RTS System in the Apocalypse: New World

Tyrus stood beside a large enclosed workstation near the center of the room. Kordula occupied the control panel on its opposite side.

Neither looked toward Hans.

”Pressure is stable,” Kordula said.

”It moved again.”

”By point two percent.”

”Which means it moved.”

”It means the system hasn’t operated normally in months.”

Tyrus leaned closer to the display.

”That is not an excuse for unstable containment.”

”It isn’t unstable.”

”It’s about to be if you continue ignoring that flag.”

Tyrus finally looked at her.

”And that attitude is why engineers require scientists to check their work.”

Kordula opened her mouth.

Hans approached with a subtle smile.

”It looks like the laboratories are now in operational order.”

”Commander,” Kordula and Tyrus spoke at the same time.

Hans looked between them.

The Engineer who escorted him had already disappeared back into the corridor.

Smart man.

Hans turned toward the surrounding facility again.

”Now I understand why you’ve been complaining about the Colony.”

Tyrus looked almost offended.

”Commander, comparing that place to this laboratory is insulting to both of us.”

”Oh please. That is only insulting to you.”

”Especially me.”

Kordula snorted. ”Much more to his liking. I could hear him bitching a lot a few days ago.”

”I have standards.”

”You have a personality disorder.”

Hans stopped beside the workstation they had been arguing over.

Several diagnostic windows remained open across its display. Most meant nothing to him, though this was clearly more than an old computer receiving temporary power.

Tyrus had already connected several instruments brought from Ironford, and two Engineers worked farther across the room where the restored laboratory systems met equipment that definitely had not belonged here before the apocalypse.

”How much of this can you actually use?”

Tyrus’s attention returned to the workstation.

”At the moment? Enough to make the Colony laboratory come to life and feel embarrassed.”

He moved through several screens.

”If I had access to this level of equipment before, perhaps my record would contain considerably more Tier Ones.”

Hans glanced around again. That statement sounded much less ridiculous inside this place.

Kordula leaned against the side of the console.

”Most of the shared support systems in this section are functional on the temporary station-service feed. Independent environmental control, containment monitoring, sample preservation, sterilization, and several diagnostic systems have passed inspection. Some require recalibration.”

”Some of them?”

”Most of them,” Tyrus corrected.

Kordula looked at him. ”The systems are working.”

”The systems turn on. Those are different statements.”

”They passed the preliminary diagnostics.”

”Which were written for their original calibration. Have you ever engineered one of your robots and simply assumed the first calibration was perfect?”

Hans raised one hand.

”Then calibrate them as necessary. I don’t want to save your asses after someone assumed something was working correctly.”

Tyrus smiled.

”See? Even the Commander understands.”

Hans ignored him. ”How long will this calibration take?”

Tyrus looked across the workstation again.

”It will take a while. I can’t give you specifics. Laboratory calibration isn’t homework with an absolute deadline.”

”Three days,” Kordula said.

Tyrus turned toward her.

”Three if nothing else starts drifting.”

”Nothing else is drifting around here.”

”Something moved point two percent five minutes ago.”

”It is still inside the allowable tolerance.”

”Your tolerance. Measurements become outdated.”

”That was the manufacturer’s tolerance, and you call that outdated?!”

”The manufacturer wasn’t dealing with alien psychic bullshit, now were they?”

Kordula paused.

”...That’s fair.”

Tyrus noticed it, though he had enough self-preservation not to comment.

”Three days,” Hans said. ”If something takes longer, it takes longer.”

”See how merciful the Commander is? If it was anyone else, I would’ve died.”

”Don’t make me do it.”

Hans gave him a side glance before moving farther into the laboratory.

The first room was apparently only part of the shared section.

Beyond it, the corridor separated again.

One sealed door carried another HELIX designation. Its indicator remained red, while transparent observation panels farther along showed darkened rooms containing equipment Hans could barely distinguish without the lights.

Another section remained completely hidden behind an isolation barrier.

”And the rest?”

”Still being checked,” Kordula answered. ”Some sections were isolated independently when ASS-116 initiated containment. Opening one doesn’t automatically make the next one safe.”

”That shouldn’t be the only bottleneck.”

Kordula gave him a look.

”Each door has several layers of verification and security protocol. Unless we can revive the real nerd who designed half of this, your Engineers have to approach them one layer at a time.”

”Your clearance still hasn’t been restored?”

He raised a brow.

”Restored?” Kordula snorted. ”The only people who could issue me a new supervisory credential are either dead or unreachable. The emergency authority got the kill-switch accepted. It doesn’t magically give me my old clearance back.”

”Interesting. Another protocol from your program?”

”As annoying as it is, yes. DAEDALUS engineers had to assume somebody with authority could eventually become the problem.”

