Chapter 6

Rescue

Ohai had secured the underground car park, by the time that they arrived.

"There are no internal surveillance systems," she said, double checking her scan results. "It seems that somebody wanted to make absolutely sure that there was no chance of any evidence. Mind you, this works for us, once we are inside. I have also found out that no organic entity not in full life support, has ever entered the underground facility."

"That's a worry, Ohai," Marz replied. "Have you been able to work out why? With all the other safeguards, this is really significant."

"I'll run another set of scans, Marz, but there's is nothing that shows up on any of them so far."

Jess looked at the pair of them and shook her head in dismay "'Organics, ' guys! What do we need lots of that non-organics don't, that would not need to be maintained by electronic systems."

A red faced Marz answered, "Of course! Air and temperature within tolerances. That means full life support suits. Are these full body suits okay for environmental hazards, Ohai?"

"They will be by the time we enter the access shaft," Ohai responded.

Marz drove the transporter through the last of the access doors. They entered the basement car park of the building housing the access-way to the underground facility imprisoning BJ.

Bringing the vehicle to a halt close to a large maintenance lift they exited the vehicle and collected their equipment. As they were about to enter the lift, a male and female appeared suddenly before them.

Holding up their hands, palm outwards, and they said, "STOP!"

Jess and Marz instantly drew their weapons.

"Who are you?" they called simultaneously.

"Careful," a gentle male voice replied, "those things could hurt someone."

The female smiled and continued, "Yes. That is, of course, if you could get them to work. You will find them disabled, when you point them at us."

"Ohai, access this information in your ready vault," the male said transmitting a file RF node to her.

Ohai quickly complied, and was very surprised to find full schematics and plans of the entire complex.

"Marz, Jess ... put those weapons away. The entire facility is one big booby trap, and these two just saved us a lot of grief."

Ohai went on to explain what the file contained, as the Male and Female strangers looked on.

"The lift is an airlock system. At the bottom of the shaft is a room full of a white phosphorus based gaseous chemical that will ignite on contact with air, making the airlock a sterilisation chamber. The entire tunnel is lined with a PETN based explosive, kept stable by temperature, which is a steady fifty degrees below freezing. Running the length of the tunnel is a signal shock detonator system, which is triggered by either a temperature change of more than five degrees, or the return of the system to normal air pressure. It is currently a vacuum down there. Air vents will open if all of the stasis tanks go offline simultaneously."

Ohai brought up a 3D holo of the compounds schematic, and the three of them closely inspected them from every angle.

"We might survive, but Daddy and the others would certainly die," Jess stated through gritted teeth. "No electronics at all, the entire thing is set-up with mechanical and state based triggers, that can't be turned off. Change the state of anything and it triggers the self destruct."

Marz sat down on the mobile lift, and thought for a few moments. He moved a nanite suitcase, and a smile appeared on his face.

"Ohai, can you program these nanites and nanomechs to dismantle the trigger mechanisms, and the signal shock detonator system?"

"Yes. I estimate twenty six nanomech dismantlers will be needed. Marz, give me a moment," Ohai said as she manoeuvred the mobile lift platform into the access lift.

Marz jumped to his feet, a little startled as the suitcases he'd been leaning against flowed off the platform, and onto the lift. They began to form into hand sized mechanical objects, which reminded Marz of toy sized versions of the racer bikes from the classic old time movie, 'Tron, ' that he'd seen as a boy. What made these nanomechs different was the outrigger like extensions sprouting from where the rider would sit and looking a little like a complex umbrella skeleton.

"Come on, Marz, get out of there. You're holding up the whole show," Jess said, giggling at Marz's discomfort.

As Marz exited the lift, Ohai explained that the nanomechs would each defuse a trigger by consuming each one, and transforming it into its constituent raw materials. Once the trigger devices were taken care of half of the nanomechs would do the same to the detonation system.

"Once completed, there will be no self-destruct available when we disengage the tanks, although we will still get flash sterilised at the bottom of the shaft going in," Ohai said with a little smile on her face.

"Very good, very good!" Tessa and Sarac both said. "We will leave you to it. If we may, we would like the opportunity of talking with you all under better circumstances."

Giving no chance for a response, they disappeared. Marz, Ohai and Jess found themselves alone, again.

"Tell BJ we will be with him in approximately thirty minutes, Jess," Marz said as Ohai activated the lift.

