“Found ‘em in the dry goods. Here … taste this.”
Armada grasped the mug on the table and walked around the bed to his wife.
“First things first,” he commented, squatting on the mattress. “Good morning.”
He smiled, leaned forward, and pecked Chloe on her forehead.
“Good morning back at you, baby.”
Chloe grinned as Armada handed off his cup, “What is this?”
“Dark roast Colombian coffee, with one tiny melted square of dark chocolate.”
After sitting up straight and crossing her legs, she brought the steaming cup of coffee to her nose.
“Wow! That smells good!”
Armada smiled as she took a sip of his coffee.
“Oh, my gosh!” she exclaimed. “This tastes incredible!”
“I know! I can’t get enough.”
Armada reached out to take back the mug, but Chloe pulled away from him.
“Oh, no you don’t, mister!” she playfully teased. “This one’s mine now.”
She took another sip and darted her eyes. “This is so tasty! Sure wish you had one of your own to enjoy.”
“It’s all right. I’ve already had four of ‘em,” he admitted, then stepped to the miniature coffeemaker.
“So…,” Chloe announced, crawling across the bed, “explain to me what’s going on with this, thus far.”
Armada began elaborating on his creation as he plopped a fresh pod into the brewer.
“All right. I’ve created a program for the first thirteen tablets whereby live video surveillance from five different cameras each will be streamed in twelve-second intervals.”
“Every sixty seconds, sixty-five cameras.”
“Correct.”
“So, once all fifty tablets are up and functional, every sixty seconds we’ll have two hundred fifty separate video feeds.”
“Correct again.”
Armada removed his mug from under the brewer nozzle, tossed in a chocolate square, and joined his bride. Chloe held out her mug and the couple clinked their cups in a toast to each other.
“That’s gonna take up a lot of storage space,” she commented with a negative tone. “That much data being recorded is bound to draw attention.”
“Way ahead of you. We’re not recording and storing. You’re absolutely right; someone’s bound to get suspicious with that kind of volume of data suddenly being stored. But this is untraceable and undetectable. All we’re doing is watching. White and Wyczthack, on the other hand, are recording … EVERYTHING. All we’re doing is seeing what they see. If we find something of interest, we can access the camera history and investigate. With this many video cameras being activated automatically and all of the different security departments monitoring those recordings, nobody will ever know who’s watching.”
They stood close to the bank of computers and stared intensely at the images as they shuffled by. Chloe leaned into her husband and nursed her ‘cup o’ Joe.’
“How many video cameras do you estimate Cain has?”
“Total? Everything?” he asked, draping his arm over her shoulder. “Well, you figure at a minimum … a hundred fifty for the Arenas. There’s four of those.”
“That’s six hundred.”
“Then we got the Halos, the three Arks, Eden, eight of ten Clouds, so far. My guess is with all that combined, along with the SUBOS, the WES, CARBELs and Aerie … maybe in the ballpark of fifteen to twenty thousand. Give or take.”
Armada tilted his head down and kissed his wife’s head. After taking another sip of his coffee, he set his mug on the table, then reached around Chloe and gently placed his hands on her belly.
Chloe laid her fingers on the back of his hand as he tenderly rubbed her protruding stomach.
***
“Are you ready?” she asked enthusiastically. “I’m about to plug ‘em both in.”
Without saying a word, Armada spun around to witness the final stage of power generation for the second half of the tablet computers.
“Here we go!”
Chloe knelt and inserted the plugs for the two newly fabricated power cords into the outlet. Almost immediately the green LED power lights lit up on all twenty-five tablets.
“Wow! Those reacted faster than the first set,” he pointed out.
“I know.”
Armada yawned and rubbed his eyes.
“Baby, you need to go to bed. You’ve been at this for more than thirty-six hours. You’re gonna make yourself sick.”
She approached him, pulled his head into her chest, and slowly ran her fingers through his hair, slightly scratching his scalp.
