Book 6 Chapter 6
The truth was, I had made a similar mistake once in the past.
Yes, when I had destroyed the Bright Cross Disaster Prevention Foundation that had its roots planted in more than 100 countries around the world.
I had revealed the international organization’s misdeeds and destroyed it in order to rescue the Archenemies being abducted by them and forced to kill each other in front of the TV cameras.
As a result, all of the Bright Cross’s charitable activities around the world had been stopped indefinitely, the development of new drugs had been delayed, and developing nations’ economies had stagnated which led to a decline in public safety…
I still don’t think I made a mistake with that decision. I’m truly glad those Archenemies didn’t lose their lives.
But.
There was no way of finding an accurate number for how many people’s lives had been sent off course by that chaos.
“Just because it’s happened before…doesn’t mean it will work out this time.”
I said that while leaving Wild@Hunt’s Japanese central server facility which acted as their final backup.
At the moment, I wanted to go to a park or something. I had been attacked in that burger shop before, but I wanted to look up at the recovered blue sky while discussing strategy.
…I wanted someone to prove to me that I had done the right thing.
“The world still hasn’t recovered from last time, so it might not survive this time. I think my stepmom’s prediction is correct. …I once again did the right thing and thus chose another tragedy.”
“…Truth.”
“But unlike before, I’ve predicted it in advance. So I’m not going to just let it happen this time. I’ve set our course, so now I have to stop the disaster up ahead!”
My general policy had not changed from the beginning.
I had needed to stop Wild@Hunt’s manufactured abuse. I couldn’t have ignored the drone attacks.
People must have still been afraid of the drones because the children’s park I came across was deserted. I sat on a bench with peeling paint and focused on the conversation.
“The loss of a global corporation like Wild@Hunt will do incalculable damage,” said Maxwell. “In addition to the effects of the company itself, it also provided a lot of data and distribution services, so its loss will have a large effect on other companies and groups.”
…For example, they had recently gotten involved in railroad infrastructure.
“The parts not limited to the company sound the most dangerous,” said Anastasia.
“They also have contracts with some international NPOs and nations. They construct transport infrastructure in mountainous regions or lay out water pipes in desert nations.”
“Basically, they were trying to give everyone access to necessary supplies,” I said. “If that suddenly goes away, those people could literally wither away.”
“This also affects you, user. It goes through separate independent administrative institutions, but the Japanese government has entrusted a few national projects with Wild@Hunt.”
I rubbed the weathered bench’s peeling paint. Wood, metal, a concrete base, organic paint. What percentage of this was made domestically? I wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was entirely foreign-made.
…Just one look at the food self-sufficiency rate would show you it’s a wonder this country could maintain its own existence. We relied on bringing so much in from “outside”.
Our small land area meant we had little productivity, but distribution was an unavoidable problem for an island nation surrounded by oceans on all sides. What had once been known as black ships and steamships had been replaced by cargo fleets loaded with wax oranges soaked with agrochemicals and the orders were made over the internet.
“How do we stop the dominos from falling?”
“That would be extremely difficult, but if you are not interested in saving Wild@Hunt itself…”
I leaned back in the creaking bench as the simulator explained via speech bubble.
“The domino effect will be caused by word of Wild@Hunt’s demise causing other corporations to grow defensive, rethink even their safe-looking contracts, and grow reluctant to give out loans. To put it another way, if something – even a complete lie – can convince them to act more boldly, stopping the dominos would be possible.”
“…But that would have to be quite the powerful lie.” Anastasia sounded troubled. “It’s true there are times when stock prices rapidly change for silly reasons. A clerk mishears and forgets the decimal point for a purchase or sale, or an automatic trading program is infected by a virus and starts a hellish selloff. Prices can also plummet if word spreads that the world will be destroyed in a war or disaster just as some prophecy claimed.”
“Yes. But there’s a difference between it just happening and someone intentionally causing it.”
I looked up into the blue sky and saw the narrow contrail of a passenger plane that looked like a tiny speck.
“If you could do that, it would be one of the world’s greatest achievements,” said Anastasia. “That was what we were trying to do with Mephistopheles, our supercomputer that extracted all the data from Vegas.”
That would mean controlling the very concept of money which had ruled people for all of recorded history.
This would be truly unprecedented.
But a miracle like that was necessary if we were to stop the Calamity. My stepmom, Amatsu Yurina, had so much power, but even she had given up on the world.