From a 4D com feed in one of the nanomechs she created for the task Ohai projected a holo what was happening inside the lift as it reached the bottom of the lift shaft. There was a bright flash as the doors opened. Then the air seemed to crystallise and clear.

The nanomechs quickly disabled the self destruct system. Twenty-eight minutes later, Marz, Ohai and Jess were standing in the underground compound's stasis-tank room.

"BJ, I need to get some of my nanites into your system," Ohai said. "They will repair any damage, and purge you of the remaining drugs and controller nanites in your system. Monitor yourself for effects, please. If you feel anything unusual, I will use that data to make modifications before treating the other Three. I will keep them unconscious, until we are ready to release them."

"Fine with me, Ohai," BJ said with an excited edge in his voice. "Ohai, meet, Harry, Sophie and Regina. Well, that's what I call them, as I haven't actually spoken to them when they have been conscious."

"Come on, Jess," Marz called. "Let's check the place out while Ohai does her thing. We need to gain access to as much of the food and environmental control resources, as possible."

As Ohai began her treatment of BJ and his tank-mates, Marz and Jess began exploring the underground compound. They found it to be surprisingly small and sparse of anything not completely functional.

The tank room was the largest room at sixty by sixty feet with a smaller fifteen by fifteen foot control and power room attached.

Next to this control room, was the next largest room. It housed the food processing and storage facilities, along with stasis tank environment resources. This room opened directly out into the access tunnel, through large doors. These were essentially large sealed vats, green for food, blue for the stasis tank environmental gel, and a transparent liquid that Jess explained was the oxygenation liquid that was circulated through the face-masks in the stasis tanks, instead of air.

"Same as the deep-dive technology," she said. "Simple, effective, and of course commonly used and easily obtained."

"Ohai, we have found the life support area and are looking at the materials we need to take with us. I think you need to take a look so we can decide what we will take," Marz messaged to Ohai.

Ohai, finished what she was doing, and joined Marz and Jess.

"Hmm, it's much bulkier that I expected. I am not sure I can use the 4D storage approach with this," she thought out loud as she inspected the vats and containers.

"Tessa ... Sarac," she messaged across her 4D communications bandwidth, "can you join us for a moment."

"Well done," Tessa said as Sarac and she appeared in front of an unflinching Ohai. "Unsurprising, as well. You will do very well, Ohai. How can we help?"

"We need to take life support for the occupants of the stasis tanks, with us," Ohai explained. "As this is life support, I do not want any errors in using 4D storage, which I believe will work," she continued.

Tessa, Sarac and Ohai went into conference mode, where a large amount of information was transferred between them. Jess was highly surprised at the nature of the information, and became more and more excited as the conversation continued.

"Marz, this is sooo cool! They are designing a retrievable storage system using fourth dimensional space, but accessible by three dimensional devices on any scale. I am going to have such a great time going through this in more detail, later," Jess chattered to Marz.

Three cylinders appeared, marked LS (life support), TS (tank support), and O2 (oxygenation). Then they promptly disappeared. Soon after Tessa and Sarac gave Ohai a brief hug and left, also.

"Come on, guys! Let's go get BJ and company out of there. Then let the Police find all these dead people, and this facility," Ohai said.

As they walked into the Stasis Tank room Marz and Jess were both surprised to see that the four tanks were on mobile lifts, and were ready to go.

"Each of the tanks will be using the three cylinders you saw Tessa, Sarac, and myself construct from different 4D looped time slices," she explained to a wide eye Marz and Jess "They are literally inexhaustible, as they use a 4D time slice of just before they were used in the third," she continued with a giggle, as Marz made a cross-eyed face to indicate his lack of understanding.

Jess on the other hand was nearly jumping out of her skin with excitement.

"Daddy, are you ready to get out of here?" she chattered excitedly to her father.

"Let's roll!" BJ said back.

He took control of his mobile lift, and led their small procession into the access tunnel towards the lift.

As the last stasis tank disconnected, there was a roar, and for a few moments the underground facility was filled with a thick fog. It quickly crystallised and covered everything with a light coating of frost, as the air vents were opened and normal air pressure was restored.

"Sheesh! I thought you guys had forgotten something for a second or two," Marz smiled in the direction of Ohai and Jess.

The smile turned to full blown laughter, as Jess and Ohai both gave him the bird.

By the time their procession reached the access lift to the surface, Ohai had the phosphorous sterilisation devices disengaged via her nanomechs.