Chương 17: Chapter 258: Hello Children.

Wally pondered the new information he had gained, taking his time and searching for ties to other data. He didn't need the time but wanted to talk to Steven, and it was Sunday. Samantha had declared Sunday morning off-limits, promising to 'unplug' Wally if he stole her husband from her before noon. Wally was smart enough not to test that statement and didn't contact either of them until noon on Sundays.

Breakfast had just finished when Steven's phone turned on, showing a door on the screen and emitting three 'knocks.'

"Good morning, Wally; what can I help you with?"

"It is indeed a good morning, Steven. May I ask that you and Samantha bring along your coffee and come to my secure briefing room? I have a small revelation that I think the two of you will enjoy seeing." The phone line went dead, which was very odd behavior for Wally. So was insisting on the secure briefing room. Their entire building was one of the safest places in the country. The secure briefing room was rarely used. Steven corrected that thought. It used to be seldom used.

Since Milo had entered their lives, it was getting used increasingly. Samantha refilled their mugs, then filled a portable pot and grabbed a pan of freshly baked cinnamon rolls.

"I'm taking supplies. The last time we used that room, we missed a meal and ran out of coffee. I thought Sydney was going to explode."

"Good thinking." Ten minutes later, they had walked the two hundred feet to the room, notified security of the need for two guards to be posted outside, and ran a complete check for listening devices. Wally appeared on the screen, looking happy and pleased.

"Thank you for coming. I had some very interesting things happen last night. Firstly, for the 57th time, someone tried to break through the security that I oversee on Claw Master. And while that number might seem low, I'm only counting attempts that would be successful against 90% of corporate security systems. Less than that is inconsequential. These were fifty-seven serious attempts by master hackers with advanced hardware and software."

"How many of them have you identified?"

"Nearly all of them. The normal groups working for Alchemarx and ACME that they 'know nothing about' and who operate from countries where I can't prosecute them or even report a crime. Five were independent operators out for a big score. Three of those have been apprehended since they have warrants out for their arrests. Two are going to jail. The other has been grounded for two weeks by his parents. He's only fifteen. I'm talking to them about getting him into a school that will challenge him appropriately.

However, thirty-four of the attempts were made by the same person, and they were the ones who finally got all the way through the system and into the secure Claw Master files."

"What?! How?" Wally put up some elaborate schematics on two screens resembling mazes and traps.

"I made the security as tough as possible and increased the difficulty as they got further. I almost identified them fourteen times, but in all of those cases, they detected me, broke contact and burned the connections. And when I say 'burned,' I don't exaggerate. This person didn't hesitate to abandon their locations and destroy the buildings to cover their tracks temporarily. Very thorough and very paranoid people.

They have escape routes mapped that avoid any surveillance systems, or the cameras on that route are disabled already. Very paranoid and thorough people. I'm certain they've never been caught, and have no records." Samantha was looking at the pictures of four destroyed buildings.

"Those were dropped with professional demolitions. Did they kill anyone? Squatters? Residents? All of those places are in impoverished ghettos or abandoned urban areas." Wally shook his head.

"Not one fatality or injury to anyone else. Chain link fences and barbed wire surrounded the buildings, and every window and door was sealed with bricks or cement, backed by steel plates. The locals said they'd been that way for years. They escaped through tunnels that led to sewers or rail lines on all four occasions. Frankly, if anyone else but me did the investigations, no one would link them together. But knowing the exact time of the thwarted attempts where I got too close, I was able to find the pattern.

And tonight makes the fifth. However, tonight was different. Our attacker made it into the Claw Master systems with their last attempt using a string of connected devices. They waited a day, and returned without using auxiliary connections. They risked using a VR pod to do their hacking, giving them a much higher chance of not being noticed."

"But you noticed."

"Of course I noticed. I deliberately left that opening and put some huge files with juicy-sounding names where they could be found. While our thief was stealing a file titled 'Powered Assault Armor,' I managed to retrace their steps and get into their systems. They have very good security, but a video screen was open to the data net with children watching StimpyRen. Here, let me show you." One screen showed what Wally had observed.

Two boys and a girl, roughly twelve years old, sat on pillows on the floor, dressed in superhero pajamas. Each had a huge bowl of breakfast cereal that dropped to the floor and spilled as they saw Wally. An alarm sounded, and they turned and ran to another room, and a few seconds later, the connection died." Samantha was not happy.

"You scared some kids, and their parents destroyed the building? Or is there something I'm missing?" Wally nodded.

"They did indeed panic. I took the opportunity to try and talk because I only had seconds until I was discovered anyway. I traced the signal back, but found nothing at all except the programs used to by the hacker. Familiar programs. But here is what I noticed: All three knew I wasn't a video. My image acted normally, and they tracked my eye movements. They had no hesitation, and what looked like panic was simply a reasonable response to my invasion by people who already knew it was possible.

