Free The Only Game in the Galaxy by Paul Collins

would also be shared, and overlapped, like signals rippling off in all directions on a spider’s web – more like hundreds of spiders’ webs, superimposed on each other.
    A clever, diabolically simple concept, driving any AI insane within nano-seconds.
    God knows what it did to system operators , thought Hatsu.
    Hatsu ate, mentally ticking off the seconds. Suddenly, she put down her spoon and stood. No one paid her any attention. She went to the rear of the room just as smoke emanated from the table where she had been sitting. At the same time a series of distant explosions could be heard.
    Then the webbing device signalled it had reached critical mass.
    As Hatsu watched, red warning lights flickered on waist-worn field generators. More lights on more units joined in. Soon the entire room was a smoke-filled landscape dotted with red blinking eyes. Chairs scraped back as mild panic rode the crowd. Someone called for security. Several others fled the room.
    Hatsu used the smoke cover and confusion to disable the locking mechanism on a maintenance hatch and climbed inside. Within minutes she was four levels higher and one hundred metres west of where she had entered.
    More explosions vibrated the floors and walls. Sirens could be heard now and the rumble of running feet.
    Security lockouts would begin shortly – as soon as the mainframe AI came back online.
    Hatsu located Jeera Mosoon without trouble. Maximus had not infected her with a lethal self-de-structing toxin, but he had her well wormed, utilising the old Rusky method, worms within worms within worms. Canny bastards, those Ruskies.
    Hatsu shut down the grid on the floor where Jeera was being held. She then set off an ultrasonic field wave knocking out any living organism larger than a bacterium. It would also rattle their teeth and give them a lousy headache.
    Hatsu found Jeera collapsed on a couch in a small room, part recreational room, part torture chamber. Two beefy goons were out for the count nearby.
    Jeera appeared untouched, as Maximus had predicted. The allergen-producing virus he had infected her with would have to be neutralised before anyone could stay in a room with her for as long as required to counteract the amnesia toxin.
    Obviously, Black was an expert when it came to poisons, toxins, viruses and nerve agents. Hatsu filed that away for future reference.
    Kneeling beside her, Hatsu revived Jeera with a drug cocktail designed specifically to match her DNA fingerprint. As the girl opened her eyes, Hatsu said, ‘Don’t take this personally,’ and kissed her full on the mouth.
    Jeera screwed up her face, but she didn’t recoil.
    Hatsu pulled back. ‘Don’t be frightened.’
    ‘What do you want?’ Jeera seemed dazed.
    ‘Not much. I just administered, saliva to saliva, an agent to unlock the code on the micro-burst. Your inability to remember the coordinates will dissipate on its own.’
    ‘Black sent you.’
    ‘The man himself.’
    ‘Are you here to get me out?’ Hope glittered in her eyes, along with doubt.
    ‘Yep. But first things first.’ Hatsu pulled out a retinal uploader, fitted the upstream end to Jeera’s eye and the downstream end to her own, and triggered it, causing a brief double flash.
    ‘Okay. It’s now uninstalled from your implant and loaded into mine. Let’s go.’
    Jeera had a dozen questions but Hatsu, neuronotically inclined, did not answer them. The girl remained dazed. Hatsu wondered what they’d done to her.
    By now the mainframe AI would be back online, busy searching for Hatsu and Jerra’s intruder signatures. But the webbing effect would give the AI a nervous breakdown as it discovered that Hatsu’s signature was in five hundred places throughout the Fortress at once. Of course, the moment they realised Jeera had escaped they would soon latch on to her.
    ‘Put these on.’ Hatsu tossed Jeera a set of blue overalls, identical to the ones she herself wore. She’d stolen both sets earlier on.
    ‘Where are we