by Dan Eaton
“Yeah, uh, I was afraid you noticed that. I do have access and Sherri might have had me plug in a temporary cable that gave her access to both the public and private networks. Doing that broke a half dozen security regulations so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t mention that part to anyone.”
“Got any idea, who it could have done this?”
“No, probably one of the six people besides me who have access to the room. The room is usually dark so there’s no camera in there. Access is controlled by a log, although someone operating on this level probably had the skill to alter the logs. That’s a design flaw we will have to fix down the road. In the mean time, Sherri and I have set up a little trap. I’d like you to send an email to Northern Lights and let’s see if someone springs the trap.”
Veronica and I had just finished setting up the nightly run and kicking it off when Sandy came in the machine room.
“So, uh, you guys got everything wrapped up?”
Veronica said, “All buttoned up Sandy. I was just getting ready to sign off and send the kid on his way.”
“Alright Veronica, you have a good evening. Bryce, I think you should tag along with me. We might get some answers finally.”
With that, Sandy left the room and headed out the main door. I hurried to catch up and asked him where we were going in such a hurry. It was Adam’s Birthday and I had said I’d stop by the party so I hoped what ever Sandy had in mind, it wouldn’t take too long.
He quietly said, “Just hang on, can’t tell you here.”
We were hustling down the first north/south hallway and entered the administrative office. I figured the only reasonable destination for Sandy was the security office and wasn’t surprised when we stopped at Sam’s desk. She was sitting there with a smile on her face like a cat that just ate the bird.
“Hey Sandy, and Bryce too. Glad you could make it, Bryce, I want your opinion on something.”
Sandy said, “Did someone spring the trap?”
“Not directly, but I got an interesting nibble. I’ve been keeping an eye on who accesses the room and when. It’s a lights out computer room so it’s rarely visited and even more rarely visited after hours.”
I said, “What trap? What’s going on?”
“Sandy came to me because someone’s been playing games with his email. At first I thought it might just be industrial espionage, but now I think we may have found the reason your life has been so interesting lately. Take a look at this.”
Sam pulled up a video on her monitor that showed a familiar man entering the server room. The guy looked tired. He came around, looked at a couple of things and then abruptly left.
“I got an alert from the camera just after normal quitting time tonight and went and pulled the video.”
Sandy said, “Did something spook him? I didn’t see him log in to anything to spring the trap.”
“He didn’t spring the trap and if I ask him, I’m sure he’ll have a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he went in there. He’ll say he suddenly remembered something and that’s why he left so quickly.”
I said, “That’s Buddy—”
Sam looked directly at me and said, “How do you know this guy, Bryce?”
Before I could answer, Sandy said, “That’s Buddy Walker. He’s one of the facility guys. He stops in now and then when he needs something special for a project—”
I said, “Yeah, he came in just the other night looking for some short lengths of pipe.”
Sandy said, “I introduced Bryce to him months ago.”
Sam winked at me and said, “Hmmm, interesting. I know him, of course, but I wasn’t aware that he had met you. Our friend Buddy showed up in some of the other private video I’ve been capturing.”
I knew Major Steelings had given Sam permission to place some additional cameras around the Habitat, ones not on the regular network.. I had been warned to not mention this to anyone. Sandy didn’t seem to pick up on Sam saying it was private video or if he did, he didn’t say anything about it. She started the new video which showed a crowded cafeteria. You could see Buddy on the left side of the frame as he approached and collided with someone else. I didn’t even need to see the victims face or the time stamp on the video to know that Buddy had seemingly run into Yang Zhang by accident the morning of the bee attack. After the contact and just before Buddy left the camera’s frame, he put the rag in his right hand into his pocket.
I said, “He marked Yang with something. That was what was on the rag in his hand. That’s how whatever was on Yang’s shirt that was attracting the bees, got on his shoulder.”
