"Peter W. Prellwitz - Book 02 - Shards" - читать интересную книгу автора (Prellwitz Peter W)

light and a smell of lilac, and the key appeared. I touched it, and its shimmering colors washed over me,
painting me with its palette and scenting me with lilac. We headed off toward the facility's main system
entrance.

There were two ominous looking sentries at the entrance. They were huge, helmeted behemoths, staring
out of solid face plates. They were as unmoving as Vermont granite, but could respond with crushing
attacks on the slightest provocation. Unseen, but far more deadly were several worms buried under the
surface. I couldn't avoid them completely, not in the short time I had, but I could mislead them. Getting
in should have been tricky, but I had prepared for this and laid out my paths a week earlier. Just as we
were about to pass through the main entrance, I created a hole in the ground and stepped in. I floated
gently to the floor, five meters down. Mike followed. It was tempting to press on under the entrance, but
the worms would be on me at once. As soon as they penetrated my lilac-scented armor, I'd be exposed
and locked out for good. Worse, the worms would latch on to my presence and follow me when I tried to
leave. It would take precious minutes to detach or destroy the best worms.

To give them something to do, I called up a panel from the side of the hole Mike and I were in. I
captured a holo display of the immediate area, then twisted it along both axes. I then warped the time
frame, sending it into a one-minute loop with random trapdoors to reroute the unsuspecting worms.
Next, I shunted communications to several trinary code subroutines I had written. Finally, I whipped up
three doppelgangers of Captain Garber and placed them at various entry points in my warped reality.

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Knowing what was coming, Mike grabbed my free hand. It tingled with electricity and pulsed warmly. I
closed my eyes and activated my model.

Although I couldn't see it, I knew what happened. I temporarily warped the reality of this corner of the
puterverse. The worms very quickly got busy, tracking the equally busy doppelgangers and sending their
warning off to my subroutines which came up with appropriate instructions that led them to the trap
doors. The warp would probably last two or three minutes.

We cut through the sewer computer system and accessed the main server via the maintenance routines.
After that, it was easy to cut through one firewall and enter the secured channel into the private
accounts. Knowing I was running out of time that the three of them would be together, I slipped a hand
into a nearby terminal. Mike took a position about two meters up the line and poked his hand in as well.
I located the search paths I was certain they'd be using to trace the call. I located the trace, then rerouted
it to the Captain's private quarters making it look like he'd intended to false trace it to the commandant's.
It made no sense; they already knew the call was faked, and with a moment's thought, they'd figure out
there was no way the call could come from either place. But I was betting that emotions would be pretty
high in that little room, and they'd be reaching for their guns before accessing their brains.

"Worm coming through, Abby! Five seconds!"

I felt a shiver that meant the worm was nearly on me, so I withdrew quickly and sealed it up. Mike's high
sign meant I'd made it. He waited a moment to cover up any tracks I'd left-as a creature of the
puterverse, Mike was immune to worms-then also withdrew. We headed back to the surface. I thanked
him and exited.

The plain collapsed in on itself, and the interior of the hover reappeared. Gibbons was looking at me