The view from the terrace was quite an eyeful and nothing on Cancri could compare to it. Different types of plants were arranged along the walkways leading to different levels, letting out a fine fragrant smell. The flowers on some of the plants had already bloomed too, showing off vibrant, happy colors.
The woman who stood on the walkway taking in the view, wearing a coat stretching down to her knees with her black hair hanging free over it, took another sip of her Sydwatér, its sweet taste of strawberries flowing down her throat as she looked up towards the ceiling. Up there the sky didn’t show, an endless black void covered most of it, with a blue-green planet in one corner. It was strange looking at it like this so far away; it felt so small and vulnerable. Every time she saw it from this perspective she always got the feeling that they couldn’t be alone. More planets like this had to exist.
This wasn’t her first trip to the Muninn Exploratory Station, but she always felt the same. Sometimes she wondered if she belonged there or on Cancri, because in space she always felt free.
“Criminal Investigator Herzel, I’m so sorry I’m late.”
The voice was strained and she turned around to face it. A man in a lab coat stood before her, breathing heavily. She could tell he had been running, not wanting to be late.
“It’s OK, I would understand if you are busy.”
He let a hand draw across his forehead and wiped away a lock of wavy hair that had fallen before his eyes.
“Thank you. Something came up in the control room that required my attention.”
Herzel noticed there was something about him that wasn’t right. He seemed flustered and tried to avoid her gaze.
“I hope it wasn’t anything serious,” she said, in an attempt to drag him out further. If she pressed him a little some details might fall out that could come in handy.
He waved his arms in a defensive manner and smiled.
“Oh, no. It was just a little anomaly in the system, nothing to be worried about. Please, follow me.”
She sat her glass, with a little drip of Sydwatér left in it, down on a table and began to walk down a walkway with the Doctor by her side. There weren’t a lot of people out at this time, as it was still early morning, in terms of the station itself. It had its own routines, procedures and time management that the Space Institute down on Cancri had established. She had read about it a number of times just out of pure interest.
“The station seems to hold up well even after ninety years, Doctor…” she said and scoured her surroundings. Not a speck of dust, rust or dirt on the walls or in the corners. Everything was clinically clean.
“Doctor Jinder, please. Yes, we have a thorough cleaning and maintenance team that does their best every day and has been for years. No serious error has occurred this year, either and that I’m very happy for.”
He puffed out his chest and looked proud. No wonder, Voer thought, considering his position was held responsible for the welfare of the station.
“And the equipment?”
“Splendid. Very advanced and cutting edge technology that never fails. The Institute has really given us a lot of benefits and quality equipment.”
Their conversation fell quiet as Herzel’s mind couldn’t figure out what to say to move the conversation on; she didn’t like to talk much about nothing anyway. The lane they walked down was empty of life and the lights ahead showered the gigantic space with bright light. The sun filters had also been activated, protecting the station’s inhabitants against the sun rising above Cancri.
“If I understand the situation right, I don't know why I am here,” Herzel said and shot a glance at Jinder, “some kind of hacking attempt was tried?”
“Yes,” Jinder said and nodded, worry shining through his face. “We understand that it’s one of your specialties and so we specifically asked for you. The intruder tried to hack into the main datacore where we keep all our information, schematics and navigational support sources. Only the first layer of security was breached however.”
“So nothing was copied or destroyed?”
“We are almost sure nothing was, but that’s why you are here. With your experience you might see something we overlooked.” He stopped at a door and drew a card in front of the sensor on the side. The door slid open without making a sound and they stepped into something akin to a control room. Numerous consoles and monitors littered it but there were no signs of any employees.
“Right now I’ve called a meeting regarding this matter, so this room is empty for you convenience. I’ll provide you with the necessary codes and you are free to explore the system.”
“Thank you,” Herzel said and accepted the data disc Jinder handed over.
“Now, I need to attend said meeting. I’ll be back in an hour or so.”