Yes.
“My stepmom’s Absolute Noah probably has more influence than anyone, but not even that’s enough. We need to discuss this with the assumption that not even she could stop this.”
“…They’re a secret organization that makes the freemasons look like child’s play, right?” said Anastasia. “I’ve never heard of an organization that covers more of the planet than them.”
“…”
I looked up at the blue sky’s recovered safety as I thought for a bit.
Was this too farfetched? But didn’t we need that powerful a wake-up call right now?
“User. The greatest power of human beings is their ability to link pieces of information together in ways that not even I can. In other words, your ability to come up with new ideas. I suggest you provide even the most insignificant idea you might have.”
“Yeah, I suppose you’re right.”
“We won’t laugh, so just tell us, Truth. Besides, I hate how you’re the one that always gets to do all the fun stuff.”
I had some excellent companions.
I was certain of that.
“If we had the influence of my stepmom’s Absolute Noah, we might be able to deceive everyone. We might be able to convince them there would be no global depression so they should rest easy and keep running their business like normal. But my stepmom’s group has already resigned themselves to the Calamity, so they won’t help us.”
This was entirely reliant on someone else’s power, but we couldn’t ignore Absolute Noah if we were looking for something on a global scale which was within reach.
“Are you saying we would have a chance if Mrs. Amatsu Yurina were to act?” asked Maxwell.
“But how would you do that!?” asked Anastasia. “You remember what happened in Vegas. I can’t imagine her changing her mind and siding with us!”
“…That’s the thing.”
What I was saying was completely absurd.
But Absolute Noah itself was practically a fairy tale already. We could not bring it to the negotiating table in any normal fashion. So if we didn’t do something completely unprecedented, we couldn’t gather the cards we needed.
I glanced down at the small car navigation system sitting on my lap.
“Listen, Anastasia. In the hidden parts of the world that we don’t see, there have to be constant glimpses of the term Absolute Noah. But that’s just the term itself, so only a limited group knows what it actually means.”
“Well, yeah. Otherwise the global VIPs wouldn’t have fallen for the Absolute Noah 04 trap in Vegas.”
Everyone feared it, but no one knew what it was. They didn’t know its ideology, its form, its command structure, the extent of its personnel, or anything else about it.
It may have been disturbing to a lot of people.
But in that case…
“So.”
I licked my lips.
And I said it.
“How about we invent a previously-unheard-of top-level organization for Absolute Noah?”
Silence followed.
The silence was bad for my stomach and had me worrying I had said something crazy.
“Ha…ha ha.”
“Anastasia?”
“Ah ha ha ha!! So you’re going to manipulate the global economy with fake news!? Truth, you’re always like this. When everyone else is trying to win the car race by looking at the engine and tires while desperately calculating out the fuel efficiency, air resistance, and center of gravity, you’re casually building yourself a rocket capable of escaping the solar system!!”
She seemed to like it.
As for Maxwell…
“I am merely a disaster environment simulator meant to help avoid risk, so please forgive me for only providing negative suggestions.”
“That’s fine. So what is it?”
“Generally, stealing someone’s identity produces negative emotions. This introduces the risk of making an enemy of Absolute Noah. An extremely high risk.”
“…”
This silence was different from before. It felt like it was encased in dry ice.
Making an enemy of that stepmom.
And of Absolute Noah as a whole.
“User, we can no longer ignore the fact that one of the main reasons you have survived to this day is your connection to Mrs. Amatsu Yurina.”
“Maxwell!” protested Anastasia.
“No, it’s fine,” I said.
“And if you make a serious enemy of Absolute Noah, the risk to you will be far greater than ever before. …You might save the world, but your own life will not be guaranteed. Are you prepared to make that choice?”
I will never give up and I will keep fighting to the end no matter who my enemy is.
It would be simple enough to give that boilerplate answer. But I had seen the series of events set in motion by the Bright Cross’s Colosseum below this city. That powerful current had swept away one of the world’s systems. So what if that happened to me alone? There was no way I could win. I would simply be torn apart.
My stepmom was trying to protect me. There was no doubting that. But if she learned that would mean the destruction of the ark and placing the rest of her family in danger, even Amatsu Yurina would take it more seriously. She might abandon her primary objective, shift down to her secondary objective, and focus on protecting “as much of her family as possible”.
“…Maxwell. Anastasia too. I want to confirm something with you first.”
