Pay Me, Bug!

Chapter 36

WHEREIN a Potential Problem is Unexpectedly Resolved

They spent the next week familiarizing themselves with the robots under their control and learning the ins and outs of their programming. Grif practiced controlling them remotely while Bennet studied their code, in hopes of using that knowledge to infect other robots as well. Velis was often on hand, though not directly involved with work, in order to stay informed of the latest developments.

The four robots with the receptors turned out to be very well chosen. One was a security robot, and while it had a very limited area in which it was permitted to patrol, every night it linked to the central security system and loaded what it recorded that day into a data repository. Bennet thought it might be possible to use this link to get into the security computer itself, and was working feverishly to do so.

The second robot was a messenger bot. Messenger bots were used when people wanted to send messages directly to someone in an area where voice to voice communication was not permitted, which gave them virtually unrestricted access to the entire complex. Grif spent a lot of time observing it travel to get a rough familiarity with the layout of the complex.

The third robot was a maintenance bot--specifically, a diagnostics bot that assessed potential problems before human technicians or repair bots were sent in to fix the damage. This robot also had free access to nearly everywhere, and had the added advantage that people weren't surprised when it simply showed up and began to test hardware and computer systems.

"If we had enough time," Grif said, "we could wind up running the entire complex."

"How much time would we need?" Velis asked, clearly interested in the prospect.

Bennet shook his head. "A few years, probably.There are a lot of subsystems, hidden systems, secure systems. There are at least fifteen different secure areas, all of which require different kinds of clearance."

The fourth robot was responsible for loading and unloading cargo in one of the delivery bays, located near all the garages and hangars in the outside areas of the facility. It, like the security bot, was limited in the areas where it was allowed to go, but it had full run of the garages and some parts of the hangars. It was not the most useful robot as far as exploring the complex was concerned, but it did give them an opportunity to learn how cargo was loaded and unloaded from Ur Voys on a day to day basis.

By the end of the week, Grif had a fair idea where everything in Ur Voys was located. The external part of the facility contained the hangars and transports, as well as the facilities for loading and unloading cargo. There were also five levels set into the mountain Ur Voys was built against. The highest, which opened out into the external portion of the facility, had a wide hallway--wide enough for a ground car to drive through it--which led to a lift, and then descended into the lower levels. The only rooms in the first interior level were bureaucratic offices and monitoring stations manned by security personnel.

The second level consisted of mostly research and development work at the front, and station power generators and waste disposal stations at the back. Security on this floor was present but light. On the third level, security was very tight--this was probably where the anagathics were made, Grif guessed, though he never saw any proof.

The fourth and fifth levels were a mystery.

At the end of the week, Grif was familiar with all the routes the messenger bot usually took, and was taking the diagnostics bot around the first two levels of the mountain, looking for terminals to "diagnose." This gave Bennet a chance to nose around different parts of the Ur Voys network, to see what was there, and to gently probe for any gaps in the station's network security.