Herzel nodded and watched him leave the room. She sat down on one of the chairs and entered the data disc into one of the hubs. It automatically began to open the system for her, data scrolling quickly past the monitor until the interface was up and ready. After that she began her inspection, her head filled with the usual procedures and commands.
The inspection took almost two hours before she could determine that nothing had been copied or destroyed. Everything was there, at least according to the logs that the local system had saved. During that time, Jinder had not come back once, despite saying he would only be gone for an hour. Herzel was annoyed because of it, the feeling n her gut telling her he was acting too strange. She couldn’t pinpoint exactly why, but the feeling remained.
To her surprise the door suddenly slid open and Jinder walked in, his normal expression gone like the wind and now instead with a nervous smile on his face, the expression of a desperate person.
“Criminal Investigator, have you found anything of importance?” he asked, almost stuttering forth the words.
“No. Nothing has been removed or altered.”
“Ah, good. Well, seems like your visit was here for nothing then.”
Herzel raised an eyebrow at his words and rose to her feet. She gave the monitors a last suspicious glance before facing Jinder again. She refrained from asking what was going on as it probably hadn’t anything to do with her anyway.
“Then it’s time I make my exit. Goodbye, Doctor Jinder,” Herzel said. She made a move towards the door where Jinder stood but he didn’t move out of the way, blocking the exit. She observed him silently for a while, her hand slowly drifting to her hip until it rested on her service pistol.
“Would you mind moving out of the way?” Her tone was more aggressive and annoyed than before. She disliked this kind of acting the Doctor put up, it shone straight through him.
“I’m sorry,” Jinder said and watched the hallway behind him. No life appeared and his eyes flickered back and forth.
“Take this.” He handed over another data disc to Herzel with a stealthy move of his hand. Herzel looked at him with cold eyes while clenching the new data disc.
“What’s this?” she asked, standing where she was, even though Jinder had moved out of the way to open the exit.
“Don’t look at it now, Voer Herzel. Just catch the next transport shuttle and get out of here. Now.”
Voer looked at the data disc and then back at Jinder. She bit her lip and nodded, walking briskly out of the room and heading towards the one spaceport the space station had in its possession. Jinder stood where he was, eyeing her until she disappeared behind a corner. She didn't hear him call out or chase after her.
The transport shuttle waited for her in one of the docks. The space elevator that was normally used to transport equipment and visitors was conducting maintenance, so the shuttle was the only way to access the station. The spaceport itself was quite large, with room for several shuttles and other types of spacecraft. On occasion, military ships would also dock with the station, to exchange a word or two with the scientists face to face.
“Identification card, please,” the operator at the boarding gate said when she approached him. Voer handed her card over and looked around nervously. She felt observed by someone but didn’t know where from. The spaceport was brimming with activity all of a sudden and it was hard to spot any individuals of interest.
“Everything checks out. Welcome aboard, Miss Herzel,” the operator said with a mechanical smile and held out the card. She took it and put the card back in her pocket. The shuttle was only a few meters away, connected by another walkway, but it wasn’t the same one as she had arrived in. This one was slightly different in the paint job, a pattern she hadn’t seen anywhere before.
Putting that thought aside, since she wanted off the station as fast as possible, she entered the shuttle and took a seat. The small stream of adrenaline left her system and she calmed down. She found it odd, as she usually remained calm in any situation. Something scared her deep down.
The shuttle loosened its grip of the space port ledge and shot out through the spaceport’s opening into space. The shaking soon decreased as the artificial gravity systems of the station lost its hold and zero-gravity took over inside the shuttle. There were only three more people beside Voer inside, making it fairly empty and quiet, only the rumbling from the engines vibrating through the hull.
She picked up the data disc from her pocket and eyed it with curiosity. It looked exactly the same as the one Jinder had given her before with the codes to the system. The only way she could know what was on it was to check on her computer back in her apartment, three hours from where she was now.
