Tunnel Rat

Someone was screaming. It was very loud, so loud Milo couldn't ignore it. It sounded like Shifty. Another person screamed in short, sharp bursts. Many people were sitting around him, hugging their knees with eyes closed repeating the same thing over and over. Beep.Beep. Beep

Waking from the dream, Milo slammed the lid of the pod open and lay gasping for air as his mind tried to shift from the game to reality. Two klaxons were going off, trying to get his attention. Other systems were flashing lights and giving off the steady beep, beep that said 'I'm important, but it can wait a little...maybe'.

As he got up and started moving to his screens, the sounds automatically decreased in volume. His systems still wanted attention, but they knew he was awake. He looked at his list of trouble spots and was horrified. What the hell were these people thinking? They were barely supplying enough power for their section, and instead, they were tapping into the sections that still had power production, including his. Fresh water was also being siphoned, and wastewater was returned rather than cleaned.

Sewage and garbage were the worst. They were simply using other sections as garbage dumps. One of his big drops was being used to send trash and sewage down to the lowest levels. This was the most urgent problem.

On the bright side, they were repairing the lighting and the camera systems. Milo made a few adjustments and added the new cameras to his information-gathering systems. He spent ten minutes going from camera to camera, playing the video at 10x normal speed while he sent commands to his systems. These people were getting ready for something larger and wanted to put on some type of large production. A stage backed by large screens was set up in one of the larger green areas. It looked like a park rather than the dead jungle it had been a week ago. Communication cables were being run up to the roof and a new uplink dish had been installed. He made notes to hack into the system, it might be better than what he had now.

He didn't have time to go investigate further, so he started throwing spanners into their systems. If they had found it convenient to steal from Section E, then he was going to make it less convenient. Catastrophic, in fact.

He found solutions but then spent more time to make things look like a series of bad engineering decisions and flawed machinery. Humans tended to form ideas first, and then when machines told them differently, they still held onto those ideas. In this case, they were going to be sure the problem was with the temporary system of hydrogen fuel cells they had installed. There was only one technician monitoring the system, Milo sent a looped feed to his screens showing that everything was working just fine. In two hours when things went wrong, the regular and backup videos would receive a command from his console to erase themselves.

Production of energy and flow of hydrogen were both increased far beyond what was needed. The cells began to overheat. The cooling system for the area shut off, and instead, the heating system turned on. The stored energy was sent to the electrical system in pulses. At first, it wasn't noticeable, but toward the last few minutes, the lights would begin to flare and dim. Then the power cells gave one last pulse of energy before they quit adding power to the grid altogether and began to overheat. If hydrogen cells get too hot, they become useless. These were getting very hot.

Simultaneously to the last pulse, Milo had the lights flare as bright as they could. Fire alarms went off and sprinkler systems voided the rotten, rusty water in their pipes down onto millions of dollars of new equipment. A huge amount of energy from section E hit three transformer units that Milo had been prepping for overload at the same time as the pulse. All three gave a loud hum, and exploded, plunging many areas into darkness.

Concurrent with this happening, Milo had two of his modified clog eaters working their way through the pipes to the pumping station sending filth into his section. The wastewater he could use and recycle. The sewage and liquified garbage he didn't want. Clog eaters were a special type of robot that could do a lot more than chew through clogs. They could also chew through the interior mechanisms of a pumping station until it stopped working. Most of the machinery was corroded and soft. It didn't take much to snap it apart. Their work done; his little robots retreated behind the line of Section E.

Milo had only taken 20 minutes to set all this up. It was hurried, but he needed to get back to the game. For some reason, he was knocked out and not dead. He had to be ready to get back to work, finding a way to stop a World Boss.

His last act before logging back into the game was to send out orders for a variety of materials from less-than-legal manufacturers of body armor, prosthetics, and explosives. Milo didn't know what was happening next door. But dumping a sewer into his section meant WAR! And he was going to be prepared.

Oh, something equally important! He needed another order of cheese and a box of crackers.

"Oh god, the boss is going to be pissed!" The comment captured the essential feelings of all the technicians present. They were desperately trying to find out what had happened, and to rig some emergency lighting. Stinking water covered the floor from the sprinkler system. One of the technicians had advised flushing the system, but his report had been tossed for lack of time. The smell of ozone, burned rubber, and raw sewage filled the air. The toilets and sinks had backed up and were spewing raw sewage from somewhere above them. Almost all the work done on this section of the habitat would have to be done again after they cleaned up.