“Okay,” he mumbled and tilted his head back.
They briefly gazed into each other’s eyes before Armada rose from his chair.
“You can sleep as late as you want,” she commented, walking behind him. “I got the power cords assembled, we got the tablets mounted, you wrote out the program for the cameras … so, now you get to sleep with nooo worries.”
Like a lumberjack chopping down a tree, Armada flung himself on their bed, face down. Chloe got on her knees, removed his boots, and pulled off his socks. Within seconds of hitting the pillow he was asleep.
***
“Baby?” he heard her whisper softly. “Baby, time to get up.”
Armada slowly flipped onto his right side.
“C’mon, baby, I need you to look at something.”
He felt the tender caress of her fingers on his cheeks. Upon opening his eyes, Armada was pleased to find his wife kneeling beside their bed with her face mere inches away.
“You said I could sleep as long as I wanted,” he mumbled, grinning ever so slightly.
“I know, but that was last night.”
Armada shut his eyes and didn’t say another word.
“Okay, I tried being polite,” she stated.
“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” Chloe suddenly shouted, jumping on the bed.
She straddled his hips and mashed down on his left arm and shoulder, making the whole bed jiggle. With her right hand, she reached behind her and began pinching his rear end while simultaneously tickling his ribs with her left.
“Stop it!” he laughingly warned her, brushing her hands away. “You’re gonna get in trouble!”
“Oh, the tough guy’s back, huh?” she taunted, pinching harder on his bottom.
Armada rolled onto his back, grabbed her left wrist, and with one mighty pulse of his hips, succeeded in bucking her off.
“Whoa!” she wailed as he overpowered her, climbed on top of her, and pinned her arms under his knees.
“Baby! Stop!” she screamed as he poked her rib cage with his thumbs.
Chloe laughed uncontrollably, writhing and kicking helplessly under the weight of her husband.
“You’re gonna stop next time I tell you. Right?”
“YES!”
“I warned you. Didn’t I?”
“YES!”
Armada removed his knees from Chloe’s wrists and dismounted her. Totally spent and exhausted she remained in bed, laughing, while he sauntered to the small countertop above their refrigerator.
“So what’s your justification for disrupting my much-needed and well-earned rest?” he sternly inquired.
“My reasons are many,” she confidently stated, catching her breath. “However, as the saying goes ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ … you should see this before I say anything.”
“Oooh, I’m intrigued,” Armada drably admitted, inserting a fresh pod of coffee in the brewer.
After placing his mug under the nozzle, he asked, “And just when exactly did you make your discoveries?”
“Augh, last night, Rip Van Winkle!”
Frustrated with Armada’s lack of enthusiasm, Chloe quickly climbed out of bed, grabbed him by the wrist, and led him to the table.
“I’ll make the coffee. You listen,” she ordered and pushed him down into the chair.
“Right after you passed
out, I opened your monitor program and numbered the tablets on the panels, just as you did in the program.”
Armada spun around in the chair to inspect the cardboard panels.
“I had to move most of them around to get ‘em in order,” she said as she dropped a chunk of dark chocolate in his fresh coffee.
“So, starting in the top left corner and going down from left to right, the tablets are in sequential order and correspond to the sequence in your program. Tablet numbers are written above the top left corner and camera numbers are written above the top right.”
“Wow! Thanks, baby,” he exclaimed as she handed him his cup of coffee.
“My pleasure,” she replied with a kiss.
“All right, that’s more like surprise number one,” Chloe said, pulling a chair up beside him.
“Now, moving on to my discoveries. I want you to look at a specific camera.”
Chloe rolled herself backwards and sat in front of the wall of tablets and their dizzying display of alternating images.
“Okay, there it is. Twenty-three. Go to the program file for tablet twenty-three.”
She wheeled herself next to Armada as he opened his monitor program and accessed the file for tablet twenty-three.
