I made it through the first three DockSys feed walls and got a view through the cameras. The dock was arranged in a cylindrical column, with multiple levels of platforms around a central pillar with lifts and ramps. We were on level 20. The walls were just bare metal, scarred by accidents, no decoration or holos or anything. (This was supposed to be a big deal Corporation Rim torus/ whatever, you'd think they could make an effort, even in here. But they never do anything fancy where it's just indentured workers to see it. The only real color was the Barish-Estranza logos stamped on everything.)

Hauler bots sorted the cargo containers into pallets ready to be transported to modules or ships or for internal dispatch. Large shafts in the floors of the platforms accommodated cargo containers with their own propulsion systems or climbing cargo bots. There should be very few humans in here, since most of the supervision and oversight would be done via the dock's inventory system. (Which was standard practice because it was cheaper, obviously, but really, areas like these are dangerous for anybody squishier than a hauler bot to be wandering around in.) (The exception to this is mining cargo docks, which, surprise, have an insanely high casualty rate. Even company executives would leave notations on the mortality reports like What the shit are they doing in there.)

But with a little tweaking, my camera views found plenty of human activity, scattered at different sheltered points around each level. They were all in protective suits that looked bulky enough to hide security armor. Some of them were actually working, but most were just pretending to.

This is great, because it meant our distraction plan would work. Also not so great, because I would like Three to get out of here alive.

I sent Three the schematics highlighted where the potential security personnel were located; it replied with an acknowledgment sigil and an updated map projection. The cargo bot lumbered out of the potential fire zone and we eased forward. Ambient audio was low, just the hum of hauler bots and the clank of maneuvering modules on the level below us. The cameras spotted more human activity on a platform two levels above us, a scramble of workers (probably the real workers) trying to get to a lift tube and a few workers (the security humans pretending to be workers) holding them back. I'd hoped we'd have a little more time. Fortunately, I was now in three different Sec and Safety systems and MotilityCon-trol for all the lifts, including the central cargo lift. I already had my files queued up and loaded, I just needed to adjust the code for these individual systems.

There were a lot of things they could have done to slow me down, if they knew I (or something like me) was coming. (They couldn't keep me out, not with what they had available, not without isolating their SecSystems from the feed and each other, and that's not possible if you want them to do their jobs.) But they hadn't done those things. Which meant (1) their intel was flawed; (2) they didn't know I was coming and this security was for something else.

I ran that through risk assessment and it produced the equivalent of a shrug sigil.

(Emotion check: Shrug sigil right back at you, you piece of shit.)

The kind of coding I did didn't leave a lot of what ART liked to call forensic artifacts behind; if Barish-Estranza had good intel they might be familiar with the results of what I could do, but they would assume I'd just be bashing around in there destroying stuff with viral code, not redirecting process commands.

We couldn't delay any more without making them suspicious. They obviously knew we/somebody was in here, even if they weren't quite sure where/who yet, or the indentured workers they had dragged in as cover wouldn't be panicking. I told Three, We're go. Proceed.

Three started across the platform, staying in shadow and using the hauler bots as cover. I could have removed it from the cameras entirely but intel suggested they didn't know I could do that, and I wanted to keep them from knowing it for as long as possible, since it was really important for the rest of the plan.

Three reached the cargo lift and used a magnetic grip to attach itself to the side of a powered cargo module moving upward. We drifted up with the module, so it would look like we were heading for an admin access three levels up. I glitched their security feed at random intervals, to keep their attention on it, while I was setting up on MotilitySys.

Systems like Motility are designed to keep things from running into each other; it's hard to override that to cause crashes. It's much easier to get the system to send things on increasingly chaotic routes that don't crash, causing mass confusion instead. Humans always assume you're going to kill them, which is one of the reasons they over-react to everything. (Ratthi says that's genetic, too, but I think he was being sarcastic.) (Maybe he wasn't.)