Tunnel Rat

Chapter 247: Deeper Investigations

The trip down took Milo several hours. Shepherding two cargo haulers loaded with supplies was much slower than just running through the tunnels with several drones. The tunnel floors were rough, and even with a steep six percent grade, there was a lot of horizontal movement to get down to the level of the entrance to the strangely abandoned building. There were only two things Milo could find evidence of that would require the huge expense of a collapsium shell. One of those was a fusion generator. It was nearly impossible for a fusion generator to spin into an uncontrolled ongoing reaction on its own. But that didn't mean it couldn't happen. A collapsium shell around the reactor would contain the damage at the cost of everything within the collapsium shell.

The second type of construction was the outer layer of security for a quantum fortress that housed multiple quantum computers and, potentially, several A.I. Since the quantum computers required both a way to supercool their cores and significant power, a fusion generator was an ideal power source. An A.I. could handle the nearly impossible task of bringing the fusion reaction to a sustainable level and running the generator at peak efficiency. In their heyday, fusion power had provided a large fraction of the electrical power consumed by the world. The synergy between fusion power and quantum-powered A.I. was efficient and cheap. Decades later, only a few fusion generators were still in operation, operating at the low levels that were deemed safe with only non-sentient computers to monitor the reactions. The solar, wind, and fossil fuel industries made a significant comeback, and worldwide power became more expensive but more profitable for the people making the power.

As unbelievable as it sounded, Milo was certain that the strange facility had at one time housed an A.I. and still had a partially functioning fusion generator in operation. Why it was hidden beneath a Habitat, what was its purpose, and why was it abandoned were questions currently driving Milo crazy. But he was bringing the tools with him that should let him restore some power to one or two crucial areas and get some answers.

The cargo haulers were made by Caterpillar, one of the world's oldest equipment and mining corporations. Constantly updating the equipment they sold had produced many specialized vehicles. One of those was the CaveCrawler. Designed for use in underground tunnels, habitats, and any place with a lack of space and varied surface types. Milo had purchased a half dozen each of the two smallest sizes. The smallest could move through a 24" tunnel, and the next size larger fit in a 48" wide tunnel. Each was powered by long-lasting rechargeable hydrogen cells. Milo was directing the first one, and each of the others followed behind in wireless communication to the rest of the miniature train. Besides their main use of hauling cargo, each CaveCrawler could also use its hydrogen cells to provide electrical power for a variety of tools and attachments. Milo had a full load of tools, additional hydrogen cells, oxygen tanks, food, and a computer system of his own design, created for the express use of cracking open difficult systems.

With each trip taking hours, he'd brought everything he could possibly think of. The area outside of the building would become his base camp for exploration between chess games. The amount of power used to communicate with him, light the room, and play games was incredibly small. If he could add additional power to the system, he could extend communication with it and learn more about what he needed to do to fix whatever was broken. His years working on Section E and the rest of the Habitat prepared him for the task, and he was eager to get to work. And since he couldn't get started for hours, he worked on his other problem: Belinda.

With lots of time, he kept up with his auto-search system, which was slowly compiling information on Doctors Shepherd, Nihalia, and Silverstein. The information was disappointing, simply a rehash of the same things over and over with very little of the small details that a real person left in their wake. Like their offices at Manpower, their backgrounds were sterile. There were no records of clubs or pictures on social media of their time at the universities where they had earned degrees. Milo was sure these were manufactured identities, and he was appalled at how poor of a job someone had done. He'd done a better job inventing Milo Babbage.

He decided to use other resources to search for them. When he'd hacked Victor, he'd found many secrets within his computers. One of those was a backdoor into the Interpol database. Victor's organization had used it to keep track of other criminal organizations and prevent infiltration of his own. Now, Milo used it for something different. Interpol was a vast organization, but still overworked and overwhelmed by the job of vainly trying to police a world where corporations were swiftly overtaking regional governments as the world's powerbrokers. Crimes often hit dead ends and languished for years. From inside Victor's organization, he could see why. Agents and governments were bribed, evidence disappeared, and the complexities of dealing with corporate-backed criminals operating in several countries delayed cases until the original agents died or retired. The case would be tossed to a new agent, often placed at the bottom of a stack of other cases.

Milo had thought of a way to take advantage of this. Agent Sasha Landi was about to start her first day as an investigator, equipped with a new computer, a Masters' Degree in Criminal Science, and a Ph.D. in Informational Science. She was still fresh and unjaded, eager for her first case. Miles handed that to her as soon as she sat at her desk.

He'd found a cold case involving bio-terrorism from twenty years ago and reactivated it. To that, he added several other unsolved cases. What all of these cases had in common was that Miles knew how to solve them. The information was in Victor's files. One of the agents on that case, Paula Simms, had died recently of cancer shortly after retiring. Milo pulled together a file of pictures of doctors and researchers wanted for similar crimes and added the images of his three targets. Then he carefully half-solved the cases, connecting people with places, showing where income had suddenly spiked, travel dates, information from on-site agents, along with "guesses" by Agent Simms along with plans on how to continue the investigation by focusing on the medical personnel used to create the biological agents used in the crimes. He created a file of photographs and a request for a facial recognition search of the file of faces, with the theory the doctors involved were using false Identification and fake personas.

Armed with a cup of strong black tea and a determination to make the world better, Agent Landi turned on her computer and was immediately assigned to a huge number of linked investigations. Agent Simms had spent forty years in the department and was only recently gone, having worked to the end while suffering from cancer, only taking retirement when her body gave out. Landi was thrilled that someone thought she was up to the task of carrying on the work.

After finishing that task, Milo sent a message to Wally, confirming that Belinda's pod was not capable of doing scans and sending the correct data. He also mentioned her problems with her stepfather trying to borrow her gloves and the need to hide them with Min. He hesitated to say more and admit that he was breaking and entering into Manpower's offices and medical facility. There was a difference between what Wally knew and what he suspected. She put through the request for facial recognition searches and started digging into the the files. She hit pay-dirt nine hours later when she could identify the two doctors and a small drug cartel who had poisoned 47 people at a hotel in Sri Lanka that hadn't paid the blackmail the cartel demanded. She grabbed the printout and ran into her boss's office.

Her superior, Captain Delaque, was unamused to have his newest rookie investigator barge into his room while he was relaxing before going home for the evening. He'd been planning on playing poker with several other senior members of the department, a monthly get-together he was determined not to miss. That changed after five minutes of being forced to look at the details of a long-dead investigation. Only when Landi mentioned she'd been assigned unfinished work from Agent Simms he took her seriously. The rookie had gotten damned lucky. Most of the work had been done by Simms, but she'd put the last pieces of the puzzles together. In a few hours, two highly paid doctors in Brazil would have agents knocking at the door with swat teams coming through their window if he could organize people to help with the case—people he could trust not to tip them off.

"Ever play poker, Landi?"

"Yes, Captain, with my father and brothers. Every Sunday afternoon in college and high school."

The captain smiled. "Excellent. Grab your datapad and bring along that stack of printouts. You're playing poker all night with me and a few friends who are going to help us look at your cases and make life miserable for some doctors. I just authorized additional computer resources for your searches. Whoever is in those photos, we'll find out who they really are.