“That would be wonderful. I can send you the coordinates so you can ship them to Snakardekus and Varenok if you’d like.”
“O-oh uh...are you sure? Lieutenant General Armitage asked if I could ship them to the USV Valkanaut, instead.”
“Oh, no need. I’ve seen the pictures, and you debriefed me on it. I think it is ready to go.” General Deschner smirked.
“Oh. Alright then. Yes, General, if you could send those coordinates to me, that would be great.”
“How long until they arrive there?” asked General Deschner.
“Well I can’t send these just by themselves, I would need a supply drop, and the supply drops aren’t as fast as the Drakdel... so it wouldn’t be minutes... probably the next day.” Brigadier General Maruo admitted. “Well, next Nuwurth day, that is.”
“There’s no way to speed up the process?”
“Not that I am aware of, General.”
General Deschner leaned back in his chair and stroked his face. His facial hair had started to grow again, and he scratched his face while thinking. “I suppose that will do.”
“Sounds good. Anything else, General?”
“Make sure that the HAFR’s are powerful than the HPD’s. Then test them again and try to make them even more powerful.”
“I’m not sure if that is possible...but okay General. Will do! I’ll try it!”
“I’ll send you the coordinates now. Goodbye, Brigadier General Maruo. You have done the Syndicate well.”
“Thank you, General.” Brigadier General Maruo bowed his head, and General Deschner swiped his hand and tapped on “End Call.”
I’m glad that is over with, Maruo can be annoying to talk to.
General Deschner swiped his hand and tapped on “Files,” then swiped down to “Snakardekus” and tapped on it. Then he held down his finger, and a file appeared labeled “Coordinates” followed by a drop-down box with the option “Send to” then his “Contacts” appeared, and he scrolled down to find “Brigadier General Maruo, Rosha” and then he tapped on “Send.” Then he sent Varenok’s coordinates to him as well.
The Major Generals will receive these weapons soon, and then we can see what they will do in those hostile environments. Armitage, you better be careful about what you wish for. Weaponry does not always protect people; it can cause serious repercussions. Continue planning behind my back, Armitage, and you’ll see what will happen.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Lieutenant General Armitage walked from his room to the docking bay and looked to where the Drakdels once were.
It’s only been a day since you four were here, it feels much longer than that. Wait a second, I have to call you still! I’ll do it after I meet with dee Veyra.
He continued walking towards the hallway and pressed a button by the doorway that led underneath the Drakdel to the Engineering Bay. The USV Valkanaut had all the essentials on board to keep the generals of the Syndicate comfortable so they would not have to leave during missions.
I hope dee Veyra is here already; I didn’t see her anywhere else on the ship, so I assume that she’s down here.
The door opened, and Lieutenant General Armitage walked down the staircase and saw the fluorescent lights on in the Engineering Bay. As he reached the last stair, he saw Lieutenant General dee Veyra standing in the hallway, pointing at something behind the plasma walls.
“Hey, there dee Veyra, what are you doing?”
“Oh, good, you’re here. Well, I am trying to get some preliminary scans right now on the ETD here. Each step of the process, I like to back up the data and save it in case something doesn’t work. I keep the logs and code of it.”
“Good thinking.” Lieutenant General Armitage agreed. “I do the same thing in MOD.”
Lieutenant General dee Veyra nodded. “Well...I suppose you’re new to this side of the technological field of it.”
“Yes and no. I mean, I know a thing or two about machinery and robotics...” Lieutenant General Armitage responded.
“Of course, but do they involve transhumans in any way?”
“Probably not as hands-on as TAT is.
“That is most likely true.”
“What did you want me to do?” Lieutenant General Armitage asked.
“Well, I am trying to figure out how to transport this chair on the ETD to over there.” Lieutenant General dee Veyra pointed at an empty glass space next to her.
“Okay. Well, what have you tried?”
“Well, I tried using the application for the ETD to enable it, but it didn’t work.” Lieutenant General dee Veyra admitted.
“The application that you’re using is connected to the ETD?”
“Of course.”
“Hey, I just had to ask, you never know.”
Lieutenant General dee Veyra rolled her eyes. “Basic troubleshooting doesn’t work, Armitage.”
“Show it to me, I want to see the application.”
“Why don’t you look for yourself?”
Lieutenant General dee Veyra swiped her hand, and her INH opened. She tapped on “Files” then “TAT” then “ETD” and held down, and a drop-down list appeared. She tapped on “Send” and scrolled in her contacts to find “Lieutenant General Armitage, Ryker” and tapped “Send.”
