Free Web NovelChapter 530: Chapter 530 Infiltrating the Distribution Center (3)
The doors of an airlock connecting the drone maintenance corridors to the main interior of the station slid open with a quiet whooshing sound.
Kasandra’s ears were already at attention above her head listening for any people that might be nearby.
She had her eyes closed and her feline ears twitched from side to side a few millimeters as she carefully scanned their surroundings. freewebnσvel.cѳm
"I don’t hear any people that might be nearby. A few corridors over, probably around a couple hundred meters away, I believe there are some cleaning robots at work. But other than that, I did not detect anything moving within our vicinity." Kasandra said after she finished intently listening to their surroundings.
"The thermal scanners haven’t picked up anything either. There’s at least no one living around. Unless they’re the same temperature as the metal walls." Jervasio chimed in.
Avery turned towards Havanna and asked her if there was anything she could see that might be concerning, but she merely shook her head. From what she could tell everything was at it should be.
"Got it. Then let’s get moving. We’re on a time crunch here."
Avery took the lead, using his ability to perceive the flow of energy to keep an eye out for any irregularities.
The next seven minutes went by without any notable issues.
Being a massive distribution center, there were hardly any people working in the place as most of the operation was automated.
As for the normal security measures, Jervasio had gotten inside the station’s system already and rendered them essentially invisible to them.
However, things did not continue to go smoothly forever.
Just as they were coming around a bend in a corridor that would bring them into the section of the station that was used by the Odium Syndicate, Avery noticed an energy signature that was out of place.
With a hand signal he motioned the other’s to stop and focused intently on his extrasensory perception ability.
’It’s not part of the station. The flow of energy is completely contained within it.’
Avery quietly asked if Kasandra, Jervasio, or Havanna had noticed anything, but the three of them just shook their heads.
Whatever Avery had managed to detect, it was making no sounds, had no decriable odor, nor was it emitting any thermal signature different from the surroundings.
Still, there was something there, waiting completely stationary just around the bend in the corridor.
"I’m not picking up any incoming or outgoing signals either. If there is something there, it is likely not connected to any network." Jervasio whispered after checking his scanner.
Considering the information they had, Avery figured that what he had sensed was potentially an added security measure put in by the Odium Syndicate.
Of course, it could have just been some mundane appliance that was sitting around, but he was not going to take any chances here.
"Havanna, if I give you its general location, can you hit it with a disruptor from here?"
In response, she asked Avery some questions, and when he explained where the target was, she nodded her head.
"Yeah, shouldn’t be a problem." Havanna said, swiftly pulling her rifle off of her back and scanning the walls.
She soon took aim at what appeared to be just random part of the corridor and pulled the trigger.
Instead of a laser, a small black projectile fired out and bounced from wall to wall.
It ricocheted four times before hitting against the object that Avery had detected.
’Looks like it worked.’ Avery thought, a smile forming on his face.
He had been keeping a close watch on the flow of energy, and as soon as it became what looked like a scrambled mess to him, he knew that the disruptor had worked.
Whatever it was that was waiting around the bend in the corridor would be disabled for a few minutes.
Leading the way, Avery peeked around the corner and finally saw what the mystery device was.
"It’s just a mobile trash compactor."
He shook his head and let out a quiet laugh at how worked up he had gotten of such a mundane thing.
Except, when Jervasio got a look at it more closely, he realized that there was more here than meets the eye.
"No, you were right to be cautious. This is actually an autonomous security robot disguised to look like a trash compactor. Had we passed by without disabling it first, it likely would have attacked us and started emitting a blaring alarm." Jervasio explained.
Such robots were not particularly common as they had many limitations, but they did have their strengths as well.
The most important being that they were completely closed off.
At the expense of only being able to follow preprogramed instructions when initially turned on or reset, these types of robots were immune to remote hacking. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com
They did not receive or transmit any signals that one could use to access them.
Also, their designs made them difficult for most scanners to detect them. They were immobile until something triggered them, and it was typical to design them after common appliances that most people would not look twice at.
Of course, without being connected to any sort of network, no one would know when one went down for any reason.
Havanna’s attack had scrambled this one’s electrical systems before it could notice anything wrong, so only the infiltration team even knew that anything was wrong with it.
"This shows that they don’t want anyone in this area, and they devoted at least some extra resources to protecting it. I guess that means we’re on the right track." Kasandra said.
"Yep. But this won’t be enough to stop us."
Jervasio began feeling around the exterior of the disguised robot until he found an access port that he could use to connect to it.
While he could not hack into it remotely, now that he had physical access to it, that no longer proved to be a problem.
As the robot tried to reboot itself and run a self-diagnostic, Jervasio circumvented the robot’s paltry security program and forced it into sleep mode for the next two hours.
So long as no one miraculous happened to come by and check on it in that timeframe, no one would be any the wiser that the security robot had been tampered with.