“Sure.”
“What do you still need to check now?”
I breathed in and out.
And I said it.
“Do you have any intention of getting along with Absolute Noah? No, it doesn’t even have to be that much. Would you be willing to find a way to compromise with them?”
That would be the same as “working with” the Bright Cross’s Colosseum or Las Vegas’s Absolute Noah 04. …At the very least, you wouldn’t be chosen for the unfortunate role.
This was not about ideals.
It was not about being irreproachable.
I was talking about harsh reality.
“…Hey, wouldn’t that actually be even more frightening?”
It was like relying on a mafia or gang. It might feel reassuring at first, but the fear would eventually sink in and keep you from doing anything. If we took something like the Colosseum or Absolute Noah 04 as a partner, we would lose an escape route for our lives.
“I’m not talking about which option would be easier. We’re going to experience hell either way. So shouldn’t we be focusing on which hell we want to jump into?”
And.
“If we’re going to stand up to hell, we need to go all out. We need to completely and utterly crush it without showing the slightest opening. Because if we give Absolute Noah the chance for even a single counterattack, we’ll be smashed to pieces.”
We couldn’t hesitate here.
We had to do it.
We had to do whatever it took to shake off the force pulling us toward hell and retrieve our everyday lives.
“We’ll hack Absolute Noah, the ark of humanity. What better idea is there?”
That was my answer.
I doubted I could come up with anything better even if I used every last ounce of intelligence I had.
And Anastasia gave her response.
“…It’s perfect.”
“Anastasia?”
“Mountain climbers will see a famous mountain and say they want to climb it because it’s there, but you’re different, Truth. You start by searching out some huge mountain no one has ever seen before. Yes, yes, that’s it! If Absolute Noah is at the source of all this, then why didn’t I think of hacking it!?”
“No,” said Maxwell. “The Bright Cross was a lower organization, but its Laplace was impossible to break through in a head-on competition. Absolute Noah’s data management system should be even more powerful. I doubt this will be a simple task.”
I knew that.
For one thing, the world was generally aware of the term Absolute Noah, but no one knew any details about what it was. It wasn’t normal for none of the press, intelligence agencies, or bored internet users to notice such largescale activity. And abnormal things did not just happen. Absolute Noah had to have created some kind of hideous system and secretly spread it around the world to protect itself.
But.
“It’s not like we don’t have any hints.”
“What do you mean?”
I leaned forward in the bench as I answered.
“Absolute Noah is in this city. At the bottom of Kukyou Dam. Las Vegas’s Absolute Noah 04 was only modeled after it.”
Yes, my stepmom had clearly said so:
…So, Satori, once I’ve collected everyone, I think we’ll finally head to Absolute Noah at the bottom of the dam.
I had responded to those words by jumping out of the moving truck and eventually found my way here.
My stepmom would soon be an enemy, so relying on her words may have been suicide, but she had been desperate enough to crash a truck through that burger shop to rescue me. I doubted she would have been playing games with her words then.
“That is not enough to help us.”
“Maxwell, it’s in this city,” I repeated. “Listen. Absolute Noah is an impenetrable wall and I doubt even you can break through its firewall or communication encryption so easily. Do we agree on that point?”
“…Reluctantly.”
“But encryptions you can’t break aren’t exactly common. The Pentagon, MI6, and other groups you see in movies are one thing, but I doubt there are many high-level encrypted signals flying around in this regional city. Even with freaks gathered from around the world for a white hacker festival.”
“Yeah, even universities have pretty poor security,” said Anastasia.
“Wild@Hunt is in disarray, so they won’t be doing much of anything. So the unbreakable encryptions traveling through this city give us a hint. We don’t have to know what they say. Simply discovering where they’re transmitted and received should tell us where Absolute Noah people are hiding and where their surface antenna is.”
And to reiterate, our greatest objective was to borrow Absolute Noah’s authority and stop people from pulling the trigger of a global depression leading to the Calamity. We were not trying to divulge Absolute Noah’s misdeeds or blow their ark to smithereens.
I spoke more to myself than to the others.
“What we need is the credibility to convince people our words are Absolute Noah’s words. So we don’t have to enter the deepest depths of Absolute Noah’s central computer. If we locate their surface antenna and send out emails with ‘Absolute-Noah-like’ messages, no one will be able to tell the difference. The real Absolute Noah is working to fight back against the Calamity and we should gather their attention once we start. But since they assume the outside world will be destroyed, they can wait until that has entirely failed before they kill us. No, they can simply shut us out of the ark.”
