“Of course it does,” he said, snatching it from her, sounding more confident than he felt.
“Must be on Arjun’s end,” Jesse said.
The Mumbai side of things was the weak link, Caleb knew. Unfortunately, he’d only been able to talk the Indian man through what to do and couldn’t see the work.
Caleb opened the phone application, switched on the external speaker, and dialed.
“We’re having a problem,” he said once Arjun was on the line.
“What type of problem?” Arjun asked.
“I’m not able to connect into the system there. I’m going to have Jesse talk you—”
“One moment, please,” Arjun said. “Are you saying you tried already?”
“Well, yeah,” Caleb said.
“The computer would then have to be on, yes?”
Caleb groaned and looked up at the trailer’s ceiling. “Yes, of course. Are you saying it’s not?”
“Naturally.”
Caleb could feel his frustration surge, but before he could say anything, Arjun spoke again.
“You were the one who told me to leave it off until you gave me the go-ahead. You have not done this yet.”
A laugh burst out of Devin, while Mya slapped a hand over her mouth, trying to contain her amusement.
“Oops,” Jesse said.
“I am sorry,” Arjun said. “I do not think I heard that correctly.”
“It was nothing,” Caleb said quickly. “I want you to go ahead and switch on the computer.”
“Stand by, please.”
“Nice one,” Devin whispered, holding out his hand like he wanted to give Caleb a fist bump.
Caleb glared at him. “Fine. I’m not perfect.”
“I’m sorry,” Mya said. “I don’t think we heard that correctly. Can you repeat that?”
“Go to hell. All of you.” He turned back to his terminal.
A few moments later, Arjun said, “The computer is cycling up, and…there we go. It is on and asking for a password.”
“All right. Let’s see if this thing’s working.” Caleb reinitiated the link between the systems.
Three seconds passed, then the message on his screen changed from ESTABLISHING CONNECTION to CONNECTION SUCCESSFUL.
Caleb and his team shouted in triumph.
“The password box has disappeared,” Arjun said. “Does that mean it is working now?”
“Damn straight, it does,” Caleb said. “Great job, Arjun. Thank you. I’m going to hang up, but I need you to keep your phone with you in case anything comes up.”
“If I do not answer, Darshana or Sanjay will.”
“Sanjay’s there now?”
“He will be soon. He wanted to see for himself.”
Caleb spent the next hour familiarizing himself with the Project Eden operating system. When he finally felt he had a handle on things, he decided to see what else was out there.
“They’re definitely using encrypted voice transmission and e-mails. Looks like there are also some password-protected document-sharing sites.” He hunted through the code a bit more. “Oh, looks like they use a lot of video transmissions, too. There appears to be several conversations going on right now. Let’s see if we can eavesdrop on one, shall we?”
He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth as he attempted to gain access to the video feed. He managed to break in, but the image was far too scrambled for him to make anything out, and the audio was nothing more than pops and electronic echoes that were impossible to decipher.
“Let me take a look at that,” Devin said.
While Caleb thought highly of his own skills, he was well aware there were people far better at certain tasks than he. When it came to hacking through scrambled signals, few on the planet — even when there had still been seven billion others around — were better than Devin.
Caleb scooted out of the seat and Devin moved in.
After studying the signal for nearly a minute, Devin looked back at Mya. “Can you get me my laptop? My backpack’s over by the door.”
When she returned with it, he launched a program that looked a lot like a recording studio audio board, and then used the Bluetooth function to sync with Caleb’s machine. As he adjusted the sliding levers on the laptop, the video image began to come into focus.
There were two images side by side. A graying man with a mustache on the right and another man, perhaps ten years younger, on the left.
“That’s good enough for the video right now,” Caleb said. “Try fixing the audio.”
Devin changed a setting at the top of the laptop screen and manipulated the sliders again. At first there was little change, but then sounds much more human than the digital noise from before began to seep out. Finally—
“…tons per hundred,” the older man said.
“That syncs with what I have here,” the younger one replied. “Column B?”
“Second quarter. Four hundred thirty-five metric tons per hundred. Eighty-two-point-seven-five metric tons per hundred. Nine hundred twenty-three-point-two-five metric tons per hundred. Four hundred seventy-one—”
“Sounds like someone’s doing inventory,” Mya said.
“Let’s check some of the other signals,” Caleb said.
They eavesdropped on several other equally boring conversations for thirty minutes before hitting on one that sounded more interesting. It was between an older, distinguished-looking woman and a young, well-coiffed man.
“What is that?” Mya asked. “German?”
“Dutch, I think,” Jesse said.
“Do you understand it?” Caleb asked.
Jesse shook his head.
“Do any of you?”
More shakes.
To Caleb, this conversation sounded more important than a discussion about how many sacks of flour were sitting in a particular warehouse.
“We are recording this, right?” Caleb asked.
“Every second,” Devin said.
The conversation went on for another three minutes, then both parties signed off and the signal ended.
Caleb thought for a moment before turning to Mya. “Think you can find someone who can translate that?”
“I can try. Devin, put a copy in my dropbox.”
“Will do.”
As soon as Mya left, Caleb said, “All right. Let’s see what else we can find.”
Mya thought if anyone knew about a Dutch speaker among the Resistance at Ward Mountain, it would be Crystal, and, sure enough, she did. There were two Dutch speakers at the base — a German man named Jans Stephan who also spoke Dutch, and a Belgian named Ilse Vanduffel who spoke Flemish, which, according to Crystal, was a Dutch dialect.
Mya decided to seek out Ilse since she would be the native speaker. The woman was part of the Resistance’s security forces. Mya tracked her down in one of the workout rooms, where hand-to-hand combat training was taking place. When Mya entered, those inside stopped what they were doing and looked over at her.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “I’m looking for Ilse Vanduffel.”
A tall, lean, muscular woman with short brown hair broke from the crowd. “I’m Ilse.”
“I have a translation job I need your help with.”
Ilse looked a bit put out. “Is it urgent?”
“Very.” Mya wasn’t sure she had the authority to make that call, but what the hell?
After a nod from the man who appeared to be in charge, Ilse said, “What is it I can help you with?”
They found a computer in an unoccupied office down the hall from the workout room. Mya accessed her internal network dropbox and opened the video.
“What is this?” Ilse asked before Mya hit PLAY.
“A video call between two Project Eden members.”
Ilse’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”