Detective Colonel Rigel Beta entered the Assembly Hall with a rougher expression than usual. His teeth were so tight his jaw looked dislocated; under his thick eyebrows, his small eyes shone like two drops of tar.
Grazing his cap’s visor with his hand, he saluted the soldier guarding the entrance, and spotting the officer he was looking for among the others, he went down the stairs toward the hall’s lower levels.
He strode out, which went unnoticed by all the commotion; the long coat of his olive-green uniform shook with every step. His hands were covered with white gloves; one was on the belt, scratching the buckle with his thumb; and the other was turned into a fist, stretched down. He wanted so badly to hit something to release tension, but he had to keep his composure even more in front of his superiors.
He took a glance sideways at the three generals who were arguing on the balcony, and he found it weird that General Benetnash was not among them.
Arriving at the last row of operators, he set about a particular officer and stood behind him. “Did you get what I asked for?” he asked, almost whispering.
John Staton, the operator in question, was a young man with an elongated face, blond hair, and a soft voice. “Yes, sir,” he replied, and taking his hearing aids off his ears, making sure no one was near, he typed a code on his control panel.
In the lower area of his monitor, a second holographic screen appeared; so tiny they covered it with their bodies. There, it showed a recording made by the surveillance cameras of the Bellatrix barracks, different from the ones broadcast on the main screens. This video had even worse quality than the others and was crammed with distortions that made it impossible to recognize what was going on there.
Stanton shrugged. “That’s all I could get,” he said as an apology.
“Can you improve it?”
“It’ll be difficult,” the young man said. “The transmissions we receive are too many, and we’re on yellow alert, sir. If I force the satellite image, the information flow will exceed the permitted download; we may lose it.”
“You don’t need to remind me we’re on yellow alert, Stanton. Do it.”
The operator raised the download percentage; when the image began to get fixed, the undesirable red sign announcing ERROR popped up. The transmission was completely lost, and the tiny screen disappeared.
Rigel and Stanton cursed in silence.
“Show me the last image before the cut,” Rigel asked.
Stanton played the video again, and the image got composited, showing between slight distortions and white noise, the android advancing toward Level 5. Apparently, the only contact Rigel would have with the A60-R8—assuming that it was him and not another android of the same old model, of course—would always be through the recording of a security camera.
“No,” he whispered. In those footages, there was not what he was looking for.
Maybe he listened to me and didn’t go to Bellatrix, he thought, though he knew that was unlikely. He patted the young man on the shoulder, thanking him for his efforts, and turned to leave.
“There’s something odd, sir,” the officer said quietly. Rigel stopped and moved closer to him again. “There’s a missing sequence in the video we just watched.”
Rigel frowned.
“I’ve intercepted transmissions from security cameras three and five, as you requested, and routed them to my receiver,” Stanton continued. “However, I’ve received the entire transmission of the three, but only a part of the five. There’s a fraction of the footage from camera five that has been… lost along the way.”
Rigel pursed his lips.
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“Of course, it could be a simple error in the reception,” Stanton added. “Bellatrix’s antennas are damaged; it wouldn’t be surprising that’s the reason.”
Rigel wasn’t so sure about that. He left the Assembly Hall and headed toward the corridors that led to the now-empty conference rooms.
Making sure no one was around, he took one of the two phones he kept, the unregistered one, from his pants pocket and typed a number. Thanks to his men from the System Department, he could use seven-frequency there and speak freely. He looked at the screen where the phrase ‘Calling J.R.’ showed, and took the device to his ear, begging not to hear what a second later he heard, “Communication cannot be carried out.” The voicemail picked up the call for the fourth time. “There are disturbances on the line, or the number you are calling does not exist. Try it later. Thank you.”
Rigel cursed, closed his eyes, and spun on his heels. Juzo’s phone was dead, which could only mean one thing: Juzo had not taken his advice and had continued with the plan to infiltrate Bellatrix, which in turn could mean two things: that he had used the Mother Auriga and crossed the Kappa Point, or that he had perished during the A60’s attack while trying to sneak into the barracks. The first option, if it was the right one, would be a success; the second, a calamity.
He entered another number, this time trying to contact Malin. The answer was the same: “Communication cannot be carried out. There are disturbances on the line, or the number you are calling does not exist. Try it later. Thank you.”
A terrible certainty touched his mind: Malin had joined Juzo’s journey. Of course she would! How had he not thought that would happen?
His heart sank. Would Juzo and Malin’s corpses be among Bellatrix’s casualties? If that were the case, beyond the personal tragedy this represented, his actions as a double agent would be in danger of being discovered; his own life would be at risk. Whoever found Juzo’s body would also find the false ID and the card to activate the Mother Auriga that he had supplied him with. The Cyclops’ attack had just finished, but it wouldn’t take long for them to connect the dots between the android and the murder of the students; after all, the android had gone to Bellatrix in search of the monster computer, because he had left it there as part of the case. The problem was that his name would jump out; someone a little savvy could connect the dots between Juzo, the computer, and the android, and all fingers would point at him.
Moreover, it was possible that scenario could be happening at that very moment.
Desperate to know what had happened, and with so little freedom to do so—at least with the promptness he needed—he took off his cap, nervous, and fixed his hair with a growl.
Two Grenadiers dressed from head to toe in their black and olive-green armor appeared at the corner of the corridor, approaching him with determined steps.
Rigel shuddered as he had never shuddered before.
He knew it was foolish to fear; the attack on Bellatrix had ended only fifteen minutes ago, and with so many casualties to attend, it was unlikely that, in a such short time, the paramedics would have found Juzo and the evidence that would accuse him of treason. But his heartbeat ignored the logic of his thoughts and smacked him with a heat difficult to hide.
He put his phone in the back pocket of his uniform, slowly, and then, he peeked at the other side of the corridor, looking for an escape route in case his comrades wanted to give him trouble.
The two Grenadiers continued advancing.
Maybe they’ll keep going, he thought, trying to give himself some hope; though he clenched his fist, anyway.
The armored soldiers stopped in front of him.
“Sir,” one said and gave him a salute. “General Benetnash is waiting for you in his office. It’s urgent, sir.”
Rigel adjusted his cap again, gulped, and returned the salute as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on.
“Understood, soldier,” he said, and ignoring the fear of having been busted, he headed for the General’s office on the top floor.
He didn’t look back, but he heard the soldiers walking behind him; he didn’t know if they were guarding him or if they were only escorting him, as the protocol dictated. However, the fact that General Benetnash wasn’t among the other generals on the command balcony of the Assembly Hall, in a critical situation like the one they were facing, was somewhat odd; and that the General now was asking to talk to him was even odder. Meetings during a yellow alert were held in the strategy and conference room, never in a private office.
Calm down, you idiot, he said to himself as he went up the stairs, reminding himself to act naturally, not as he’d been doing since he found out about the attack on Bellatrix. He had to contain the corrosive doubts about whether or not his activities as an informant had been discovered before they began to drip from his pores. He recalled how many times he had gone through a similar situation and had managed to get away with it, and it didn’t seem wrong to give himself the luxury of credit.
C’mon, you’ve been on this for years, he thought as he faced the office’s door. Behave like a pro.
He smoothed his olive-green uniform, raised his chin, and announced himself, “Detective Colonel Beta reporting, sir.”
The door opened, and after he entered, closed, brushing his heels. The air conditioning blew on his neck, giving him chills. The Grenadiers had remained outside, but that didn’t mean he already could claim victory.
The moment of truth.