They ran out of time when a large group of people walked into the room. Several of them were senior technicians and engineers on the project. All of them had been in a meeting with the board of directors. The meeting had been onsite and was to end with a viewing of what they had so far accomplished and a preview of the event happening in two days. That event wasn't going to happen.

Seven technicians, three engineers, two architects, four lawyers, eight bodyguards, four members of the board, and the chairman descended onto the hapless group of lower-level techs. A babble of voices broke out, asking questions all at once. The chairman let it continue for a minute and then cleared his voice. "Let's try this one at a time. You, tell me your name, your station, and your observations. Starting with you."

The technician took a second to realize everyone was looking at him and then began talking. There was a rumor that the boss could be merciful if you were absolutely truthful and didn't try to shift the blame. "Jerry Olchek, sir. I monitor the output of the hydrogen cells and the room they are in. It's usually pretty straightforward, with a small adjustment now and then as our system needs more or less power. We started seeing some electrical problems a couple of hours ago. Lights flickering, small stuff. But each time the grid adjusted and it went away. The power from the fuel cells was dead normal, temperatures normal, and nothing out of the ordinary. Then all hell broke loose, the lights flared, there was a large electrical surge, and then the transformers blew up." He paused. When he had nothing else to say, the boss went on to someone else.

Eventually, reports came in. Three transformers were blown, and half the lights were destroyed and needed replacing. No damage to the communication and uplink system. A stroke of luck there. The hydrogen fuel cells were a total loss. Temperatures had soared in the storage room, destroying the storage batteries and generation equipment. Again, some luck in that there had been no leaks of the hydrogen fuel. The tanks had shut down as they should.

The chairman, John Sabbatino, had questions. "Can someone tell me how long it would take, even operating full bore, for fuel cells to melt down?" A few tablets came out, and calculations were done. "About 1.2 hours sir. Quicker if the cooling system wasn't on. Not at all if we knew it was happening and could have shut things down and vented the heat out of the area."

"Please check Mr. Olchek's log. I'm sure it will show us what we need to know."

Jerry was helpful with the chore. He knew what he had seen. But the files weren't there. He found himself out of his seat and placed between two bodyguards. After another half hour, a senior technician reported what he had found. "Just after the power surge, someone working at this station erased the last 12 hours of surveillance tapes, and the back-ups. We don't have the uplink finished so the data was all stored on-site."

John put his hands behind his back and looked at Jerry with disappointment on his face. "Well Jerry, that doesn't look good. We don't pay people to make mistakes like this and then cover it up. It's your choice how we handle this, Jerry. I can press charges for corporate espionage and send you off to prison. A waste of your talents. Or, you can agree you owe the corporation for the damages, and we'll escort you down to Human Resources and you can start working it off. I think double shifts, seven days a week will help you generate more income. We'll keep most of it. How do you want to handle it, Jerry? And we'll help you save money by giving you a cubicle to live in, just like lots of people living in the habitats. Or, I can promise you a cell of the same size. I'm flexible."

Jerry knew he was never seeing his small but comfortable apartment again. His girlfriend with expensive tastes was equally gone. He'd be lucky if he only had a twenty-year stint shoveling chemical waste in a factory. Still, it beat prison time. "I'll work it off, sir. And thank you, sir."

Mr. Sabbatino smiled and shook his hand. "Glad to see you doing the right thing Jerry. Oh, and it would be good if you told HR who you were working for." Jerry was hauled away, trying to think of which of his old employers he'd blame this on. Someone handed the chairman something to wipe his hands with.

"Alright people. We have a minor setback. That just means we can rebuild better. I'm authorizing additional funds for overtime for everyone. Let's see what we can do to get things up and running in the next two days."

Eric Kresthammer, another board member, approached the chairman. "John, I have an interesting offer that you might want to look at."

John was interested. Eric didn't waste his time on stupid things. Which was one of the reasons why Eric was still around after a couple of decades. John liked competent people who didn't waste his time, and Eric was a cornerstone of his firm and one of his oldest friends. "Let's see what you have."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Taking the tablet, he quickly went through the initial offer and then looked at the technical details. Nicely organized technical details. These people at least knew how to write a proposal and not make it an all-day project. "Do we know anything about Mr. B'zon and the Freedom Engineering Group?"

