Into The Fire (The Earthburst Saga Book 2) by Craig A. Falconer

Author:Craig A. Falconer
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Published: 2022-12-19T16:00:00+00:00

30

Practice makes perfect, and Driver makes light work of the second lab’s doorknob.

My walking movements are feeling increasingly natural, too, aided by how immersive the visual feed really is.

I think we stumbled into a pretty good balance, having rehearsed enough of the cooperative controls to have some idea of what we’d be doing in the mission but not wasting too much time.

Isaac said all along that we’d learn by doing, and he’s proven himself dead right.

“We’re looking for a document folder in here,” Isaac says as I step through the open door.

I scan the lab and sigh when I don’t see it.

Okay, I guess I was overly optimistic to think it might have been sitting on the desk with a metaphorical neon arrow pointing directly at it like the hard drive was in the last lab.

You can’t blame a guy for hoping.

“The researcher who worked here is a guy who was involved in some ZolaCore structural design work on Earth,” Isaac goes on. It’s obvious that he’s reading this from a note as he relays it to us. “He’s worked on mining projects, so he was a main focus for our analysts. This lab is where they’ve seen security footage showing a page with what they think is the structure in the ocean. This guy might have been working on plans for future mining setups, on Earth or anywhere else. And if he does have the schematics, they’re in a folder in his top desk drawer. The last footage of him with the folder shows him putting it in that drawer, and he didn’t lock it.”

That’s some news I’m glad to hear.

After the trouble we had with an unlocked door, a locked drawer would have been a real challenge. It makes sense that the lab’s owner wouldn’t keep everything locked up, too, since the lab’s main door was locked via the usual biometric setup until I disabled the security system.

I walk over to the desk, looking for a drawer. When I see it, there’s a wheeled chair in the way. Driver moves the robot’s hands towards the chair before I even ask her to, and we get it out of the way without a single word.

“You guys are getting good at this,” Isaac says.

I move into position and focus on the top drawer. It doesn’t have a handle or a knob, which I hope won’t be too much of a problem.

It’s the kind of drawer that just has a slanting inward lip at the top. Easy enough for a human to open, if not quite as effortless as a standard drawer, but maybe more challenging for a remotely controlled robot.

“Crouching now,” Isaac says.

Once we’re down, Driver deftly applies some finger pressure to the top of the drawer and slides it out towards us.

This wouldn’t have been possible with Bex, since the fingers of her hand attachments are far too thick to be able to grasp anything in such a small space as the recess Toby’s more dexterous digits just slipped into.

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