!” She quickly sprinted low around the fence, then dove behind a small berm near the entrance gate and burning shack.
“Wait for it, wait for it, now! Light ‘em up!”
The three opfor operators never had a chance. Focused on disengaging from an enemy to their rear, surprise from the front ended their mission in failure. Quickly she crawled to the bodies and identified their hacker. In a small belt pouch she found the data chip and crushed it between her fingers.
“Get in, do it, get out.” Yeah, she’d done it. Maybe, just maybe, this would be points toward promotion back to Field Sergeant. In the reflection of their ride’s landing lights, somehow, she didn’t think so, somehow, the presence of an enemy team would be her fault.