She sighed and put the data disc back in her front pocket. She figured that, since she couldn’t do anything inside the shuttle and could just wait, a nap wasn’t the worst thing in the world. She closed her eyes and redirected her mind to other matters. The intense light suddenly appearing outside the window went her unnoticed.
Two hours later, she disembarked the shuttle and walked into the sunlight at the Oruvenne spaceport. It was abnormally hot outside, not at all as comfortable as on the station with its advanced air condition system. Feeling as if the data disc would burn a hole in her pocket, she approached the main building to check-out and get home as fast as possible. Her car was parked at the front of the building, so she would have to through the building anyway.
When she was released from the last check station, that operator also shared the mechanical smile which seemed to have spread amongst the spaceport employees, she noticed there was an extra newscast on one of the huge televisions hanged up on the wall. Unable to resist the urge she turned her attention to it just to see what it was about, again, her intuition telling her she would be interested to know what it was about.
A woman in a business suit and a serious face delivered the lines with precision and a heavy tone.
“Two hours ago, the Muninn Exploratory Station suffered a failure in one of its gravitational stabilizers. The stabilizers are meant to keep the station stationary in Cancri’s orbit so the space elevator attached to it can operate normally, but an explosion of some kind disabled one of them.
“Therefore, just a few moments ago, it crashed into the Kamban Ocean, along with the space elevator. A salvage-rescue team has been sent out by the Space Institute, with cooperation from the Cancri State Navy. The space elevator, that was currently unpopulated during the incident due to maintenance, broke loose and collapsed not far from where the station fell.
“The chance of finding any survivors is very slim. A press conference has been called by Head Chairman Maskovich and we will keep you updated.”
Voer stood frozen on the stone floor and stared at the television as the newscaster kept on talking about details related to the incident. She thought of the data disc in her breast pocket and a sudden realization started to form in her head. Disregarding any emotions that threatened to flood up, she ran out of the building towards the car. It was parked nearby, a sleek, black car belonging to her department, but also acting as her private car.
She entered the code into the lock and the door opened with a low hiss. An attachable siren was flung onto the roof, its light and noise drenching out anything else on the parking lot. As soon as she was out of her parking spot she slammed the accelerator and sped up on the highway heading for home.
*
The loss of the Muninn Exploratory Station had caused an uproar on Cancri's surface. The general public and politicans of lower authority asked themselves how it could be possible that such an important installation could suffer an error of that magnitude. Questions had been raised almost everywhere and they wanted answers fast. The situation, especially in the capitals, was highly unstable.
That was what the press conference in the House of States would do, lead by Gregory Maskovich. Reporters had been called and the public had been notified, setting everything up. It was about to start in another minute or two.
On the top floor where the speech was to be held, camera crews and reporters already flocked the floor. Notebooks were being picked up, pens clicked in anticipation and laptops sat in the knees of their owners. They all waited for the Chairman to arrive. An event like this was not to be missed, even if it was because of a tragedy.
In one corner of the room stood freelance journalist Andrea Baker, her status as a freelance and no big news agency behind her back forcing her to stand in the far back and, being relatively shorter than everyone else, she had a tough time to actually see the podium where the Chairman would be. She clicked her pen furiously in annoyance.
“Why is it always me that has to be in the back? Just because I don’t have some big, known, fat agency supporting me… Jeez, if only I had a chair I could stand on so I at least could see what is happening,” she groaned, envying the other journalists.
Suddenly the doors to her left swung open and the Chairman followed by his secretary strode in. He seemed troubled she thought; his face was all grim and serious. Well, not that it was strange, considering what had happened. The public uproar the incident had caused was probably enough to infuse a headache or two.
Camera flashes blinked in the room while a storm of questions tried to meet the Chairman’s ears. He ignored them all and walked straight up to the podium, eyes looking straight forward. It was his usual routine which everyone always ignored; he never answered question before a speech and wouldn’t do so this time either. Andrea was the only one who held back, but not entirely by will. There was still a living wall between her and him. She wondered if she would even get a chance to ask something.
