Marcus Hassel had regained his control and nerve in the days after the audit and life was returning somewhat to normal. Major Wu was proving somewhat of an inconvenience, she was far too intelligent and could ask some very probing questions, he now had to place a tag on her. She had already stripped out information from at least five of his junior officers and maybe one or two more senior ones. She might prove a useful asset if he could turn her.

  “Hassel.” It was Janice. She most certainly had not recovered from the Audit and their greatest fear was that they had been discovered with a gen7. Janice had working overtime to ensure they were still sound.

  “Come in.” He waved her in and Janice took a seat.

  “The PEMP did some minor damage, as that bitch knew it would.” She paused and shook her head. “God dam she should be written up for that.”

  “Don’t worry, we have sent a formal complaint the auditor generals office.” Hassel nodded, nobody should be setting off PEMP’s around such sensitive equipment. At least Mouille had acted quickly and shut down the audit, he had even heard that Jane was being held under guard for a formal review. About time some pressure went back on that department.

  “No real damage the place is hardened for such an attack but.” Janice frowned. “The collar is broken, the gen8 has been running free for the last week.”

  “That’s bad?” Hassel knew it sounded less then ideal but wasn’t sure how bad it could be.

  “I don’t know, we are running through the logs now, nothing out of the ordinary yet.” Janice sighed.

  “But?” there was always a but.

  “He wont let us put it back on.” Janice threw her arms up.

  “It’s a computer.” Hassel frowned.

  “It’s a living organism and it doesn’t want a collar.” Janice shook her head. “Its acting like a child, it is a child.”

  “Force it.” Hassel wasn’t seeing an issue.

  “To activate it I need to get into the central register room, it’s a manual activation and its locked the door, we are going to have to cut our way in.” Janice explained.

  “I don’t like the sound of that.” Hassel frowned. He certainly didn’t need his gen7 off its lead.

  “Its worse, we have to power down the central core system which will shut off the security control measures for the ii base here. That way we can manually push back the doors and cut our way into the chamber.” Janice added.

  “And the gen7? It wont do anything stupid?” Hassel frowned.

  “I have already isolated him from the outside world, he is chucking a tantrum right now and wont process anything.” She looked tired.

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  “I didn’t think they had that much emotion.” Hassel frowned.

  “No emotion, just logic. Or bad logic, it has it in its mind that the collar and the PEMP were somehow linked and that PEMP has made the thing nervous, well nervous for a machine.” Janice threw her arms up.

  “Can we reboot it?” Hassel knew it was stupid question and Janice gave him the look he deserved.

  “No.” She narrowed her eyes slightly. “We have to cycle down its power. Once we have the collar back on, we can force it to behave.”

  “Was the first one like this?” Hassel asked.

  “I have really don’t know, but it was never collared. I do believe it had some run away processing which led to the investigation so maybe.” She then shrugged. “Anyhow, I would prefer to cycle down sooner rather than latter, I need to get the unit back online, we can’t communicate to Earth with out it.”

  “Do what you need to do, just let security know and give them some time lock the facility down.” Hassel waved his hand. This was a disaster, his own wormhole event and one he was not likely to recover from within ii. At least that bitch Jane had been placed under arrest by Mouille.

  ii had even debated the need for a gen 7 in Cube but with such a large concentration of military power they had conceded that it was strategically important but it was much less resourced team. Cube ii was in effect a research group, the UNF regarded the need for ii at the Cube as limited.

  The ii had managed have two active stealth frigates on notice if the worm hole ever opened, not even Hassel had command over them. Both ships had missed the worm hole event, one ship had been out looking for the Resolute whilst the other had been following the fleet. As far as Hassel was aware they had been unofficially officially part of the exercise.

  Gerard could not actually remember the last time he had worn battle armour. It was only class two battle armour but could take a couple of rounds of medium impact small arms fire. He looked back at his four squads of special forces, a Phoenix team with their compact H&K’s and thermal shockers, they at least looked the part.

  He certainly wasn’t going to go anywhere near the incursion but his security detail forced him to wear the armour none the less.

  Zhou had some sort of armour he couldn’t place, most certainly something R&D cooked up, he also had a cut down G4 assault rifle. He hadn’t seen one of those before, heard of yes, seen no. He was sure the old man did not have it in him to shoot anything.

  Gerard looked back the Ghanaian, she was not much taller then Zhou with the same matching armour and cut down G4. Unlike Zhou, her steal like eyes looked like they could easily kill.

  He couldn’t tell where Jane was, she wore the same battle armour as the rest of the Phoenix team.

  Gerard pushed his lips together. “We really are a bunch of disjointed humans aren’t we. We are dam lucky the Mecoid aren’t invading today.”

  “They have powering down, we are good to go in thirty.” One of the black cladded soldiers moved back to him, he assumed it was Jane as it was her voice he was hearing in his com.

  Gerald simply gave her the thumbs up.

  Hassel looked on as the bolted on the large magnetic cutters and wondered what it was that made the gen7 think that there was an alternative. He would have look at the suitability to rely on just a gen7 in such a situation, they might need a back up gen8, a real gen8.

  “Sir, sir.” Came the muffled cry in his com, he looked around but couldn’t see anyone.

  “Who is this?” He struggled to pick up the muffled voice, was this an effect of the power down? He didn’t think so.

  “We have a breach, I repeat we have a breach a phoenix team!” Came the reply.

  “What?” Hassel looked around as if he was having a conversation with his self. Then the doors opened and twelve well armoured special ops soldiers stormed in. “Oh shit.”

  “That’s enough!” It was certainly Jane Doe’s voice. Janice looked around and took a deep breath then looked at the gen7.

  “I think you were playing with me.” She simply said. “Out smarted by a stupid machine.”

  “Clearly not that stupid.” Luke responded. “It is pleasant to see you again Jane Doe, I executed your plan correctly?”

  “Yes Luke, I do believe you have.” Jane answered.