“There. Check your INH”
Lieutenant General Armitage swiped his hand, and his INH opened and appeared was a message that read:
FILE RECEIVED FROM LIEUTENANT GENERAL DEE VEYRA
OPEN? YES OR NO
DOWNLOAD? YES OR NO
The words appeared before his eyes, and he tapped on “Download,” then the application downloaded onto his INH, and then opened the application labeled “ETD.” There were a few options that appeared which read: “Configuration,” “Device Connection,” “Display,” “Run Program,” “Security,” “Settings.”
He then tapped on “Device Connection,” and it opened “Emergence Transit Device: ONLINE.”
Okay, that’s a good thing. What about this...
Lieutenant General Armitage then tapped on “Configuration,” then more options appeared. “Device Access,” “Location Access,” “Pairing,” “Reset.”
Hmmm...
Lieutenant General Armitage tapped on “Device Access,” and it read:
ACCESS DENIED TO SERVER
“I think I found your problem, dee Veyra.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, it seems that access to the server is denied.” Lieutenant General Armitage explained.
“That may be possible.” She moved her hand to her forehead and rubbed it. “It feels like I have been at this thing forever. “I know that wasn’t the problem before.”
“Wait, you mean it worked before?” Lieutenant General Armitage asked.
“Well, of course, but this chair is the biggest that I have ever teleported before, maybe that’s why?”
“Hmm…when did you check the logs last?”
“The logs haven’t changed at all. I recorded each one of them as I said before.”
“I understand that dee Veyra, but when did you check them last?”
“It’s been a while, but fine I’ll check.” Lieutenant General dee Veyra exhaled.
She swiped her hand, and her INH opened. She tapped on “Files,” then “TAT” then she tapped on “ETD” then she tapped on “Logs.” Appeared before her eyes were the history of the log entries that she recorded work on the ETD
Kopry--Spring--754
Neeroa--Winter--753
Larzod--Fall--753
Kazuc--Summer--753
Aum--Spring--753
Vromar--Winter--752
Rakon--Winter--752
Comogh--Fall--752
Tontor--Summer--752
Tagor--Spring--752
Zaleen--Fall--751
Dosga--Fall-- 751
Tontor--Summer--751
Kopry--Spring-- 751
Aum--Spring-- 751
Neeroa--Winter-- 750
La
rzod--Fall-- 750
Comogh-– Fall -- 750
Kazuc -- Summer--750
Taween -- Summer—750
“See? They’re all here.” Lieutenant General dee Veyra explained.
“Could I see it?” Lieutenant General Armitage asked.
“H-hey! This is classified information!”
“You asked for my help, didn’t you? Let me see the logs.”
“Okay, fine.” Lieutenant General dee Veyra swiped her hand towards him, and her INH projected a hologram.
“Wow. You’ve been working on this for quite some time, huh?”
“Well, of course. General Deschner approved for me to start working on the ETD years ago since its conception progress has been going really well.”
Lieutenant General Armitage tapped on the first entry, which was labeled “Taween – Summer – 750” and scrolled through it as she was talking to him.
“Yeah, I can tell. How long have you been working on this? Five years or so?” Lieutenant General Armitage asked.
“Just about, yeah. I just had to update the logs just a month or two ago, actually.”
“Hmmm...since then have you noticed that anything had changed?”
“I told you already, yes, Armitage. The ETD worked just a month ago, and now it isn’t working.”
“Does anyone else have access to the ETD or these logs?”
“Well, in the beginning, the ETD was worked on by the entire TAT division, but since then, the numbers dwindled down, and now it is just me.”
“Did Brigadier General Aishir Tomeoni help, too?”
“Well, yeah, he helped for a short time, but then I had to lay him off.”
“Why?”
Lieutenant General dee Veyra explained. “Well, after progress on the ETD reached a plateau and I had to lay off the entire workforce of TAT except for him. Brigadier General Tomeoni helped me work on it until the end of last year. This is why if you look at the logs since Kopry, heck even since last Larzod progress had slowed down. I was the only work working on it.”
“Wow, you must have been really busy then.” Lieutenant General Armitage remarked.
“Why do you think it took me so long to help you with work on the Kradnak?”
“I don’t know. To be honest, I just thought that you didn’t want to work on it. I didn’t know that you had all of this going on at the same time.” Lieutenant General Armitage admitted.
“Yep, I did, and I still am working on it.”
“I apologize if I was demanding about it; it’s just that General Deschner gave me a timeline, and you know how he is about all that...”
