COMMAND CENTER, BELLATRIX BARRACKS
Officer Liza Grant was sitting in front of her huge monitor, a glass rectangle where data, coordinates, and images appeared drawn with lines of light. A little earlier, she’d gone for a cup of coffee, and every now and then, she drank a sip.
Even though the storm outside was flogging the region, there, in the depths of the Bellatrix barracks, things predicted a quiet night. And as she saw, the other officers she shared the room with had the same impression. Even Commander Dubhe was relaxing in his chair behind her.
The control room was at peace, with its dim lights on and the glare of the screens reflecting on the operators.
Liza took a sip of her coffee, but a drop slipped off her lips and drew a tiny black spot on her uniform’s lapel. Fortunately, her suit was of a dark green tone, and the stain was almost unnoticeable. Anyway, she covered it with a lock of her long brown hair. That was when she saw her partner leaning her head as if something was bothering her. It was the second time Liza had seen her doing that in less than a minute.
“Something’s wrong?” she asked, whispering; she didn’t want to break the calm.
Claudia Hosse, the officer in the post to her right, looked back at her with a funny gesture.
“I don’t know,” she said and pointed to the readings on her screen. “My instruments registered an electrical surge in the fuse box eight. It should have been fixed automatically, activating box nine, but nothing. And now, the delta sector of the outer antenna circuit is not responding.”
“Perhaps the storm is causing some interference,” ventured Liza Grant, and Claudia responded with the same gesture as before.
“What’s the matter?” the voice of the commander sounded behind them.
Claudia Hosse turned to his commander. “The delta sector of the outer antenna circuit has stopped working, sir,” she said, knowing her words would remove the veil of tranquility they were having. “The radar in the delta sector is inactive.”
Two beeps sounded.
“What?” the commander asked.
“Now, neither the alpha nor the gamma sector is responding, sir,” Claudia said and gulped.
Commander Dubhe stood up, his arms behind his back. He was a man in his fifties who wore an olive-green uniform with elegance, a frock coat buttoned from the neck to the waist, trousers, and shiny leather shoes. On his chest, he had the Imperial Army shield in the form of a medal.
“Officer Hosse, contact technical staff,” he ordered. “Send Cyclops to repair the damage immediately. I don’t want surprises.”
“Yes, sir.”
Dubhe returned to his command chair.
No one suspected that the dim lights of the room would soon become intermittent red lights, and the yells and alarms would supplant serenity.
They were only a few minutes away from falling under the worst attack they’d ever received.
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PEARL MOTEL
The storm was an unwanted guest demanding to get in, banging on the motel room door, as the wind searched for small holes to sneak in, howling through the window slits. The smell of moisture had clogged the vanilla freshener.
“I’ll get into the Bellatrix base,” Juzo said. “I must access the hidden hardware of that computer.”
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Malin held up her hands, calling a truce, no longer trying to persuade him to give up his plan. Objecting to Juzo was useless; it would be an even greater waste of time than trying to reason with the furniture or with the old, wrecked car that was dying in the shed outside.
“And what will you do with what you find on that machine?”
“I’ll send the information to Rigel as promised and go to Proxima to find my brother.”
Hearing Proxima, Malin threw a “Huh?” in disbelief. She hadn’t expected such a straight answer.
“Why would you?” she asked; “To reunite with a twin brother that you didn’t even remember having? Since when you activated your brotherly sentimentality chip?”
“Adam White has as much right to know about the project as I do.”
“What kind of right are you talking about, Juzo? The right to drive him mad? Let him live his life in peace. Do you know the impact this will have on his life? Assuming he believes you, that is.”
“What choice do I have, Malin? Cross my arms and pretend this project never existed?”
“Why not?” Malin insisted. “Infiltrating Bellatrix is a very risky task, not to mention leaving the continent, and for what? The project has been suspended for years!” And then, more serene, she said, “I know it must be a huge upset for you to have found out about this, I know, but why keep digging into something that has already been forgotten?”
“Because I need to know,” Juzo answered as if asking, ‘Don’t you understand?’ “Wouldn’t you do the same if you were me? What if, one day, the people who devised it recover those missing doses and decide to reactivate it? I won’t spend the rest of my life waiting for that to happen. Nobody knows that I’m aware of this; it is now that I must proceed.” He stuffed the files into his backpack. “Bellatrix is not far from here. I’ll leave now.”
“How will you cross the ocean?” she asked, her arms akimbo. “They won’t sell you a plane ticket just because you’re wearing a nice uniform.”
“In Bellatrix there is an Auriga.”
Damn it! Malin protested. Does he have an answer for everything?
“Entering a Kappa Point is far from being a pleasant experience,” she said then, with the absurd illusion her partner would rethink his actions. “Plus, who says you don’t have heart conditions? What if you have a heart attack when you get to the other side?”
“Malin,” he stopped her. “Malin, I’ll go. Like it or not.”
“I know.” She pursed her lips and her heart pounded. There was a lot to think about and little time to act. It was clear he wouldn’t ask her, so she had to be the one to tell him, “I’ll go with you.”
Juzo stepped back with a conflicted and somewhat tender look. “I can’t ask you to do that.”
Malin grabbed him by the hands. “Juzo, if you asked me to come here, it’s because you want me to go with you.”
“It’ll be dangerous,” he warned her. “What will you do if the imperialists catch us while we’re getting there?”
She shrugged. “I’ll tell them I regretted having defected,” she said with a smile, “and that you’re my offering to them to be accepted back into service.”
But a chime interrupted the slightly pleasant moment; it was Juzo’s phone. That number was confidential, a call there spelled trouble.
“Tell me it’s the motel clerk letting you know your hour is up,” she said, concerned.
Juzo took his phone out of his pocket. The yellow glowing on the screen announced the call was coming through seven-frequency; Rigel must have reactivated it to communicate with him. Upon answering the call and setting the speaker on, the Detective Colonel’s voice jumped out from the device.
“We received an urgent report. A hostile Cyclops attempts to break into Bellatrix.”
An overwhelming heat touched Juzo from head to toe.
“We’ve lost communication with the base,” Rigel added. “It’s dangerous for you to move now.”
“What model is the android?” Juzo asked.
“Juzo, it’s better to hold your—”
“Rigel, what model is it?”
“According to the report… an A60-R8.”
It was all Juzo needed to know. He cut the connection and returned the phone to his pocket.
“He’s going for the computer,” he said to himself and went for his backpack.
“How do you know?”
“What else if not?” he answered.
And Malin didn’t insist. She knew that Juzo would not listen to her or follow Rigel’s recommendation to stand there, arms folded, especially now that he was so close. She even suspected that Rigel knew it as well as she did.
Juzo shouldered his backpack, pausing for a moment to caress Malin’s cheek in farewell, perhaps because something told him that, from now on, he would no longer have time to share an intimate gesture alone with her and then left the room. The door to the little rathole banged against the wall, blown by the icy wind from outside.
Malin walked out onto the porch, saw Juzo running under the storm heading for the road, and went after him. She wouldn’t leave him at a time like this, no matter how much her instincts told her they were making a mistake.
“I left my motorbike hidden among those trees!” he pointed out.
“In this weather, it’ll be safer to go in my car!” she shouted so that her voice could pierce through the bustle of the storm. “Let’s go!”