“Yep, sure looks that way. We don’t have a fancy crime lab here, so I took Yang’s shirt by Marissa Daniels to see if she could identify what was used. She thought it smelled like lemon grass oil. She said some beekeepers used it as a bee attractant. It sounded like something Chef Patel would keep in his bag of tricks and when I checked with him, he did have some, although he couldn’t find it when he went looking for it. Chef Patel told me he had just seen the bottle the previous week when he’d been giving Buddy Walker a tour of the kitchen.”
I said, “He must have put the bees in the room then. Do you have any video of him moving the hive?” The day of the incident, when Sam let Blayze’s mom in the room to capture the bees, she found that one of her hives had been taken from a locked growth chamber where they were being used to pollinate the plants and dumped on the floor at the far end of the tomato room.
“No, no video. He could have put it on a work cart, covered it up, and moved it anytime he wanted. Unless someone working for CDB Farms saw him either removing it or putting it in the tomato room, probably no one would think anything about it. With his access to the servers and network, he just altered the video logs and no one noticed. Pays off nicely to be the invisible man, hey?”
I said, “But—”
“I didn’t get video, however, I did get the service and access logs for the comm equipment closet out in the Extension. Guess who installed the equipment and guess who responded when the call was logged for the communication outage?”
When Mei and Yang had been stung, we immediately had tried to summon help, although there was no response. Buddy had evidently rigged the system to fail and then when he responded to the outage call, had removed all evidence of his tampering. I was outraged. This slimy bastard had been acting like he was my friend for months, all the while he was making my life miserable by the things he was doing that insured the blame got placed on me. I said, “Sam, you got to—”
At that point two of Sam’s huskier assistants walked into her office wearing black tactical gear and carrying stun batons. Sam looked at me with a smile and simply said, “Way ahead of you.”
I looked curiously at Sandy and said, “Could this mess really be over?”
Sam had left the office a couple of minutes earlier with her security team in tow. She had located Buddy in his work space out in the Manufacturing Module and had given us strict instructions to stay put while she and her team acquired Buddy and brought him in. As a favor to us, she enabled Sandy’s E-Pad to receive her team’s tactical channel so we could hear what was going on.
Sandy was lost in thought and started at my question.
“What? Uh, maybe.”
After a minute, he said, “Bryce, did you say Buddy had been looking for some pipe the other day?”
“Yeah, it was Tuesday evening. Buddy came by looking for some short lengths of pipe. He looked like he had pulled an all-nighter so I helped him find the stuff. I found some five point five centimeter inner diameter tubing he said would work. He asked for three pieces three feet long, so I cut the pipe for him.”
“Did he say what he wanted it for?”
“No, he looked so ragged, I just got him the pipe and didn’t ask questions. I try to avoid talking much with him anyways. He kind of creeps me out the way he talks about the Chinese and that was the day that Mei and Yang were attacked. I didn’t want to hear his opinion on that. It makes sens
e now that he was the one doing this stuff.”
“Okay, so, uh, did you see if he took anything else?”
“I was trying to avoid him and get the machines cleaned so I wasn’t watching him all the time. I think he grabbed some flat stock and I saw him hunting through the round stock looking for pieces that would slide into the pipe. Oh, yeah, the bastard—”
Sam’s voice coming from the E-Pad interrupted me.
“We’re here. Preparing to enter his lab.”
We heard a door suddenly open and the sound of footsteps. We heard Sam say, “Hang on, let me check. He should still be here”
There was a pause and then Sam said, “He still shows as being here in the lab, yet he’s not here in the room with us. Still playing the invisible man, hey.”
Sandy and I just looked at each other, puzzled by what was going on. Sam’s voice came back over the E-Pad and she said, “Sandy, is Bryce still with you?”
Sandy looked confused and said, “He’s still sitting here with me. Why?”
“Because I just got an alert that Bryce entered the Viewing Room by himself. Buddy must have subverted the chip reader system so he can show up as anyone he wants.”