“I do know. General Deschner gave me this project to do just a little before I had to help you with the Kradnak. I’ve been busy. Busy doesn’t even begin to describe it, actually.” She waved her hand and shook her head. “It’s in the past, you should know from now on your projects aren’t the only ones that are important.”
“Right. Of course.” Lieutenant General Armitage nodded. “So, you never answered me.”
“About what?”
“I asked you if anyone else has access to these logs or access to the ETD?”
“I already told you.”
“No. you said that Brigadier General Aishir Tomeoni helped you with it, and since then, he left and now, you’re the sole transhuman working on it.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, if you didn’t change anything about it, maybe he did.”
Lieutenant General dee Veyra looked at Armitage and shook her head. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m just saying maybe he still has access to it is all.”
“No, Armitage, he does not. I removed him from this project, and I will show you.” Lieutenant General dee Veyra tapped on the last log labeled “Kopry-Spring-754,” then she swiped to the bottom of the log, and it read ‘User access: dee Veyra, Ayesha, Deschner, Koba.’ “Huh, I don’t recall General Deschner working on this.”
“Really?” he asked. “Are you sure?”
“Of course, I remember! He’s never had access to it.”
“Yeah, I do...wait, I thought you said that he had no clue about what the ETD is.” Lieutenant General Armitage asked.
“I did. That is odd, I wonder…either he knows about the ETD all along or he was recently added to this log.”
“Isn’t there a way to check when each user was allowed access?”
“Yeah, there is.” She scrolled up and tapped on three dots in the right-hand corner, and a drop-down box appeared. She tapped on “Settings,” then “User Access,” and then a spreadsheet appeared with every single transhuman in TAT that worked on it. The spreadsheet showed which day each one worked on the ETD and when they stopped working on it. She moved her finger to tap on “Recent Access By User,” and then the names all rearranged from most recent to least recent. Appeared at the top of the list read: “dee Veyra, Ayesha,” then underneath her name was “Deschner, Koba” then underneath his name was “Tomeoni, Aishir” and after he was names of transhumans that worked at TAT.
“Okay, so...”
She moved her finger and tapped on “User Access Date,” and the names rearranged again, and she noticed that her name was right in front of General Deschner’s name again.
“Armitage?”
“What is it?”
“From these dates of access, it appears that General Deschner had access since day one… like I did.”
“Hm... did he actually do anything to the ETD? Sometimes he just has access to projects but never interacts with them.”
“That might be true, let’s find out.” She tapped her finger on the list labeled “Last Edit by User,” and the names rearranged and appeared, and above her name was “Deschner, Koba.” Which happened a few hours after her last edit.
“It looks like he is editing the logs for the ETD, Armitage.”
“A-are you sure? That is a big accusation, dee Veyra.”
“Well, I mean from this screen it appears to be.”
“Is there a way to find out what he is supposedly editing?”
“I’m sure there is. I don’t look in these user logs that often, so I am still trying to work my way around them.”
“I understand.”
She moved her finger and scrolled right and tapped on “Last Edit by User” and saw that General Deschner had edited code for ‘Teleportation of the ETD.’
“Found it.”
“What is it?”
“It looks like General Deschner did, in fact, edit code for the teleportation of the ETD.”
“Really? Are you sure? I mean, what all did he edit? Can you check?” Lieutenant General Armitage asked. “Maybe he was fixing something?”
“I’m not sure if I can check. I mean, I’m sure there’s a way I just can’t recall right now. What I do know is that he has been monitoring my progress since the ETD’s conception and has been tracking each log entry that I have written for the past five years.”
“That’s...why would he do that then?”
“Are you saying that I am lying, Armitage? Because I have the proof right here.”
“No, I’m not saying that at all! I just cannot understand why he would act like he doesn’t know what is going on when clearly, according to this, he knows.”
“Your guess is as good as mine, Armitage. I feel invaded.”
“I… I can’t even imagine. We can’t let him know that we know, dee Veyra.”
“Of course not! I wasn’t planning on bringing this up to him.”
“Who knows what would happen if we brought this up to him. The real question is why he would edit your work to make it unusable? It doesn’t make sense.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything right now. I feel sick to my stomach.”
“I thought I was the only one that felt that way.”
“I don’t understand Armitage, how can he do this? Doesn’t he trust me enough? Trust us enough…? I mean, it’s not like we’re new to t
he Syndicate.”
“I mean, I’m sure he does trust us, but…”
The Syndicate's Journey Page 28