The Chairman held out a hand to silence them. The camera flashes lowered in intensity by a small margin and they stopped talking. He turned against the cameras and eyed them with compassion. Then he began the speech.
“My fellow citizens… Members of the Cancri State. It is with great sadness I bring these news to you, news that some of you might have heard already, you who has lost someone you knew, maybe even loved.
This morning the Muninn Exploratory space station, an important facility not only to the State, but to you as a people, was attacked. It lost its fight against gravity and slowly sank down towards our planet and crashed in the ocean, tens of kilometers of the coast.
We have not confirmed any survivors yet, but rest assured we will not stop searching. We, as a people, cannot give up our hope that somewhere a survivor lays waiting for rescue… and we shall bring it to him or her with a swift and serious response.”
He paused and took a hold of the podium until his knuckles grew white. Andrea had by that time found a better position and could finally see the Chairman, at least in part. She noted things down as fast as she could possibly write.
“I know. You all want someone to be responsible. It was my, Gregory Maskovich, responsibility to ensure their safety. Now I have failed that responsibility. I am prepared to take the blame for what has happened. “
He threw his hand onto the podium and hit it with great force. The reporters in the front flinched from the sudden outburst.
“But! That does not mean there isn’t a culprit! What I am about to say might shock you, but it is the truth, a truth you will not want to believe.
The few nobles that still remain on this planet, yes I do not deny they still exist, has formed a resistance to overthrow our wonderful democracy. And what do you think they decided to do first?!
Yes, that’s right! They are the ones who conducted the attack on the Muninn! They are the ones responsible for this tragedy! Your former leaders, the honorary nobles, are the ones that killed your friend, your loved one! Do you not want revenge for this horrible deed?!”
He let the podium go, closed his eyes and let his head fall down. He lowered his voice so the reporters had to increase the sensitivity on their microphones.
“I think you want to. I know you want to. As a people we must stand united against this sort of violence. We cannot accept this. So, the people of the Cancri State, I will ask this of you; report anything suspicious you see. Any nobles you might know that still is here on this planet might be behind it. You will ask yourself; ‘No, how could that be? The nobles are my friends; they would never do such a thing’.
Oh yes, they would. They are power-hungry and have always been. They will not stop until they have reclaimed their power.
So! That is my wish to you! Do not let them destroy us and do not let them overtake us; do not let them ruin this freedom and democracy we have built with our own hands!
The State is on your side. We will listen to you and only you. Soon the votings will begin and then we will know what you want to be done. We are already planning something we want to know what you think about.
Rest assured; there will be vengeance. There will be true democracy. Your freedom has not been wasted and it shall never be wasted.”
He backed away from the podium and briskly walked off the stage. His secretary followed in a rush, unprepared for him to deviate from the planned aftertalk. On their way out reporters had to be held back by guards because of the chaos that ensued. A few reporters that actually managed to get close didn’t get a statement anyway; Chairman Maskovich just ignored them with an iron-hard gaze locked on what was in front of him and made his exit.
In the aftermath of the ruckus, Andrea had been pushed back again but had finished the last of her notes. She had listened intently during the entire speech and noted down as much as she could, taken aback by the show he had put on. It sounded reasonable. She had only been a simple peasant a year ago, but now, thanks to the abolishment of the nobles, she was free to do what she wanted.
Still, she couldn’t stop thinking about something. It rushed around in her head, contradicting what the Chairman had said. Everytime she tried to shake it away it become more intense. Was it doubt? Maybe it was the refusal to believe in this sort of action. She couldn’t believe the nobles would resort to attacking civilian targets…
Whatever it was, she couldn’t stop thinking about it and she tried to finish her notes best she could. At least she had a good amount of material that someone would be interested in. Maybe it would enable her to pay the rent in time.
