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"But what if one of the units breaks down?" Hosato interjected the question casually as he or-dered another round of drinks through the keyboard mounted on the tableAt this time of day the bar was empty and they could talk uninterrupted. "Not much chance of that." His companion gri-maced"And even if it did, nothing much would hap-pen." There was a soft warning gong, and the square in the center of the table sank slowly from sightA few moments later, it sighed back into position, the empty glasses gone and fresh drinks standing in their place. "Nothing much?" Hosato prompted"With no one monitoring the manufacturing area, I should think it would have major problems, if not a permanent work stoppage." The little bearded maintenance man shook his head slightly, but not enough to interrupt his drinking. "That's what I'm telling you, Hayama," he said, putting down his glass at last"The new system's modularized with parallel units and flow monitorsIf anything goes wrong, anything at all, the damn ma-chines pull the entire unit and slap another one in placeDown time would only be about fifteen min-utes thirty at the max." Hosato shook his head, setting his glass down with-out drinking. ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html "I don't know, RickIt still sounds to me like you could get yourself in a lot of troubleYou've got a Mexican standoff between Maintenance and Security over who's responsible for watching the manufactur- ing areaIf anything goes wrong, someone's going to get blamed, and from where I sit, that'll be Main-tenance." "Don't worry about it," his friend insisted"Nothing major can go wrong, not the way it's set up nowAt best, a mechanical failure would be a nuisanceWe're just hoping there'll be enough nuisances to prove our point." "How can you be that sureI mean, surely there's some point of vulnerability that could send things in-to a tailspin." "Let me tell you, HayamaI've been working here for twelve yearsI've seen almost everything imagina-ble go wrong at one time or another-the plumbing, the machines, the life-support systems everythingBut I haven't seen anything yet break down that couldn't be fixed or replaced in minimal time, and that was before the modular systemI remember one time-" A high beeping interrupted his orationWith a sigh he thumbed a button on the side of his belt pager and stood up. "No rest for the wicked, I guess," he grumbled, tossing down the last of his drinkThen he reached forward and punched the keyboard with practiced ease"I'll get this tabHave one more on me, okayI've got to run." Hosato smiled and waved as the maintenance man departedAs soon as he was out of sight, however, the smile dropped from his face like a mask. The table bonged again as his fresh drink rose into view, but he didn't even look at itInstead, he stared intently at the far wall as he tried to organize his thoughts. Well, Suzi, he thought, there's good news and bad newsThe good news is that no one's watching the manufacturing areasThe bad news is that, according to the maintenance crew, the production lines can't be gimmicked. That was their opinionHosato would have to be convincedThere was a big difference between coin- cidental machine failure and deliberate sabotage. Unfortunately, that also meant he was going to have to scout it himselfHe had hoped that wouldn't be necessaryThat's why he had sought out the talka-tive little mechanic, sprawled in his favorite barThe right words would have saved him a lot of trouble"If the Z units go, we're all out of workIf you look sideways at the W runners, they stop dead. I keep telling them there's no backup for the four- wheels, but no one listens" Any phrase like that would have given him a targetInstead, he was going to have to do his own dirty work. ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html a a T T n n s s F F f f o o D D r r P P m m Y Y e e Y Y r r B B 2 2 . . B B A A Click here to buy Click here to buy w w m m w w o o w w c c . . . . A A Y Y B B Y Y B B r r ABC Amber LIT Converter http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html Well, he hadn't really expected the answer to fall into his lapHe had hoped, but he hadn't really counted on itThat's why he was wearing his Ninja suit. He stood up and reached for his employee card, then remembered Handel had already paid for the drinksRick was a nice guyIt was a shame he was going to have to put him out of work, along with the rest of McCrae Enterprises. Hosato paused for a moment after emerging from the bar's dimness to let his eyes adjust to the lightOne of Sasha's guards was walking past and swept him with an impersonal gazeHosato smiled and nodded a greeting, which was ignored. He wasn't worried about detection, yetAt the mo-ment, his Ninja suit looked like an ordinary turtleneck jumpsuit with wide turnback cuffsThis was no acci- dentPart of invisibility was being able to blend with the general populace before and after the job, and the suit was designed to enable him to do precisely that. Setting his legs for a purposeful stride, he left the mall and living quarters and headed into the tunnels leading to the other buildings of the complexThere were occasional security guards about, but none paid him particular attention. The boldness of a daytime scouting mission had its advantagesIf seen, he would be assumed to be going about normal businessAt night, the only ones mov-ing about would be him and the guards, which would immediately arouse suspicions. As he navigated the tunnels, he debated trying for one of the buildings housing a product family other than Turner'sIt would be better if he practiced his trade in another area to avoid throwing immediate suspicion on himself as a member of Turner's staffAs quickly as the thought occurred to him, he re-jected itBefore he could make his penetration, he first had to traverse the corridorsIf he were seen in a building other than where the guards were used to seeing him, the balloon would go up and he'd have a great deal of difficulty explaining his presenceNo, it would have to be Turner's building. That decision made, he turned up the flight of stairs leading to his chosen targetWhen he reached the second landing, instead of continuing up to the office levels, he paused in front of a small metal door in the wall marked "Maintenance Access." 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