Eric had anticipated that. "Tab Q has the information. They've overseen the technical aspects, design, and troubleshooting of several impressive projects. They are a think tank, not a construction group. They work with some very impressive people and bring in the best experts to follow their instructions. We can use our own people if we want, but frankly, theirs are better and will save money in the long run. Either way, Freedom will be checking the work. If we vary from their designs, they don't care but will charge a ton to fix our screw-ups. They hate having their time wasted and don't do long meetings."

"Damn, they sound great."

"They are, John. But, let me be very clear. Information on them is scarce. Mr. B'zon is the spokesman for the group but is rarely seen. The rest of the group works with voice and video altered to protect their identities. Not one of them is known. And we don't know where they operate out of. A very mysterious and competent group. But no black marks on them, and the only complaints have been that if they don't like a job, they politely walk away and refund all payments. They won't explain, but the general consensus is they do it to avoid corporations trying to put pressure on them or their families. They refuse to sign exclusive contracts and have told a few of the big guys to go piss up a rope."

John smiled. "I like them already. As long as the job gets done, I don't care who they are. And even this proposal is dead on, based on what we saw today. They advise against hydrogen fuel cells for power generation as too costly even as a transitory system. They suggest going with an acre of Sun Jammer brand solar panels on the roof, and four Wind Jammer units to augment the solar panels. That all feeds into a Tokamak Radiant-Diamond storage cell."

Eric nodded. "Expensive up front, but projected to cost far less over time. We'd still need to pull power from the city grid, but that was always part of the plan. And frankly, I don't like how many 'refurbished' mechanical systems our current team is using from stuff they found on-site. This blow-up was going to happen sooner or later. Jerry was just an idiot and let it happen on his watch. Probably asleep or watching porn and not paying attention to the monitors. We need to build better, John, if we are staying in this place permanently."

John was unconvinced. "Those monitors have alarms. Did he sleep through those too? You know what? Doesn't matter. Let's move forward. Jerry is old news. I want you to hire Freedom, and tell our current team that the fees we pay Freedom come out of their budget. They were skimming off of us and got caught. Now they pay the price. Send Freedom the rest of the specs for the entire section and get their feedback." He looked at his watch and scowled.

"This little fiasco is costing me time with my daughter. We were supposed to eat together tonight and then she was going to help me get the hang of this new game. It's a little ironic how much we are staking on Genesis, and yet I need my daughter to show me the ropes."

A woman who had been hovering stepped up. "Sir, I have a message from your daughter. She won't be at dinner tonight. Something urgent."

John paused, then smiled a real smile. "Well, I'm glad she's having fun. Something in the game? Or is it a boyfriend?" A few people became uncomfortable but smiled appropriately. The chances of Belinda Sabbatino having a boyfriend were quite small.

"In her game sir. Something big is happening. The first-ever World Boss is attacking Shadowport. Ancient Dwarvish Engineers have appeared to fight beside the miners, and she's leading the raid group of adventurers that are fighting against the creature."

John Sabbatino took the tablet and read the original message. "WoW! That's amazing! My little girl is leading raids? And a World First?!! Damn, I'm so jealous. Keep me appraised of what's going on, tell her that daddy is proud of her, and of course, the raid is her first priority."

He smiled at everyone. Even with all the crap happening, the day was turning out to be a good one.

"And Jenny? Find out how to get footage of that raid. Multiple viewpoints, interviews with the players and NPCs, a list of the loot, and tons of battle coverage. I don't care what it costs. This is a big story; I can smell it. We can be on top of it and scoop some of the other gaming sites."

Turning to the assembled people. "Listen up! Big things are happening. I want this place fixed up ASAP. Limit it to one floor. We're paying the usual double wages for overtime. If you work a triple, then we pay quadruple wages. Someone please get on the phone with accounting and tell them not to slow things up. Eric, get the Freedom people working for us, and get another crew of people in here as well."

Still smiling, he crooked a finger and his head of security walked over.

"Donny, run down to HR. Too much happening at once, and something smells. I want to know the truth about Jerry. And then let's do some investigating and put some pieces together down here. Maybe we can find whatever rat chewed on our cables and made everything break at once."

Unaware of just how much chaos he had set in motion, Milo logged into the game. Everything was black and fuzzy for a moment, and then he regained his senses in the game. He hurt all over. Someone was pouring a healing potion down his throat. Then a piece of cheese got jammed in his mouth. He sat up chewing and groaning. It felt like every muscle hurt, down to his toes.