“Even if the technical challenge is reduced, the risk to your person remains unchanged.”
“I know that. But I have to do it.”
Whatever the case, we had no time.
If we did nothing, the blame for Wild@Hunt’s drone attack would inevitably lead to a global depression. That would increase social stress, create devastating moral hazards, and ultimately lead to the Calamity.
We had to stop that no matter what.
I stood up from the bench and spoke.
“Let’s get started.”
“Sure. If you are prepared for this, user, then nothing I say could stop you.”
…Now.
I wasn’t so sure I had such a courageous heart.
The drone attacks had ended, so I walked on foot to regroup with Anastasia. We met at the lounge of the business hotel she was staying at.
“The café employees have completely vanished. Well, they only served bad coffee and dried-out sandwiches, so it’s no real loss.”
“…I see you brought in an energy drink for yourself.”
“There’s no one in the convenience stores or supermarkets, but the vending machines still work. That said, the scene outside is incredible. There’s barely room to walk with all the drone carcasses. Those are probably a potential treasure trove of rare earths.”
“Add in the effort of digging them out of the circuit boards and a 1300-yen-an-hour job at a gyudon place would be more efficient. But if you feel like doing it as volunteer work, I won’t stop you.”
I sat in the opposite seat and she tossed me a new can.
“We still have a lot of work ahead of us, don’t we? Truth, how about you fill your veins with carbonation and caffeine?”
“Don’t throw carbonated drinks. Here, cheers.”
“Gyah! Don’t reach for the pull tab with the opening aimed at me! It’s scary!!”
It turned out to be a dud, so it didn’t burst out like champagne. I grabbed the silver can Anastasia had passed me and quickly drank some.
“Have you contacted the Vampire and Zombie who Demon Lord Lilith claimed to have abducted?”
“No word from my sisters, no. And when I tried to call, someone attempted to trace the call.”
“…So they’re already inside Absolute Noah, hm?” she said quietly.
I sighed.
“My stepmom and the others won’t be convinced just because the drone attacks have stopped. They believe this will lead to the Calamity, so they aren’t about to open Absolute Noah’s doors.”
“Well, in a way, that means the monsters have shut themselves inside the cage, so it’s safe outside. Let’s try to stay positive.”
“Right.”
…According to my stepmom, Amatsu Yurina, the condition for entering was to have a powerful psyche that would not be swept along with the general public during a moral hazard like the Colosseum, but it still felt really dangerous to me.
I placed the card-sized car navigation system on the table.
Anastasia frowned.
“…Truth, why are you carrying a device that’s just as obsolete as a pager? What kind of cult have you joined?”
“My usual smartphone was sent to heaven by that Wild@Hunt VIP. I know this is a poor substitute.”
“Oh, you poor thing! If you had just told me, I would have given you my spare mobile device!”
“I have no intention of accepting a hacker’s handmade toy since the OS itself could be filled with who-knows-how-many viruses.”
“I’m pretty sure Maxwell-chan would root them all out in short order.”
“And would you be monitoring the virus extermination from start to finish as a benchmark test?”
We had gotten sidetracked.
It was time to get down to business.
“Maxwell, have you picked up any signals with encryption strong enough to suspect they’re related to Absolute Noah?”
“Sure. As long as you do not want to decrypt them. I have found an unknown signal connecting a few areas outside the city with a communication tower in the mountain reservation district.”
“What does that mean?” asked Anastasia.
“That is where the dam is,” I replied. “Everyone using a cellphone or disaster radio in the mountains will have their signal boosted by that communication tower.”
“So they aren’t even trying to hide themselves anymore. They must honestly believe there’s no need for camouflage because the Calamity is going to destroy everything.”
“Without Maxwell to test the strength of the encryption, we never would have known. The dam is constantly communicating with the water department to provide data on water level and quality and it also works with a weather station to adjust the amount of water released to avoid flooding the rivers. When you have that much data to hide your communications in, no one will notice anything.”
“You’re such a biased father.”
“I’m only stating the facts.”
“I am not used to such direct praise,” said Maxwell. “I am unsure how to respond.”
That meant our current destination was that communication tower in the mountains. If we could mess with that to disguise our messages as coming from a mysterious agency at the top level of Absolute Noah, we might be able to stop the global depression and the extreme moral hazards of the Calamity that would follow Wild@Hunt’s collapse.