*
Several hundred light-years from the star that Mid-Childa orbits, in a system designated as KK-89, the reconnaissance spacecraft
Emaya had been stationed to determine if the planets orbiting the white dwarf star contained any sort of life.
Despite knowing that white dwarf stars almost have no heat at all, and that the chances of life existing on surrounding planets therefore was almost zero, the TSAB had decided to check it out anyway. It was standard procedure after all, but Captain Morrison of the
Emaya was still irritated about the decision. They had observed hundreds of white dwarfs and none of them had ever had life on the planets orbiting them.
No matter how many times he sighed or scratched his beard the irritation didn’t go away. They conducted their observations as they always did; rating of the star, rating of the planets, atmosphere, materials and all the other drabble that clogged his head. He understood the importance of mapping a system for archiving but a nearly dead system with a retired star wasn’t likely to pose a threat ever.
“Captain, there is something odd showing up on the analysis results,” Orlov Stelvski, the officer handling the sensors, said. “It’s a signal… or something. It has a rhythm to it and it’s coming from the largest planet in this system.”
Captain Morrison sat up straight in his command chair and clenched the armrest in anticipation.
“A signal? From what?”
“I don’t know. It’s not produced by any astronomical object, I can tell you that much. However, it’s located on the ground somewhere on that planet. I don’t recognize it from any of our own signals.”
“Bring the planet info up on my screen.”
A window appeared to his right with statistic rolling over it. It was a standard planet made out of solid rock it told him, with no atmosphere or hint of strange chemical elements. From a first glance it looked like an ordinary planet found everywhere in the universe.
“Get closer to it,” Captain Morrison said and leaned back in his chair. The discovery of an anomaly made his mind surprisingly active compared to a minute ago.
The engines of the
Emaya flared up and they broke their drifting through space, heading towards the planet. The closer they got, the stronger the rhythm became, Orlov reported as they closed in. The signal seemed to come from the side facing away from them.
“Put us in an orbit around it with low thrust. We’ll come across the place the signal is originating from in a few minutes without wasting too much energy and we will have the little light that the star puts out to our advantage.”
Navigator Lena Tanski did as she was told and eased the controls to the correct course.
Emaya made a few direction corrections with the help of computer diagnostics and settled into the orbit. The rumble from the engines changed a little every second, calibrating for each new order the computer gave.
“Right, let’s just wait for now. How is the signal?”
“Growing stronger, Captain. The rhythm is unchanged from before,” Orlov said.
“OK. Keep me updated on any changes.”
“Yes, Captain.”
Captain Morrison released his grip of the armrest and resumed scratching his beard. The rotation of the planet was rather fast and the weak light that the white dwarf gave off illuminated the surface for them. If his calculations were correct, the light would shine at the point where the signal was coming from.
A few minutes passed until Orlov gave off a surprised hum and stared at his monitor.
“What is it?” Captain Morrison asked, waiting for some sorts of news.
“The signal ended. Right before it shut itself off, its rhythm changed just for a second,” Orlov said with disbelief clouding his voice. “I promise I didn’t lose it, it terminated itself.”
“Calm down, I believe you. We'll be over the place soon anyway,” Captain Morrison said with his hand hovering in the air, motioning Orlov to stop rambling. He trusted his crew deeply and knew Orlov was telling the truth.
The
Emaya observed the surface of the planet when the light played across it. First several craters revealed themselves, but so far it was normal for the planet itself. However, the massive metal structure dug out into the crust was not.
“By the Kaiser, what is that thing?”
“It’s huge, look at the size of that thing!”
“Who could have done this? It certainly wasn’t us.”
The comments fired off in a sea of voices but Captain Morrison did no attempt to stop it. He was equally intrigued by the object down on the planet and stared at his screen with blinking eyes. In his ten years of service in the TSAB Navy he had never seen anything like it.
The structure was over two kilometers across and had been built like a cross. Four massive arms stretched in four different directions, each containing lights and various oddly-shaped symbols. According to the computer analyzing the whole thing, the depth of those symbols was over eighty meters and the massive spire in the middle of the cross was several kilometers high.
