“Okay. Well, the Resistance has been operating almost since the day the Administrator took over. They were scientists, engineers, and technicians back then. Their descendants are still maintaining the fight, but educating each new generation has been spotty, so they've lost a lot as knowledge domain shrink. I've been helping with the gaps. In most cases think the Administrator even realizes it's been subverted.”
“What about real Crew? Do they use the trains?”
“A little bit. Most Crew is strictly local, used only for muscle when it's necessary to interact with the population. They know even less than the Resistance. On the other hand, they’re paid better.” Bender chuckled. “There are, of course, people who belong to both groups. I'm sure the administrator suspects this, which is why it keeps them in the dark as much as possible.”
“So is the Administrator a hereditary position, or is it a committee? How do they stay trained from one generation to the next?”
There was silence for several seconds. “Jesus, Bob, I thought you knew. The administrator isn’t a Quinlan. It's an artificial intelligence.”
Wh-wh… what the…?
I seemed to be getting a lot of metaphorical gut punches lately, and I quelled an urge to stand up and scream invective into the air. Suddenly the Skippies had a motive.
“Bender, I have to phone Bill back in a few.” Without waiting for a response, I composed the text. It would be easier to just lay it out and let Bill absorb that before responding. I fired off the message.
“Sorry about that. This is kind of important news. I had to let Bill know.”
“Wait. When will he get the message? Is he in the system?”
I laughed. “Instantaneous FTL communication, buddy. One of many things you'll have to get used to.”
“Wow. That sure puts a different spin on the universe.”
At that moment I got a response from Bill.
“Explains a lot. Altering strategies as appropriate.”
So, I could probably get Bender back to our entrance location. I could probably do it without alerting Hugh. This was good. On the other hand, Hugh… oh SHIT.
“Guppy, has Hugh interacted with the equipment in any way?”
“Hugh has given instructions for construction and deployment of stealth drones.”
“No other interactions?”
“None.”
Well that was good. “Guppy, monitor all communications with Hugh, disallow control of local maintenance or infrastructure systems, especially roamers. Confirm all orders from him with me before implementing.”
“Acknowledged.”
If Hugh had already subverted Guppy in some way, I was probably hooped, but I couldn't see how he could alter firmware without some board swapping and a full system restart. So for the moment, I would continue to act as if I was in control. And there would be an audit in my future. And I couldn’t just stop interacting with Hugh, he was in charge of the local observation drones and was the only other Bob who was in a position to run one of the Quinlan Mannies. I would just have to be careful about what I asked of him.
“Bob, you still there?”
Oh. I'll guess I’d gone radio silent for a few moments.
“Sorry, Bender. I just got a response from Bill and now things are way more complicated. Not your problem though, right now. Do you know how to get to the train station?”
“Nope, sorry. I do know there's one in this complex though.”
“In the complex? So I could've skipped Helep’s Ending entirely?” Well, it made sense. Although I wasn't sure what destination I would've asked for. In any case, I wasn't going to just grab the Bender and start running around at random. I guess I'd have to let the spiders finished mapping.
Six hours later, and there wasn't anything even vaguely resembling a transit station. “Ideas, Bender?”
“Sorry, Bob. I was offline when they brought me in. It could be any number of levels down-”
“Aw hell,” I said, interrupting Bender. “I forgot about the elevator!”
“I guess you took the stairs, or you wouldn't be here.”
I frowned. “How so?”
“Cameras on the elevators. The people on site will know the moment an elevator is in use.”
“Can they override the elevators?”
“No, but they'll be alerted and will be waiting when the doors open.”
“Great. So, stairs all the way. Bender, I don't like this. I'm going to have to spend a god-awful amount of time just looking around to find our escape route with all the risk of being seen.”
“I got nothing Bob, sorry.”
“Okay. Do you have any more info on the trains, how often they run, whether calling one will alert the Resistance, stuff like that?”
Bender sighed. “Sorry, Bob, no info. I'm not trying to be difficult. Like I said, I was offline.”
Going with my theory that Quinlans and humans designed things generally the same, I went all the way to the bottom level first. Nope. Turned out, that's where they kept all the pipes and valves and conduits, which it occurred to me was probably the same as with human construction. Derp.
The next level up was a hit though. A single long antiseptic hallway, very similar to the transit station near Helep’s Ending, led to the boarding area with its 10 doors. In this boarding area though, there was a prominent button attached to the wall, clearly jury rigged with wires leading into a hole. That had probably been added by the Resistance and probably bypass the card readers, perhaps to allow people without cards to use the train.
Ideally, I should press the button now and have a train ready when I came back down with Bender, but did it alert to the people upstairs when pressed? If so, I'd never get anywhere near Bender's location. Like it or not, I was going to have to commit to a strategy based on nothing but gut feelings. I couldn't risk trying the call button now. I would have to take my chances and get back here with Bender before testing the system. Now, could I get Bender's matrix from his room to here without anyone noticing.
I headed back to Bender's room, making sure to check for any Quinlans