“Okay, now what, Detective?” he asked, sipping his hot java.
Chloe leaned over and reviewed the numbered files for the five different cameras Armada selected to monitor.
“I’m pretty sure it’s this one: 08-GT10-43,” she stated, pointing at the file.
Armada silently did as requested and brought up thousands upon thousands of subfolders.
“Open one of today’s recordings.”
Armada clicked a folder and a fifteen-second video clip began playing on his tablet screen.
“Watch closely,” she said.
The footage showed what appeared to be a large white tarp rising up and down in the breeze, thereby activating the motion sensor in the video camera.
“Okay. So?”
“So? So?!” she repeated with incredulity. “None of that looked familiar to you?”
“No, not particularly.”
“Augh!” she groaned, slapping his arm. “Are you blind?”
Chloe grabbed the tablet and replayed the short video.
“Okay…,” she began, pausing the clip and zoomed in, “how about this?”
She set the tablet and its frozen image in front of Armada.
“Ring any bells?”
Armada held the tablet and concentrated on the magnified picture.
“Well, to me it looks like an … oh, I don’t know … one of those picnic table umbrellas flapping around in the wind.”
“No, baby, I don’t think so. Look closer at the fabric seam.”
After zooming in more and holding the computer a few inches away from his face, the light went off in his brain.
“No! Way!” Armada shouted, lowering the tablet. “No … stinking … way!”
Chloe quietly and slowly turned away from Armada, pulled her long hair off her left shoulder, and leaned slightly back. He gazed at the SPUD radar-deflecting fabric taped over her RFID chip, then at the paused image on the tablet.
“SHUT … UP!” he exclaimed and hugged his wife from behind. “White and Wyczthack are using SPUD shield to hide something!”
“I know!” Chloe agreed, spinning around.
“Cain doesn’t want anybody to see what he’s bringing into the SUBOS!” he surmised. “That tells me it’s something big.”
“And that brings me to my next point.”
Chloe stood and positioned herself in front of the wall of tablets while Armada replayed the video.
“Okay,” she began. “Open a new window for each of the tablet numbers I call out.”
Armada swiveled his chair to face her.
“Twenty-two … we just looked at twenty-three … eleven … nine … and … two. Pull up each one in a separate tab.”
One by one Armada opened the folders for the tablets Chloe selected. She retrieved her own cup of coffee and sat down beside him.
“Prepare to be amazed!” she announced, then sipped her coffee. “So, last night, as you lay snoring away….”
“I don’t snore,” Armada smugly interrupted.
“Uh … yeah, baby … ya do!”
“Any way….”
“Any way,” she snarkily repeated, slapping his arm, “so I’d watch one tablet for a couple of minutes to get a sense of what all was being monitored.”
“Good. My intention was—is—to gain a working knowledge of what’s occurring in certain areas in real time.”
“I kind of assumed that. Like with tablets one, two, and three, it’s everything having to do with the docks, railways, off-loading, SUBOS elevators, and so on. Right?”
“Correct.”
“Now, let’s look at … tablet two.”
Armada expanded the window for tablet two to reveal the list of camera numbers.
“First,” she said, “open camera folder 09-CLT05-47. That one, I believe, is located at the very end of the staging area for waste capsules … it faces north, and think it shows the whole line of rail cars.”
Chloe took another sip of her coffee as her husband investigated the stored video files.
Just as Chloe described, the latest recorded video indeed showed several Engenechem employees unloading a rail car of four nuclear waste capsules.
“Okay. So they’re off-loading the WES capsules for ejection. And?”
“And? Just look at ‘em. They’re all walking around in their cute Engenechem uniforms with the matching caps. They’re driving the big telehandlers and got their gloves and sunglasses on. It’s all bright and sunny, skies are clear … everybody’s happy. Right?”
Armada twisted his head and gawked at his wife.
“What’s with you all of a sudden?”
“Nothing. I’m just asking you to look carefully and think about what you’re seeing. It’s important.”