I knew Sam was keeping a close eye on me, but although I never knew exactly how she managed to turn up so quickly, whenever I was alone and wasn’t supposed to be. Now it was clear she had a computer program watching for the id chip in my hand to enter a space. If I entered a chamber alone or there was no one in the room I entered by myself, she’d get an alarm and come track me down. Buddy had somehow figured out a way to keep the chip in his hand from registering him. That let him walk through the Habitat without leaving a trace. When he passed through a door that required an id, he must have come up with a way to generate someone else’s chip code.
Sandy had a stricken look on his face and said, “Sam, you must have triggered an alert to him some how. He wants us to know he’s in the Viewing Room. Bryce, what else was he doing that day? Did he use any of the machines?”
“Yeah, that’s what I started to say. He turned some round stock on the lathe. He left a mess and I had to clean up after him. Oh, you know how you taught me to turn a center point. He must have been doing that too, because he had the compound tool post slewed over at an angle. He also did some welding, but I didn’t see what.”
Lathe cutting tools are held in a tool post. Normally, this allows the tool to be moved in or out or back and forth along the center line of the piece you’re working on. A compound tool post allows an additional trick where you can turn the tool at an angle to the center line of what you are working on and move it in or out diagonally. That allows making a pointed end on a piece of round stock.
“That’s not good. Sam you need to get to Buddy as quickly as you can. I think he made a cannon and is going blow a window in the Viewing Room. You need to check the doors at the top and bottom of the viewing room stairs. He must have done something to prevent them from sealing if there’s a blow out.”
“Copy that Sandy. We’re on the move.”
Sandy jumped up and said, “Come on, there’s no time for anyone else. Your mother is going to kill me.”
We hurried back towards the shop, however, instead of entering our shop, Sandy continued on into Habitat Maintenance. He grabbed two carts and had me help him load a sheet of aluminum on each of the carts.
As he continued throwing things on the cart I said, “Sandy, what are we doing?”
“If I’m right Buddy is going to try and blow a glass panel in the Viewing Room. Normally, the doors leading out to this level and to the Grand would automatically close and seal off the breech. I think Sam is going to find that Buddy did something to the doors to prevent them from closing. There’s other doors that should close off to prevent loosing atmosphere from the entire habitat, however, maybe Buddy has rigged them too. We need to seal those stairwell doors before Buddy blows that window panel. ”With that, he threw a big caulking gun along with some extra cartridges on the first cart and said, “Take that down the elevator and get it to the stairwell entrance. One of Sam’s guys will help you.”
I started pushing the cart and suddenly stopped. I said, “Sandy, Sam will be in the Viewing Room.”
“Bryce, there’s no time. Get going and don’t stop.”
I left Sandy as he continued to add things to his cart. The elevator down to the Grand was at the end of the first hallway just down from where Sam’s office was. I pushed through the doors between sections as soon as they recognized me and unlocked. The elevator was at the top level so I didn’t have to wait. When I left Sandy, I lost access to the comms, but I figured by now, Sam and her guys must have hustled back from the Manufacturing Module. I couldn’t help dwelling on what would happen to Sam if Buddy blew a window. The elevator doors took forever to open, yet soon I was tearing down the corridor. I got to where the Viewing Room stairs met the corridor and was greeted by one of Sam’s guys.
His name patch said Rick Ferguson and he looked grim. He motioned for me to stay quiet. I could see the stairwell door was un-naturally standing wide open. Rick surprised me by grabbing a rope off the cart and tying the middle off to a nearby railing. He quickly wrapped two winds of one end around my waist and cinched it off with a clip he pulled from his pocket. He took the other end and attached it to his tactical vest with a carabiner. He pulled the caulking gun off the cart and ran a thick black string of the stuff across the floor and up and around the door frame. Still moving quickly, he had me help him lift the sheet of aluminum up and slap it onto the door frame.
With the sheet in place, Rick relaxed a bit, though he still looked grim. He quietly said, “I’m Rick. You’re Bryce. We can talk now, but keep it low. With the door open like that anything we said might have carried up the stairwell. Sam’s got him talking and we didn’t want to risk some unexpected noise setting him off.”
