Hooper had brought the hover vehicle to a slow descent making sure that only the minimal number of sensors were used to land the craft. The computer seemed to be sulking ever since they had tuned down the systems. The craft had a full autonomous mode with a military grade artificial intellect as a host system. It could easily fly itself and engage in some battlefield maneuvers. However as part of that it tended to consider the craft as one might consider a body. Right now it probably considered that Hooper had taped its eyebrows to its scrotum and asked it to do the macarena.
Hooper had been following the faint trace of the stealth suit via satellite for close to fourteen hours. The quarry was uber cautious, as was Hooper.
After leaving the mortuary facility the quarry had driven a mad trail across several levels, sectors, and cross routes of the city. Looping around and back upon themselves in a seemingly random pattern that would allow them to monitor vehicles. they were checking for pursuit and evading auto-detection algorithms of traffic cameras. Hooper had watched in bored fascination. They were good. They had changed vehicles twelve times. They had used an intelligent random generator that still allowed them to monitor their own route. They also had some significant support from an upper city gang. No doubt paid for their services but worth noting for future observation.
Hooper had taken the time to nap, using a sleep inducer with a close monitor tied to the vehicle artificial intellect to wake them if anything interesting development occurred. They had also made sure to stop and eat, using a good diner on one of the lower levels that also had showers. The shower was a sonic affair, no water and very little in the way of comfort. But it worked. They didn’t smell like they had slept in a van which was the desired outcome.
The quarry had eventually determined they were not being followed. That is when they had driven to a despatch centre near the main commercial port. There they had driven the last of the vehicles into a shipping container. After a few moments a small knot of gangers had moved in and sealed up the container placing shipping bills upon it. Hooper had used a local scope while parked over a mile distant to watch them.
The gang left and forty minutes later the container was loaded onto a magnetic train for shipment. Hooper had let the train leave, the destination was easily determined. The train was headed for the mining centre almost on the other side of the world, and far to the north of the city. It was on a desolate plain at over four thousand metres altitude. Few went their except to make money in the mines.
Hooper had made sure to get well ahead of the train and into an extremely high orbit. The craft Hooper was using was fitted with stealth observation drones. These had been deployed and they monitored the train arriving and the container being unloaded and stacked with thousands of similar containers.
This facility was completely automatic. Dependent on the shipment designation, and who had paid for its storage, the container could easily sit there until the wind turned it into particles of dust. It was a great place to hide. After a short wait of thirty minutes, a figure left the container from the side door, and made sure to seal the door again with a mini-welding torch.
Hooper did not have a tracker on this figure, but that wasn’t too much of an issue, not yet. Hooper watched as the figure fastened up an environment suit, then they unpacked a small hover scooter and headed out into the desert.