“Okay, okay. I got it.”
“Now, go to tablet eleven,” Chloe grumbled.
Armada expanded the window for tablet eleven and list of numbered camera subfolders.
“Keep in mind what you just saw and open 06-EAT99-22.”
Armada opened the folder to find hundreds, if not thousands, of stored video files. He pulled up a recording that wasn’t more than two hours old.
“This camera is mounted on a pole at the front of switchback one on the far west side.”
“You’re just full of all kinds of information,” he commented as the video footage played.
“Pause it,” she stated. “Now just take a long, good look at that sky.”
“What?!” he blurted. “The whole train is under a SPUD canopy! Oh, my gosh! There’s gotta be at least … thirty rail cars!”
“I know!”
“And even the cars are covered! Wow! Chloe! This is huge! We were right! Wyczthack’s bringing something into the SUBOS he doesn’t want anyone to see.”
“Just wait a second, it gets better.”
As if watching a movie in a theatre, Chloe leaned in close to her husband. While sipping her coffee, Armada raised his left arm, laid it on her shoulders, and gave a firm squeeze.
“All right, this is where it gets interesting,” Chloe alerted him, pointing at the corner of the screen. “Coming down the lane … we have two telehandlers, aaaand … two personnel trucks.”
The couple observed the two personnel trucks drive around and ahead of the telescoping forklifts and come to a stop at the switchback, just behind the second rail car.
Armada’s jaw nearly came unhinged at the sight of the men as they exited their vehicles. He removed his left arm from Chloe’s shoulder and stared at her, completely dumbfounded.
“I told you,” she declared.
With a slight smile of disbelief, he stated, “They’re wearing hazmat suits!”
CHAPTER 33
THE MAN UPSTAIRS
“Whatever you d
o, don’t show any reaction to this message,” Armada typed as he observed his friend’s face via the internal helmet camera. “Remember, they’re watching and listening. Always.”
He clicked the ‘send’ icon, watched, and waited.
Armada held his breath as Euclid read the instructions on his holographic visor.
“I hope he doesn’t say or do anything to draw attention,” Armada commented, focusing on the live video feed from Euclid’s helmet camera. “Garret, Mercury, Poseidon, and the others are seeing the same exact video.”
“Like what?” Chloe loudly inquired from the bathroom.
“I don’t know … anything.”
“Euclid’s smart!” she hollered as she turned to admire her profile in the mirror and rubbed her belly. “He won’t give it away.”
‘Euclid, this is Armada,’ the next note stated. ‘I’m alive and well.’
“Yes!” Euclid suddenly shouted, smiling broadly.
“Augh!” Garret moaned, quickly removing his earpiece.
“Crap!” Armada grunted, slapping the table.
“Mercury, bring Euclid Eleven to full screen on monitor one,” Garret ordered.
“Euclid!” he barked. “Are ya tryin’ to blow my eardrums? What was that?”
“Crap! Crap! Crap!” Armada roared, watching and listening to the conversation between Garret and Euclid. “He’s busted!”
“I just got a little excited, sir,” Euclid began. “What with us finishing Cloud Ten ahead of schedule, I felt a bit exuberant at the thought of going back to the SUBOS.”
“Sir,” Poseidon whispered, turning around, “Euclid’s heart rate has increased and his suit’s internal temperature just went up by two degrees.”
“And that was reason enough to make me go deaf?” Garret sarcastically grilled.
“No. No, sir. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Armada nervously scratched his scalp as he listened in on Garret’s interrogation.
“Euclid?” Garret called out, reinserting his earpiece, “You feeling all right? Shows here that your heart rate and core body temperature have both gone up. Anything you need?”
“No, no … I’m fine. Like I said, I’m just excited about … you know, doing a good job and all and completing Cloud Ten ahead of projection.”
From the privacy of his room, Armada nervously awaited Garret’s response.
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