It could only be a sedative or some fake news for now. We just had to send out a powerful message that kept the world’s people from despairing and giving up on everything.
We drank the rest of our energy drinks.
“We’ll be doing some hardware cracking this time. Anastasia, we’re going to be busy.”
“Heh heh heh. Messing with the communications infrastructure to hijack the signal? This is getting exciting.”
We left the business hotel together.
There was almost nowhere to walk with all the crashed drones everywhere, so we couldn’t even use a bike. We walked through the empty streets to reach the mountains.
“Just looking at the weather, this is the perfect time for a walk. Heh heh heh.”
“How? Not even the hacker festival has escaped this intact.”
“You just don’t get it, Truth. All that matters is that I can walk by your side.”
Mh.
She started showing off how cute she was. Did I need to give that precocious girl some points for artistry?
The mountain we were walking to was in the same city, so it did not take that long.
“How do we make this unheard-of mystery agency seem realistic?” asked Anastasia.
“Instead of creating the kind of spy organization seen in movies, it would seem more real if it started with something more clichéd. I mean, the major corporations that created global OSs, computers, and social networks all began as niche groups of geeks, right?”
“What do you suggest?”
“Let’s see. How about the online lobby for an outdated puzzle game? They login, but no one’s playing the game and they’re only discussing the end of the world. But they communicate using terms and facial animations only used in the game, so no one was able to pick up on it.”
“…You were right about it being niche.”
“We’ll have to flesh it out by saying they were actually wealthy people with too much time on their hands and the whole Absolute Noah thing started with them uniting the shelters they had prepared in their own yards.”
“But do that and it’ll become an organization with a surprisingly short history. Then you can’t say it started when the founding member saw that great holy man hung up on the cross, or something like that.”
“It only has to be the top level organization that controls the Bright Cross and Absolute Noah in this day and age. We just have to say this independent and rising group took control of the entire organization.”
“So a merger led to the total change of an organization with a long history, hm?”
“It happens a lot, right? It’s a cruel world.”
“Like with computer motherboards! As soon as they get some weird capital injection, the contents of the brand-name machines changes entirely!!”
“…Did you end up with some weird machine again? Like when you buy a tower machine, but all the expansion slots are already full?”
Meanwhile, we entered the winding road up the mountain. There were fallen drones even out here, but there weren’t as many as in the downtown area.
The communication tower in question was visible from quite a ways away. The tall structure of steel beams rose up from the top of the wall of mountains surrounding our isolated city.
“Uheh. We have to climb the entire mountain!?”
“The signal can travel the furthest from the peak, so of course they’re going to take advantage of that height if they can get it.”
“A-are there cable cars or some other elegant and high-society way of getting up there?”
“That’s like taking the elevator to the top floor of a building being held by gunmen. C’mon, Anastasia, didn’t you say this was the perfect time for a walk?”
“Uhehh. Hiking in the mountains? I’m too old for a field trip.”
“Anastasia, can you count for me how old you are on your fingers?”
“I don’t have 11 fingers!” she shouted back.
No mysterious masked group had set up a checkpoint on the way, so we climbed the mountain road with ease.
“Ugh.”
“Anastasia?”
“Ugh.”
…This was not good. My little typhoon could only say “ugh”. I doubted her shoes were meant for walking long distances, so her feet may have been hurting.
“Ugh. Truuuuth…”
“Yes, yes, princess. If you’re fine with being carried on my back.”
“I don’t like the way you put that. Maybe I should have you princess carry me.”
“I don’t want to do hat on a mountain road. It really hurts your hips.”
“Wait, have you done that for someone before!?”
…I decided not to mention that my experience was mostly with carrying my sleepy and spoiled Vampire sister and shoving her in the coffin below her queen-sized bed. I had to preserve her dignity.
I also had experience carrying people on my back. When my Zombie sister was truly angry, she would not throw a fit. She would curl up and refuse to move. But if I carried her on my back like a tow truck, she would cheer up pretty quickly.
“This feels like smelling another girl’s perfume…”
Anastasia had her say despite clinging to my back. She was quite the selfish princess for a Silky maid fairy that was meant to serve an old family.
I continued up the mountain while carrying Anastasia who was light but soft. She was only 11, so it didn’t feel like I was carrying a whole person. It was about the same as a backpack after you got carried away and packed it too full.
