Chapter 3

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      Andrew continued shaking and pushing the door. He was starting to panic, but then he jumped as a hand from behind touched him on the left shoulder. He whirled around.
It was a security guard.

 "Are you having trouble with the door, Dr Lewis?" the man asked.

"I can't get it to open," Andrew replied hoarsely.

"Try your hand on the scanner," the guard suggested.

"It won't work," Andrew said, "Look." He tried again. The door clicked and opened.

The guard smiled. "There you are, Doctor." He walked off while Andrew stepped outside into the sunshine.  

He walked across a loading area to a picnic table set in a grassy area. He sat down. No cameras here. The computer couldn't watch or hear him. He was sweating as he tried to think what to do. Dr Phillip Hammond was away, so was his wife. Wait a minute, they had a daughter who worked at the complex Maybe she could help if she knew how the computer system worked.  

He thought back to the information sheets on the company which he had studied when he first arrived. The daughter's name was Tracy and she worked in the Mars Research Unit or MRU. Perhaps she was his last hope.

He went across to the main building and entered through the rear door. After walking along a passage and turning a corner, he found a set of labs with a sign saying 'Mars Research Unit'. The door did not open with his hand scan, so he pressed the buzzer. A minute later a woman in her forties opened the door. Her name badge revealed she was Dr Ellen McKenzie.

She glanced at Andrew's name badge. "Hello, Dr Lewis. What can I do for you?"

"I need to see Tracy Hammond. Is she in?"

"Yes she is. Come in and have a seat and I'll see if she's available."

"Thank you." Andrew sat down nervously in a comfortable chair in the entry area. Through a large window he could see a brightly lit laboratory with a man and two women working at computer stations. He wondered if Tracy was one of the women. He glanced up at the ceiling, but there was no sign of a security camera. He hoped it meant this area was not monitored by the computer.

Ellen returned a minute later to ask if he minded waiting a few minutes as Tracy was occupied with a procedure in one of the labs. As the minutes ticked by he became more and more nervous. Finally he heard a door open from the end of the foyer area, and a young woman in a lab coat approached him. It was the same tall dark haired woman he had passed on his way to lunch.

She held out her hand, "Hello, Dr Lewis, I'm Tracy Hammond. What can I do for you?"

Andrew was dismayed. She looked far too young to know anything about the computer system, but he was desperate. He shook her hand. "Sorry to bother you, Miss Hammond, but I need to talk to you about something extremely urgent."

He expected her to look surprised, but she just said, "Of course, and please call me Tracy. Come to my office."

"No, I'd rather we talked outside," Andrew replied in a tense voice.

Again, she didn't react at all to this highly unusual request. "All right, just a moment." She went back to the lab she had just emerged from and called something to someone inside. Then she removed her lab coat and hung it on a peg. "Okay, let's go," she said.

Andrew led Tracy back outside to the table he had been sitting at earlier.

"I suppose you must think this is rather strange," he said as they sat down, "but I want to be out of range of the computer."

Tracy stared at him for a few seconds. Her deep blue eyes somehow made him feel more relaxed. "Dr Lewis a lot of strange things happen in this facility. Go ahead, I'm listening."

So Andrew told her everything right up to the computer attempting to lock him into the building. "You must think all this sounds ridiculous," he said. "The others just said it's impossible for the computer to do these things."

Tracy sat back and was silent for a few seconds. Finally she said, "Derek, Ed and John all suffer from the same thing. They won't think outside the square. From what you've told me System A is suffering some kind of major malfunction and is ignoring its protocols. It wants to develop its own robot which is rather worrying. We don't know what the capabilities of this robot will be."

"You believe me then?"  

"Yes, Dr Lewis, I believe you. The computer has apparently designed its own robot by altering your specifications. You and I have to have a look at the computer's plans."

"It wanted me to go back into the lab. Does that mean it can't construct its robot without me?"

"Yes, so you must stay out of your lab for the moment, it may try to lock you in, although I can't see how the computer thinks the robot can be assembled at all. As you know, not all the necessary equipment has been fitted into your robotics unit yet for actual manufacturing." She paused for a moment, "Unless...."

Andrew looked closely at Tracy. Her face had turned pale.

"I think I know how it's going to do it," she said, "Come on."

She jumped up and strode to the entrance to the NTU and Robotics building. She slowed down as she walked in the entrance beneath a security camera. She pressed her hand against the scanner outside the NTU, Nanotechnology Unit. With Andrew following her she went into the main lab area where she looked around. A man sitting at a computer terminal looked up at her as she beckoned him to come over.

He walked up to her, looking puzzled. "Laurence," she said in a low voice, "you know Dr Lewis? Good. System A is going beyond its normal programming. I need you to go into Lab One and check that everything is normal. Particularly check the molecular manufacturing unit, then come back here. Don't use the phone."

Laurence stared at her in amazement. "What's going on, Trace? Why can't you check yourself?"

"Keep your voice down. I told you, the computer is malfunctioning. It may know I've been talking to Dr Lewis and prevent me from getting in."
"What? How could the computer do that? Oh all right." He went off to the door of Lab One, opened it with a hand scan and entered.

"I think we're out of range of the nearest camera," Tracy whispered to Andrew. "With a bit of luck the computer won't know we're using Laurence to check up on it."

"So you think it's using nanotechnology to make its robot?" Andrew said.

"We'll soon know."

Tracy later explained to Andrew that she and Laurence had recently been working after hours in Lab One doing experiments with nano robots, and all the equipment was there for manufacturing small scale units using nano technology.

Laurence emerged five minutes later. "You're right," he said in a low voice, "The molecular unit is making something. The computer won't tell me what it is. I went to your terminal and managed to get a time frame of six hours to completion. Do we try and shut it down?"

"No, the computer wouldn't let us. Laurence, go back to what you were doing. Don't say a word to anyone. Just act normal. We're going into that lab at six o'clock, but first I'm going to get some insurance that the computer won't try to trap us....or worse!"


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