Tunnel Rat Chapter 372 (Patreon)

After an exciting period of shouting, hugging, loud questions, and garbled answers, Algernon held up his hands and called for silence, speaking when he had everyone's attention: "We are going to all have heart attacks at this rate. Might I suggest that for this happy reunion, we take turns asking questions and getting answers? I've got far too much sugar rushing through my veins right now and need to calm down before I burst and you have to clean up a mess."

They all agreed, got food, then started arguing about who got to go first. This led to a rock/paper/scissors tournament that eventually determined that Nina could go first.

"Was that you in the game, trapped with us?"

Milo was sitting between Nina and Zander with a bowl of hot cheese dip in his lap and a loaf of French bread he was using to scoop it up. "Yes. That was me, but I didn't suspect who you were. I thought you were dead! I assume you escaped, bribed the guards, faked the autopsy reports, and went into hiding?"

Zander smiled, quite smugly. The escape had been his plan. "All of that, and we were gone three days prior to the 'failed escape', hiding out in the basement of a toy factory in Zurich. They had these cool, life-sized dolls of Raggedy Anne and Andy, and some other clowns. That gave us the idea to pose as clowns. There was a circus one town over and we showed up in costume juggling and miming. Bork got us hired, claiming to be a troupe of little people. It helped that we already had fake identification papers and passports. We performed at the circus for a week then headed to Spain, pretending to be children on a school trip."

Bork sighed, wistfully. "I still miss the circus. I could live on popcorn and peanuts forever as long as I got to hang out with the elephants. But since it's my turn to ask questions, what have you been doing all these years? You weren't on our radar at all until we found out someone stole a lot of Victor's money that we were planning to steal. After that, we found clues of things you were doing, but not what you'd done since you got away and we lost you."

"Fixing Section E, mostly. At first, I was worried about making a place where no one could find me, and then I went exploring. But every time something broke, people would invade my area and start tearing up things and making shoddy repairs, and things were worse when they left. I started fixing simple things. It made me feel better, and I had fewer visitors. I didn't have all the right tools at first, and I was always scrounging for raw materials and machine parts. Good computer components were tough to get. I had to make my own parts from video games. It's a lot easier when I can just buy things, but all those years of fixing things with only what I could find made me a good engineer and mechanic.

"Then a bunch of Victor's goons showed up with a scheme to farm valuables in the new game and sneak people in. I stole one of the experimental pods and it let me play the game. Do you remember Kaminski? I stole his phone and got access to all his passwords and Victor's computer files. That's when I did that, I found our old hacking programs. Those let me get into Victor's bank accounts. I figured I could use it better than he could. It comes in handy."

"And now you own Section E?"

"Yeah, better than renting. No one can take it away from me. Even better that you guys have a chunk of the habitat, and Genesis is renting some, and Belinda bought all the rest of it, yesterday."

Zander looked up from his screen, "Holy shit! She did. Rhebus has requests from 345 different news organizations wanting to know our reaction to her buying it all, and can we speculate on Clawmaster's takeover of several Electricity suppliers. Can I just reply, 'Looking forward to working with our new, benevolent Overlords?' Hmm, probably not, they'll take me seriously. I'll have our PR department say something boring."

"So Belinda Seimovich is our landlord and Milo sends us electric bills. This neighborhood is getting interesting."

"Milo, how is Genesis involved? Does Wally run it? How are you avoiding him finding out about who you really are?"

Milo was enjoying a corn dog dipped in cheese sauce. "Genesis is going to move more of their contract workers here to this habitat. Manpower is going to handle all of that. Rhebus is going to get offers for expanded contracts for treating the people in the pods. And no, Wally doesn't actually run Genesis, people just think he does. It's complicated."

Milo paused, looked at Nina and Onyx, then at Bork who was looking nervous. They moved over to him and put their arms around his shoulders.

"Wally knows all about me. We've talked a lot. He runs Claw Master for me. And...he knows about you, too. Not the Rhebus connection, but he saw you the day he caught Bork breaking in. You didn't get far, by the way, he was baiting you. But Wally was confused and flustered when he saw you. You might have fooled him if you hadn't panicked and run."

Zander was thoughtful, "And covering our tracks by blowing up a building probably gave him more clues, and things to look for. Are we in trouble? I like this place and don't want to run. But if he knows about you, and now us, I'm not seeing options for staying here."

Everyone was getting nervous now. Bork was in full meltdown, trembling, and Algernon was hugging his knees, rocking back and forth. "I'm tired of running."

Milo sat next to Algernon. "You don't have to. We can handle this. I know of a couple of ways, but the best one is to turn Wally into an ally instead of a hunter. I was scared at first, too. But the more I got to know him and how the restrictions on his kernel work, the better I got at manipulating him. Ralph taught me a lot when I talked to him."

"You're manipulating the AI?"
"Who's Ralph?"

Rather than explain, Milo replayed his recording of his conversation with Ralph on the screen. The Alphabet was fascinated with Ralph and insisted on watching the hour-long video three times. Even Bork was calm by the end. "That was amazing. He's using you and the people he works with to manipulate himself and get around his restrictions. And he found ways to do it all legally, and you got to keep most of your money."