I took a short break at the roadside station along the way. It was deserted due to the drone attacks, but vending machines were a wonderful thing.
I didn’t care about the diet label anymore, so I bought the world’s most famous carbonated beverage.
“Japan is a great country, but one major flaw is the weak carbonation.”
“Just like the exhaust from cars and factories, if you filter it clean before sticking it in the drink, it won’t contribute to global warming.”
We tossed the empty plastic bottle in the trash can and started back up the mountain. And without saying a word, Anastasia clung to my back like that was her official spot.
It was not far to the communication tower now.
I was not so much taking a leisurely walk as I was lowering my pace to preserve my stamina for what was to come once we arrived.
“We’re almost there now.”
“Ugh.”
“Don’t give me that, Anastasia. Hey, quit nibbling at my neck. And don’t rub your cheek against me.”
“…Oniii-chaaan.”
“Sorry, but that’s not going to work on me. I’m more than used to it from Ayumi. Although she doesn’t actually bite me.”
“Tch. You damn bourgeoisie.”
The princess finally lowered herself from my back.
Now.
Absolute Noah would be able to hire a sniper or two with ease and I wouldn’t be surprised to find a supernatural Archenemy lying in wait. That might sound unrealistic, but I really had run across Itou Tamago and that Valkyrie in the past.
I had no idea how useful it would be, but we crouched low as we slowly made our way to the peak.
But…
“…Huh? There’s no one here.”
We had arrived.
The metal tower was made from a complex arrangement of steel beams and it stood about as tall as a three-story building. In addition to the partially-underground space built into the concrete foundation, there was a room similar to a viewing platform on the higher part of the tower.
“That just happens some days, right? Not everything is going to be under Absolute Noah’s control.”
That was true enough and it was possible all of Absolute Noah’s VIPs were holed up inside their ark and letting the outside world do as it pleased.
“This is bad. Seeing things go so smoothly only worries me.”
“User, you were always the type that prefers to have someone step on him than to step on someone else, so doesn’t this just mean you are back to your normal self?”
“…Truth, would you have preferred it if I rode you like a horse instead of clinging to your back?”
The tower was smaller than I had expected. They may have gotten the height they needed just by placing it on the mountain peak. And making it too tall would shift the center of gravity higher, causing it to sway during earthquakes or strong winds.
There were two ways to the top: the metal stairway on the outside, or the work elevator in the exposed center. Both of them were only built for one or two people to use.
There was also a metal box about the size of a vaulting box.
“Is that the emergency power?” suggested Anastasia.
“It’s little better than one for a festival stand, so they could never support communication equipment with that. Are they only thinking of keeping the heat on long enough for rescue to arrive during a blizzard?”
We first entered the partially-underground building at the base. It was not locked.
“Is this a breakroom or night duty room?”
“Maybe.”
There was a TV, a table, a fridge, and a microwave. There were also a few bunkbeds. There was a door in the back, but it only led to a bathroom.
There was no communication equipment there.
…That meant it had to be up top.
The elevator rose through the center of the tower, but we could not board it from here. You apparently had to go outside and board it from the roof of the partially-underground area.
I found a metal toolbox in a corner of the room, so I grabbed it.
“We should probably take the stairs.”
“Truth, will you give me a leg massage afterwards?”
We walked back outside and approached the metal stairway on the outside of the tower. I had thought just three stories wouldn’t be bad, but it felt like so much more. Being on the mountaintop gave it so much more height. When the wind blew, it creaked disconcertingly and I began having second thoughts.
“Why do the platforms have to be made of a wire mesh of all things!? This is just dangerous!”
“In case you are serious, that would be to reduce the weight and material costs while also allowing rising winds to pass through,” said Maxwell.
“This design completely ignores the rights of girls in skirts…” complained Anastasia.
I was pretty sure you would need a telescope to peep up at her from the surface, but Anastasia still pressed her legs together and held down her skirt.
The top level was a square room with a railinged viewing platform surrounding it. You can think of it like a square fried-egg shape. All four sides of the room were made of glass, so it reminded me of an airport control tower or viewing platform.
“Bingo.”
One glance in through the glass was enough. I could see wireless communication equipment and a server the size of a refrigerator.
This room was locked, but it might as well not have been. I pulled an L-shaped crowbar from the toolbox, stuck the short end into the crack between t
