Evram wasn't following “orders”. As if anyone had the right to give him orders. His customer had insisted that he wouldn't pay for any more incidents unless Evram met his demands. Apparently, the political pressure was getting too intense for his customer. Evram didn't care but he hadn't planned the next incident for nothing. He would just give his customer a free one. He would also give him more trouble on Earth than he could believe.
Evram set out to trigger the next incident on Mars. This one was as simple as it would be deadly. All he had to do was adjust the water purification system. Just as with the O2/CO2 regulator too much of a good thing would be deadly. Evram programmed the avatar's and uploaded them.
They were in the system again.
The avatars had just gained access to the target system when the avatar Av-Em spoke up. “We have a monitor alert. I am compensating but Av-Evram, you have already triggered a source response. Recommend withdraw. I will block and parry any attempt to trace.” Av-Evram relayed the news of the intrusion failure to Evram immediately.
“Damn,” said Evram out loud some twenty minutes later. “I can't believe it.”
He immediately pounded out instructions to the avatars but would have to wait almost forty minutes to know the results.
Av-Evram quickly broke contact with Mars upon receiving Evram's orders. The avatar scrubbed his trace from the colonist's system all the way back through the government office. The other avatar Av-Em was withdrawing with him.
“We have exited,” said Av-Em. “I suggest decommissioning of the relay station also.”
“Yes,” said Av-Evram as he sent the information back to Earth before initiating the scrambler that would trash the relay station software and hardware and avatars.
“Withdrawal successful, station terminated,” said the message from Av-Evram.
Evram was relieved but now that he had a moment to think his mood changed from one of surprise and panic to anger.
It's all your fault, thought Evram. I'll get you. You'll wish you had never heard of me when I'm finished with you.
Evram began searching for his customer. He employed all his weapons including the Em. It wouldn't be long until he knew who had hired him and it wouldn't be long until his customer knew that he shouldn't have crossed Evram.
No comments:
Post a Comment