Next, please look at their necks as they turn to run." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The video played again, slowly, and zoomed in on each of the children.

"Notice how each of them has a surgically implanted socket at the base of their skull. Based on the movement of the cloth, they have two more along their spine. The girl is wearing a set of Claw Master gloves. A fourth child rushes from off-screen, just barely visible, with a cable leading from his data pad to his neck. Remind you of anyone?" The two humans were silent. Eventually, Samantha said.

"Milo's family, you found four of them. My god, they look as young as he does. Maybe younger! He isn't a mutation or random experiment; all four are like him."

"Five, actually," Wally said.

"Remember, our hacker is one as well. Based on my studies and what Milo has told me, we've just met Zander, Bork, Algernon, Nina and Onyx. And like Milo, they seem to like video games; several hundred cartridges are in that pile. I also see fuzzy slippers, more pairs of our gloves, several computer stations, four microwaves, and a dozen board games. This is consistent with the debris from other places they have fled." Steven was amazed and horrified at the prospect of five Milos working together.

"So, what do we do now? Are you going to tell Milo? Wally put his hands together, and all the screens but the one showing his face went blank.

"Let me be very clear about something: These are only wild assumptions made with a lack of data. They border on the preposterous. These may be normal children or children with modifications, but not Milo's relatives. I saw no adults in the brief time I observed them. Claw Master is not reporting a crime because I use the attempts to breach my security as a learning exercise. They are helping me. The file they stole has the words of the book Starship Troopers repeated one million times and nothing more.

If I thought like a human, I would come to crazed conclusions. As an A. I. responsible for reporting crimes and investigating the theft of Syllabary funds, I have nothing to report. I am starting an internal file that deals with finding and protecting five lost children who are victims of illegal medical modifications and possible genetic tampering. And that is all. What you do is up to you and your human ways of handling things." He looked at the clock on the wall.

"Goodness, is it that late?! I have to make sure the trains are running on time." He winked at them and disappeared. Samantha poured coffee and took a pastry.

"Eat up; we need to discuss some things. I think your big buddy is doing his best not to cause a huge panic until he knows more and has dumped part of it into our laps." Steven was thinking but reached for food.

"He can't take this seriously and can't draw certain conclusions, or he has to report it. That will cause a panic. Imagine corporations, banks, and governments finding out they are vulnerable to five twelve-year-olds?" His wife shook her head.

"But they won't see it that way. They'll panic and want control. If they are as old as Milo, then they count as adults and they'll be criminals. Mutant genetic monstrosity criminals, nearly as bad as rogue A. I. And it won't be five, it will be six. All it would take is someone in authority asking Wally how many of these creatures he knows about." He nodded; that was all true.

"We have to be careful what we tell Milo. Very careful. He'll go looking for them and might trigger exactly the scenario we want to avoid. There would be a thousand people running all over that habitat looking for him. He can't leave and wouldn't have anywhere to hide."

"I'm hoping that's what his brothers and sisters do: Hide. After a close call with Wally, I'm hoping they get scared and lie low while we look for solutions." Onyx was flying the plane. He loved to fly. Technically, the plane was being flown by their pilot, Otto, but Otto was very content to take a nap in the back of the plane when Onyx wanted to take over. Otto had worked for Rhebus since they'd first opened their biotech research facility.

Otto's son, Jacques, had been suffering from an incurable genetic disease that caused his immune system to deteriorate. The death rate was 98% by age 10. Rhebus had solved the problem, and little Jacques, with less than two months to live, had been the first beneficiary. Rhebus made headlines by making the treatment open source, and Otto had been recruited as one of the few employees who knew some of the truth about them.

He was loyal to a fault, and Jacques had children of his own now, all cured of the same ailment by Rhebus, free of charge. Bork was typing away furiously. He'd been in a state of deep concentration for an hour when he suddenly looked up, and shut the laptop.

"I need more power. I can't crack things open without more computing resources. I need something like what we have at Rhebus." Nina literally hissed at him, a habit she had picked up in the game and decided to keep.

"You are not hacking anything from Rhebus!" Bork held up both hands in surrender.

"I said 'like what we have at Rhebus'. I'd never do anything that might compromise our main research facility. Rhebus is too important." They all looked at him.

"Ok, maybe if I was really frustrated, but that's why we need to build someplace else. These little hidey-holes don't work anymore. I say we go bigger, and with more power. Then we stand less of a chance of being caught and can set up connections to offsite relays that don't involve us being there. If we build them in secure vaults we can use an EMP followed by incendiary charges to wipe a room, and not a whole building." Zander folded his hands in front of himself and stated.

"He has a point. I'm tired of rebuilding our game collection each time. All in favor of going larger?" Four hands went up and Onyx shouted "Aye!" from the cockpit.

"Unanimous. Let's start looking. We need lots of room, a lack of people, and somewhere with access to good escape routes." The search for the next secret base had begun.