Kordula tapped the side of the workstation.

”Once an automated security system decides a supervisory credential may be compromised, it doesn’t simply lock one account. The authentication chain tied to that credential gets invalidated across the security network.”

Hans glanced toward the sealed sections.

”Everything associated with it, huh?”

”Restricted areas, security controls, automated weapons. Anything using the same supervisory authority learns not to trust it.”

”So you can’t simply remove yourself from the blacklist.”

Kordula stared at him.

”That would make the entire system fucking useless.”

Hans chuckled to that reply.

”Think about it. Somebody steals an Overseer’s credentials, compromises their terminal, or forces them to authorize something they shouldn’t. If that same clearance can reverse its own revocation afterward, you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing.”

”That’s a valid edge case.”

”Restoring access requires a fresh credential chain issued above the authority that got revoked. New identity verification, new keys, synchronization across the security network. The whole irritating process.”

”And those people are gone.”

”Exactly.”

Kordula leaned against the workstation.

”The emergency failsafe is separate. It had to be. If command collapsed badly enough, or the active security system stopped accepting ordinary supervisory commands, there still needed to be a way to terminate it.”

She pointed toward herself.

”That’s why the termination drive still recognized my registered failsafe authority after ASS-116 revoked everything else.”

That explained enough.

Hans looked toward the sealed HELIX corridor.

He had no reason to rush through doors that had remained sealed for months merely because the first six rooms happened to be clean.

Tyrus followed him toward another workstation.

”This section is already enough for most of what I need.”

Hans looked at him.

”And then you’ll suddenly cry like a baby asking for more.”

”I prefer the term request additional research capacity.”

”Of course you do. You’re very technical about your terms.”

The scientist’s expression had changed considerably since Hans entered. The insults remained, but the dissatisfaction he carried every time he complained about the Colony laboratory was gone.

For the first time in months, Tyrus looked like somebody had finally given him the correct tools.

”What does this change?”

Tyrus stopped beside the workstation.

”My current research?”

”Unless you’ve started another secret project while I wasn’t looking.”

”I would hardly call it secret if I intended to tell you in the future.”

Tyrus brought up several files from the equipment he transferred from Ironford.

Hans recognized the format.

Exposure duration.

Distance.

Observed reactions.

Kimmy, Yunera, Johannes, Evelyn, Marcus, and Tyrus himself occupied several of the entries.

”The exposure trials were paused by me. If not for Ms. Defective here, I would’ve carried two jobs at once.”

Kordula ignored him.

”I wasn’t going to let them continue without my supervision. We already established repeatability around the Broodmother site and the larger fragment. Repeating the same procedure while I was busy here would only give me more of the same data.”

Hans remembered his complaint from Ironford.

Tyrus could vary distance and exposure time. He could record symptoms, compare how different HELIX enhancements reacted, and establish that something repeatable was happening.

The problem was that he still could not properly measure the thing causing it.

”So this fixes that?”

Tyrus hesitated.

”No.”

Hans raised a brow.

Kordula smiled faintly.

”He learned.”

”Shut up.”

Tyrus enlarged one of the diagnostic interfaces.

”This gives me a better chance of fixing it. This laboratory was built to monitor biological changes far beyond anything the Colony equipment was expected to handle.”

His finger moved across several readings.

”HELIX dealt with subjects whose physiology could change beyond ordinary medical ranges. Neural activity, metabolic response, cellular rejection, enhancement expression, recovery, instability. The equipment had to keep watching when an ordinary hospital would’ve already classified the patient as impossible.”

That, Hans understood.

Tyrus looked toward the deeper HELIX section.

”I still need to determine which systems survived and what they can measure accurately. But this place gives me considerably more than symptoms and somebody telling me their headache became worse.”

”And the psychic field itself?”

”Different problem.”

Kordula looked toward the display.

”Assuming the signal is something these systems can detect at all.”

Tyrus nodded.

”There are other instruments made for that kind of work, but I don’t need them yet.”

Hans’s attention sharpened.

”You know where?”

”I know they existed.”

”That’s becoming a very concerning answer whenever it comes from you.”

Tyrus remained focused on the display.

”Commander, I am studying what the field does to HELIX subjects. That is a biological problem.”

He tapped one of the exposure records.

”If I reach the point where I need to know what carries the signal itself, then I worry about finding the people who built equipment for that.”

Hans shook his head.

”Your Shearman Network is becoming more concerning every time you open your mouth. Perhaps you people never needed search engines.”

Tyrus smiled faintly.

”Information has always been available, Commander.”

”To people with too much money.”

”That certainly helps. Why withhold information if you can use it to buy your own wants and needs?”

Kordula looked between them but said nothing.

Hans caught the reaction. He decided not to pull on that thread yet.

There were already enough sealed doors around him.