"Don't move fast. I don't know how you two idiots are alive, but it's just barely." Belinda was by his side, looking exhausted. She turned to her other patient, who turned out to be Shifty. Shifty didn't look good. There were makeshift splits on arms and legs, and sandbags held his body from moving. His face was pasty white and his breathing just a small whisper.

Belinda turned to him. "I don't know what all is going on, but I need you and your freaky bone magic to help me or he's going to die. I've done some spells, but I can't get a healing potion down him."

"And we need to know what you know about the beasty." Two-Screws was sitting nearby. He had a large dent in the side of his helmet and he was trying to hammer it out. How his head survived, Milo had no clue.

Belinda was adamant. "Talk and heal. I've been doing both non-stop for an hour. The raid is about to start. We looked all over for you two and only just found you with Vary's help."

Milo touched Shifty and immediately felt overwhelming guilt for bringing the brave scout on this mission. His spine and ribs were a jigsaw puzzle of shattered bone. Milo made a decision. He gave his report first because healing wouldn't let him concentrate on anything else. He continued to catalog all of the injured dwarf's injuries as he gave Two-Screws the info.

"It's amazingly tough. It eats stone constantly to regrow armor, and the armor falls off to make new lurkers. They shouldn't be more than a distraction though. Underneath the stone is a core of ultra-hard crystal. My weapon could barely touch it even after dozens of hits. I don't think any adventurer under Tier 4 is going to do much to the crystal, but they can strip her ablative armor, and keep the new lurkers from forming."

Belinda handed him another Minor Healing Potion from a pouch, and he drank it down.

"But that's not the real problem. It likes to shatter the rock around it, and anyone nearby. She plants all dozen legs, and then the crystal creates a seismic blast that shatters the surrounding rock. It's what it will use to tunnel up to the city, and flood the caverns."

Milo turned back to shifty and began concentrating. Two-Screws ran off to coordinate with the raid group, and after a moment, Belinda did too. She'd done what she could to keep Shifty alive. Now what mana she had left was needed to save people who were fighting. It was up to Milo to heal the wounded scout if he could.

He concentrated on his magic. It let him sense bone, repair bone, and reinforce bone. He sank into a half-trance, trying to build up an image of where each sliver went. Milo heard a soft voice in his head. "Start with the spine. It's the most important. Ribs can come later." It was eerie hearing Cichol's voice in his head. Milo reached inside Shifty with his magic and began shifting the bones into place. Cichol's spectral hands helped him. As each piece of the spine was fixed, Milo used just enough mana to start the bones knitting. He had to finish it all, not just one part.

Another large chunk of cheese and a mana potion went down his throat quickly as he worked. But it wasn't going to be enough. Belinda had done what she could, and Milo was fixing things as well, but Shifty didn't have a lot of time.

"Well, shit, sorry about this Shifty, but it looks like you're joining the guild. I hate not giving you a choice. We can sort out what happens later." If Shifty had been conscious, he'd have seen a system message.

[Welcome to the Deep Rock Engineering guild. Your new name is: "Shift-Stick."

Rank: Apprentice

Status: Broken up more than the Guild Hall after Milo "miscalculated" his explosive forces.

Engage Pudding Based Regeneration? (Recommended)

Engage Malvosian Regeneration? (Recommended)

Permission for both types of regeneration is approved by acting Guild Master Milo due to the new apprentice's critical injuries.

Status changed to: Critical but recovering.]

 

A good start. How to get some healing potions down him though? After a moment, Milo found the battered whiskey flask. It was still half full. He poured two of his most potent healing potions into the flask, and then put it to Shifty's....no....to Shift-Stick's lips. Immediately he began sucking at the flask, drinking the potent mixture like a baby with a bottle. Then he relaxed. Pain left his features and he woke up.

"How the hell am I alive? And...I'm an Engineer now?"

"Are you OK with that?"

Shifty thought about it for only a moment. "Hell yeah. It's a chance to start over, and not make the same mistakes." Burnock would be pissed. That was Burnocks problem. "But you've got things to do and places to be. Don't worry about me, I can fade into the background and no critter will find me while I take a long nap."

Milo sat back and finished the last of his cheese, and drank another two healing and mana potions. He was half-healed, with half his mana, and could feel the power of cheese filling him with confidence. That would have to do. He made it over to the raid just as they charged.

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