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3
STARK
Stark paced the situation room, stopping occasionally to move figures around the field, which was currently a virtual 3D model of the Midsummer Fertility Center.
At first, he’d thought the center’s budget was gargantuan for a medical facility in a low-population region of a peaceful planet. But the more he studied the peninsula-like setting, the more vulnerabilities he found.
And then there were the center’s privacy protocols.
But he had designed an airtight security plan anyway, in spite of the obstacles, just like he always did. And they had bounced it back without even a comm to discuss it, just a single line of feedback that completely wrecked his entire plan:
No biological guards can be allowed inside the patient simulations.
He’d been furious at the idea that they wanted to rely on drones and cameras for everything inside. But he’djust spent another couple of days reworking everything from the ground up.
In the new setup, the drones had been strategically positioned inside the center to provide as much coverage as possible, and his biological guards, all hand-picked ex-military, surrounded the perimeter and monitored the feeds.
He hoped the scenario would please the owners.
His comms went off as if his thoughts had summoned them.
“Stark,” he said, tapping his bracelet to allow a hologram figure of the caller to appear in place of the command center icon that floated in the center of the room.
A blue, horned woman in a lab coat winked into place.
“Mr. Rawling” she said. “It’s lovely to see you.”
“Good morning, Dr. Oppyx,” he replied. “It’s nice to see you as well. I assume the owners received my plans?”
“They did,” she confirmed. “And we’ve all reviewed them. We appreciate the hard work that went into your ideas, and there are elements we really like.”
He knew that tone, and didn’t like it.
“But?” he asked, cutting through the niceties.
Stark was proud to call Maltaffia home. It was a rich planet with ample natural resources and excellent public schooling. However, it was also home to antiquated systems of formality and a deeply ingrained dislike of telling people things they didn’t like to hear.
“I know you’re also ex-military,” Dr. Oppyx said, hereyes twinkling. “So let’s just dispense with the hand-holding here.”
Oppyx had a military background? He nodded to the hologram of the diminutive woman with renewed respect.
“This just won’t work,” she told him. “We’re running a medical facility that requires intimacy on top of all the other privacy concerns. We can’t have your men watching the feeds.”
A wave of fury swept through him, and he struggled to restrain himself from quitting on the spot. Military or not, she didn’t understand. That was all.
It had been bad enough to replace half the guys he wanted to employ for this job with a bunch of drones. Now she didn’t even want them to monitor the feed?
“Don’t you have your own cameras running at all times?” he asked.
“They are monitored by our AI,” she said. “Biological staff only have access to limited feeds, or those running during an emergency.”
“Do you want your patients to be safe?” Stark asked.
“Of course,” she told him. “Our AI can handle monitoring the whole facility while also maintaining privacy. But as you know, it is against intergalactic protocol to arm an AI, so it cannot act to protect our staff and patients. That’s where you come in.”
“I assume there was an incident already,” he said. “I know you won’t disclose it, but a budget like this is generally prompted by a serious breach. So, you know it’s more important to protect your guests than to give them complete privacy.”
“We’re not talking about complete privacy,” Oppyx replied, neatly sidestepping his reference to a breach. “What you sent over is complete oversight. Your drones are everywhere, and you’re showing their feed being monitored constantly.”