A strange orb of light at the top of the spire emitting an odd blue shine up into the air caught his attention and the hair in his neck stood up as an awkward feeling arose inside him.
“Orlov, do you see that?” Captain Morrison said and directed him to where he was looking.
“Yes. Let me adjust the sensor and see-“ Orlov began but cut himself off suddenly. He began to frantically give commands to the sensor computer while sweat began to form on his brow.
“Talk to me, Orlov,” the Captain said. He didn’t like the sudden silence his crewman had instilled himself with.
“I’m… not sure this is correct. It has a massive amount of magical energy collecting in that orb and if the computer has the right results, it’s aimed straight at us.”
Without thinking anymore of the matter, Captain Morrison acted on a whim. He refused to take any chances this far out from their ordinary recon routes.
“Evasive maneuvers! Get us away from here!” he shouted while gripping the armrest again and firing off commands into his console.
Emaya’s engines switched to full thrust and they boosted out of the area just as the structure fired. The bolt of intense magical energy was ejected from the spire with insane speed and flew past the area the
Emaya had just been occupying. The bolt continued out into space until it dissolved itself in magical particles, showing off a strange and amazing lightshow dancing behind them in the darkness of space.
Meanwhile, the crew inside the spacecraft was in disarray at what had just happened. They had escaped certain death by a few seconds but they were still not entirely out of it. Their electronics was malfunctioning, making them both blind and unable to steer. They drifted away from the planet with the same speed they had had before the engines shut off.
“What’s happening?” Captain Morrison shouted while he entered override commands into his console to try and open the systems again. They repeated the same error message over and over regardless of what he tried.
“I don’t know!” Orlov shouted back. “All the sensors are down and I can’t see anything. We are blind for now.”
“Restart the system and make sure we enter the dimensional sea as soon as you do.
Orlov nodded and got to work. The Captain checked off the rest of his system with no success and began to manually restart his controls. His thoughts raced around, theorizing that the magical energy that had just been unleashed acted as an EMP of some sorts. It was the only explanation he could come up with and it clawed at him from the inside. His uniform was drenched in sweat and his right hand had begun shaking. It always did when he was panicking and doing that now was not a good sign.
“Captain! I got one of the camera sensors working again,” Orlov shouted with a faint taste if satisfaction.
“Good! What can you see out there?”
“Uhh… By the Kaiser, something is coming right at us!”
“Another shot from that spire?” Captain Morrison asked with horror striking his face. They couldn’t possibly dodge another shot like that.
“No, this is something else. They came from the other side of the planet, maybe another installation we missed or something. They look like missiles of some sort, homing in at us.”
“Shit. Lena! Get us out of here now!”
“I’m still restarting the system, Captain! I can’t enter the dimensional sea until then and its two minutes left,” Lena shouted. She worked on her own console, knowing her life and everyone else’s depended on her now. The pressure was too hard and she began to lose focus, making simple mistakes. Images of her daughter back on Mid-Childa flared up in small instances, pressing her to the limit further.
“We don’t have two minutes! Orlov, how far out are those missiles or whatever they are?!”
“About forty seconds!”
Captain Morrison hunched back in his chair and hid his eyes behind his hand. He massaged his temples and began to think. There was nothing left to do though. Without any chance to move out of harm’s way they would die in an explosion from an unknown enemy, one he hadn’t even seen yet. It was a so simple trap and yet they had waltzed right into it. He laughed a little at his demise. Only a miracle could save them now, as their magic shielding was down too, thanks the EMP effect.