Rick had on a headset so he could hear Sam and talk to her if needed.
“Rick, what’s with the rope?”
“Sandy sent it along and said to tie you off in case we lost pressure before we got the patch in place. That wouldn’t be good, on the other hand, if you got sucked into that stairwell, you’d be dead.”
Rick suddenly put a hand to his headset and then there was the sound of a muffled explosion and the ground shook. The plate covering the doorway sucked in slightly and a whistling sound came from its bottom edge as air was pulled through a small gap there. Rick quickly applied some more caulk around the bottom edge of the door and the noise subsided.
I had that sinking feeling in my stomach as I asked Rick what was happening. He waved me off and was listening very intently to his headset. Suddenly, he looked at me and said, “Sandy needs help, he wants you upstairs now.”
He unclipped me and I raced back the way I came. The Habitat alarm signal was blaring about a depressurization event and the corridor and hallways were empty as people were following the shelter in place instructions. I was happy that Sandy was safe yet confused about why he’d need my help. After shooting across the cafeteria, I finally reached the hallway that led to the Viewing Room stairway. Like downstairs, the door was somehow jammed open, however Sandy had managed to get the sheet of aluminum in place in time.
Sam’s other team member was guarding the doorway, although there was no sign of Sandy. Before I could say anything, the big guy put his hand up for me to stop and said, “I’m Demarco. Sandy’s inside, he’s got Sam, though she’s in bad shape. Neither one of them have a lot of air left so we’re on the clock here. We need to get a portable airlock set up here so we can get them inside. There’s an EMT guy almost here, when he arrives I want the two of you to go get a portable lock and bring it back here.”
As he finished, there were footsteps coming from the side corridor and EMT Jim Dean showed up. Demarco said, “I need you to go grab a portable lock and a plug. We’ll seal off the side corridor and set up the lock in this corridor. Sandy’s estimating they only have about nine minutes of a
ir left so take Bryce and get a move on.”
Jim turned to me and said, “The closest fire trolley is in the Medical section. I’m going there to get it. I want you to go to Habitat Maintenance and grab my pressure suit and an extra oxygen bottle. I’ll meet you there.”
Without another word, he turned and loped off down the corridor as fast as he could. I quickly followed and made my way back to Habitat Maintenance. All of the Emergency Services guys had their suits hanging in the same section with everything clearly marked. I stopped for just a minute and quickly checked the suit over to make sure it was ready to go, I grabbed the suit and then carried it and a spare oxygen bottle back out to the corridor.
Jim and the fire trolley were already waiting for me as I hustled out to it. I threw the equipment on top as I stepped up on the rear deck and Jim had the trolley moving along briskly as I scrambled to get a hold and stay on board. Jim looked over at me with a smile and said, “Hey Bryce, a year ago you said you might like to join the Emergency Service. Looks like you’re getting your chance early. How do you like it so far?”
I didn’t even try to answer. I just held on for dear life. Last week, in the mad dash to save Mei and Yang I had barely managed to control the trolley at half speed. Jim was trained to drive the trolley and had us bursting along at full speed. We had already entered the cafeteria and were flying across the space. Jim hit the brakes to slow down before we hit the door and suddenly we were sliding to a stop in the corridor leading to the stairwell.
Demarco, came running up and said, “They’re down to two minutes of air. Bryce, help Jim into his suit while I get the plug in place.”
Jim put on his suit the fastest I had ever seen anybody do it. I quickly ran through the safety checks with him as Demarco came back and started pulling out the portable lock. He had already inflated the plug in the side corridor to seal it off. Jim grabbed a tool belt and the extra oxygen bottle off the cart and hurried over to the aluminum panel covering the stairwell doorway. Demarco set the first of the lock bundles on the floor of the corridor and triggered the expansion, sealing Jim off from us.