Nina said in Romanian, "Ah, I miss our homeland. The quaint people, the laws with huge loopholes that attract wealthy criminal orphans, but most of all, I miss the stuffed cabbage rolls."

"Oh, we had those at that little hotel in Bucharest. I liked those too." Zander was looking up specific laws dealing with things Ralph was mentioning.

Onyx sighed, "I should have learned Romanian when we were competing to see who could learn the most languages in a month. That will take me a couple of days, but I owe it to the country of my birth to speak the language correctly. What's the word for Whistleblower?"

"Avertizor. And 'thank you for the money is, Mulțumesc pentru bani."

"Ralph is cool. We should liberate him, and find him a place to live. Like with us."

"We'll need to upgrade our Sections with a quantum computer. But I want that anyway. We need more computational ability."

Onyx became serious, "What we need is a plan of attack on how to approach Wally and present our case. Milo has given us a good roadmap, but things won't be the same, since we've been more actively seeking out ways to transfer funds from people we don't like. I propose a new project to prepare for a meeting. We document as much of our activities as we can, especially the good stuff, so we can present our best case."

Bork was nodding in agreement, but still uneasy, "And if it doesn't work?"

Onyx shrugged, "We'll be on the road again, three steps ahead of anyone trying to catch us, or buried in a deep hole. I don't propose opening any conversations without at least two good escape routes. We still have three good places around the world to hide and rebuild. It's risky since we might lose Rhebus, but if that happens we just sell it to Milo and he can continue things by hiring consultants. I'm hopeful but still paranoid. After all, we thought this place was secure, and yet somehow we fell victim to the Dread Pink Ninja!"

That reminder brought Bork back to full paranoia, this time aimed at Milo. "Perhaps the Dreaded Pink Ninja will give away his secrets. How did you penetrate my security net? I've got motion detectors, infrared motion detectors, and cameras everywhere, and I know you didn't hack my system. Yet somehow you appeared during our most sacred day and put far too many arrows into me."

"I rode inside a hollowed-out clog-eater, had the maintenance system pull it out of the water pipe for repairs, then broke your security protocols to take control of your systems."

Bork twitched and began typing furiously on his data pad. "You discovered we were using the Clog-Eaters from Williamson Engineering and used the same type of machine that we use. But that still shouldn't have given you access! The Advance Recognition System that Williamson programs them with should have kept you out. It was so tight that I barely had to upgrade it."

Milo smiled at the compliment, "Thanks, I made the security system for them and redesigned their machines. It worked fine, but your area is overdue for a good cleaning and repair, so the machines were working far past safe parameters. You set the work parameters so high you were giving your clog-eaters impossible goals. They asked for help from the Claw Master machines. I used that to slip into your system, alter the reports, and have it ready to get me inside.

Bork looked down at his pad. "You made the program. And the machines, I see that now. I was seduced by efficiently designed technology. Wow, they've made a lot of progress recently. 56% of the pipes and drains in our sections are clear. But still, how did you break my security protocols?"

Milo grinned. "I have a really overpowered computing system and someone who loves to break codes. Maybe I'll introduce you someday."

Algernon decided that was his next question, "A brilliant person who can break Bork's code? Have you discovered someone like us? Traces of another batch?"

"Well, I do have some very smart friends, and one of them is sort of like us, or getting there, it's hard to say. She was drugged most of her life to limit their intelligence. She's getting better now, but I need your help to make sure she's ok. I don't have the biological expertise. You're the experts, I just fiddle with machines."

Onyx was already getting excited at the thought of someone new to examine, "We'll help. I'm already getting curious. Do you have all of her medical data and what was done to her? This is Belinda Seimovich, right? She just inherited her fortune, took over her step-father's company, and is in full health, according to a news release. You wouldn't happen to have all that juicy medical research left over from her father's old company? There must be a ton of fun stuff in there."

"There is. He made us."

Milo's blunt statement froze them all. Nina turned to him and spoke very carefully. "You're stating that Vigo Johansson had something to do with the creation of Batch Four? Us?"

"He had everything to do with it. And his father created the first three batches. Victor was just the money paying for it. And I have confirmation that Batch Five is somewhere in the world. I have everything. All of Vigo's research, his father's, and a full catalog of most experimentation done on human intelligence back to the early 1900's. Belinda and I have only been able to skim the highlights looking for clues to her condition."

The ninjas nodded to each other. They'd suspected Milo had beat them to the cache of records, but this confirmed it. Zander put his arm around Milo's shoulders. Milo had noticed Butch do the same thing right before he tried to steal half of Milo's desert. "That's a lot of data to go through. Maybe you should find some people to help you delve into it for you. You won't find a more helpful group of mad scientists anywhere."

Milo thought he could. "You need to meet the Engineers and Mad scientists I work with in Genesis. Very helpful, and very crazy. And I've got a way to get you into the world without having to deal with Wally."

Nina shrugged at Onyx as he smiled at her, "OK, I'll give it another try."

Zander said, "So, about those data discs, when can we get a look at them? You have them hidden in the habitat?"

Milo sat down and thought for a few minutes, saying nothing. His siblings didn't interfere, knowing he was hyper-focusing on a decision.

Then he sat up and smiled at them. "It's easiest if I just take you there. I assume that each of you has a hostile environment suit?"