“Captain! There was a glitch in the restart system!” Lena suddenly shouted out with a voice drenched in proud after finding the error. “The dimensional sea is opening for us now as we speak! We can-“
Before she could finish the sentence, the missile-shaped objects struck the
Emaya in the stern. The magical energies reverted to pure mass and pierced the ship straight through, making its bolts and metal explode from the force. The interior of the ship burst into flames, metal bending and rooms melting from the heat, and the crew seated in their chairs in the bow began to be consumed by it. Screams and wails of pain revolted inside the small ship until it separated itself in two parts with a final stressful groan, minor explosions and fires quickly disappearing into the airless vacuum.
Scorched corpses and the remaining pieces of the
Emaya, which had not been destroyed in the melting heat from the impact, drifted peacefully into an orbit around the rocky planet. On the surface the structure with the spire began to fade until it only left a cross-shaped dent in the crust.
*
Voer had trouble entering the code to open the door to her apartment. She was in such a hurry she mistyped several times and she forced herself to calm down. The data disc in her pocket pressed against her, reminding her it was still there, waiting to be opened.
Finally, after some additional struggling, she flew through the door and threw off her coat on the floor. Her computer was in the living room, a small compartment with a few windows, a table and a sofa. She was logged in within a few seconds and inserted the disc without taking any precautions whatsoever.
“Come on you, work faster,” she muttered and stared at the monitor. Files were being automatically transferred from the mobile disc to her hard drive, the progression bar growing slowly. Strange file names showed up as they queued themselves up.
“ScheduleTime, DefuseProc, AuthorizedAcc…” Voer mumbled the names for herself as they showed up on the screen. They made little sense out of context, but she knew from experience they were probably part of some kind of software. She prayed that none of the files were corrupted.
A satisfactory blimp appeared as the transfer finished and she clicked on the executable to start the application.
CYNUSALPHA V1.2 read out in large, white text on a black background. It changed only after a few seconds and continued to write up text that Voer absorbed. Information regarding the Muninn, its operational procedures and its schematics appeared, schedules and time tables wrote themselves out and showed the employees’ patrolling schedules. The application contained all available info regarding the Muninn, almost exactly the same information Voer had seen in the main data core.
However, Voer noticed something was off. She saw that some values had been changed and new variables added altogether. She didn’t know enough about astrophysics to understand what it entailed but she know someone who did.
There were also some notes that had been added to the information. An outsider was the more likely suspect, because the text didn’t have the same flow as the rest and it wanted to inform a specific person. The application was an altered version from the original Voer concluded. An illegal and potentially dangerous replica depending on the information it held.
She let her shoulders drop and she stared at the ceiling, stopping her thoughts and began from the beginning. This explained why Doctor Jinder had been so nervous and flustered. Something had happened at that meeting or, potentially, before it.
More importantly, and what scared Voer to the core of her being, was the plain information it gave. The press conference with the Chairman that had taken place while she had been driving home, it had been transmitted on the radio, had put the blame on the nobles. She had also thought of that.
She hadn’t believed it in the end. The information she now had was the final straw to lock away that theory, something thought up by the State to put the nobles in a position of scapegoat. But she didn’t know why. Not yet.
Another menu had revealed itself when she focused on the monitor again. She clicked on it and yet more numbers and variables appeared, not making any sense. The only thing that stood out was the title in the header for the document itself; Operation Frostwolf.
Voer didn’t know what it meant; there wasn’t a slight indication or reference to it anywhere else in the application. She came to the conclusion that the document was encrypted, or something similar. She would need help decrypting it though, because even if she was an IT specialist in the Criminal Investigation department, this was just beyond her ability.
She noted it down in her head to see her acquaintance in the morning just as the door to her apartment opened. A familiar voice called out to her.
“Voer, you home already?”
“Yea, some stuff… happened,” she replied, not sure if she would tell him everything. She stood up from her seat and walked over to the hall where Hans had just walked in.
“Such as? Work related?”
“Kinda,” Voer said and glanced at the wall. It took nearly an hour to explain and then to assure Hans she was all right.
2009-10-03, 02:44
Author
For those that belittle their favorite characters, complain about pairings, complain about oversexed images. Stop, thank you.
