Free Mina Cortez: From Bouquets to Bullets by Jeffrey Cook Page B

sure if Dr.
Kimura's being able to sing all the top hits of 1983 was quite as
useful, but she definitely appreciated Miko having Vlad.
    As she passed several open spaces, Mina could
imagine them filled with people her age. Now, everything was
tailored to people like Dr. Kimura; locations had names that were
references to things that flew over Mina's head. All of the
buildings of the University itself were similarly tailored to their
fields. Looking in windows as she walked revealed rooms structured
very similarly to her school classrooms, but now full of books,
machinery, historical artifacts, models of star systems or early
humans, and various other things she couldn't identify. There were
a few people about, but no one took much notice of her.
    Mina continued to follow directions which
updated themselves every time she thought she might be nearing her
destination, before finally heading into one of the buildings near
the center of the university. The chipped instructions led to an
elevator. Once within, there were a few moments of confusion before
Mina rolled with going through rote actions, guided by her chip.
She opened the emergency panel, disengaged two wires which were
mounted loosely, then touched the tips together. The elevator
hummed into motion. The lights showed her going into the basement.
Motion continued well past that point, with the elevator doors
finally opening some distance beneath the ground. Her instructions
updated, leading her down a hallway. Rounding a corner, she almost
ran into the Director.
    “Miss Cortez,” Director Richter said without
prelude. “This is Seattle's central chip programming center. There
are only four like it in the United States. Aside from your own,
and that of a few of the nation's highest officials, the people who
work here have some of the highest security clearances available.
This is where your own chip was developed. This is also where Scott
Szach worked before his disappearance.”
     

 
    Chapter
Nine
     
    The statement took Mina aback. Common sense
and her chip quickly informed her that it was highly irregular to
put an agent on a case involving someone they were close to. Much
as Scott had been on her mind, she hadn't remotely made a
connection, partly because this was against proper procedure,
partly because she simply hadn't considered that this was the sort
of thing the AIA would handle. Of course, now that she was here, it
made sense that they would, but not that she'd be called in on
it.
    The Director led her through two security
doors, pushing in a code before both she, then Mina, had to pass
fingerprint, eye recognition and voice recognition tests at each
station. As they went, the Director talked, sounding like she was
not pleased in the least to have Mina there. “This installation was
largely protected by anonymity. The programming center was moved
here thirty years ago. Black marketeer infiltration into both
military ranks and a handful of private security services
complicated security for programming and data loading onto highly
sensitive chips. Reactionary terrorists also hit the Houston
facility around that time, using a targeted EMP pulse to shut down
everything, and destroyed a lot of the chips in development. Since
then, the data on chips is better protected, though a strong enough
pulse will still cause reboot and recovery periods. Everything
needed for high level testing was here, but since production
continued in Redmond, most people assumed the programming was also
done there.”
    Mina kept quiet, pretty certain that telling
the Director that Scott may have mentioned that detail wouldn't
help any at this point.
    “Despite that, no one trusted a bit of
misdirection to hold up, however much appearances were maintained,”
the Director continued. “This place has state-of-the-art security.
This sub-basement doesn't exist on any maps or blueprints. The
elevator system shouldn't be obvious to most. Then there's the
codes, plus three-step identity