January 7, 2019. The Warehouse. 08:30 Local Time.
We walked through the back door of the warehouse, looking deceptively normal. Thirty minutes ago, the Hive Shuttle had hovered silently over the dark waters of the nearby lake, just long enough for us to jump onto the jetty. Then, with a silent pulse of its ion thrusters, it had vanished back into the grey clouds, returning to the safety of orbit. We weren't wet, but we were exhausted. The gravity transition from 1G to Earth-normal always felt... heavy.
We opened the door to the office area quietly. "If we're lucky," Mereel whispered, checking his reflection in a glass pane, "she's on the phone with the tax office and won't notice we've been gone for two days."
We turned the corner. She wasn't on the phone. Judy stood in the middle of the hallway. She was barely 1.60 meters tall, wearing a sensible cardigan and holding a stack of invoices like a weapon. Her eyes, magnified by her glasses, narrowed as she saw us.
"Well," she said. Her voice was quiet. Deadly quiet. "The prodigal sons return."
"Hey, Judy!" I said, putting on my best 'CEO smile'. "We were just... conducting a field test. Very intensive. Dead zone for cell service."
"A field test," she repeated flatly. She tapped a manicured fingernail on the file folder. "For forty-eight hours? Without notifying the office manager? Surgrim, do you know who called yesterday? The Gewerbeamt. They wanted to inspect our fire extinguishers. I had to reschedule. Do you know how hard it is to reschedule a German bureaucrat?"
Mereel tried to shrink behind me. "We're sorry, Judy. It was... emergency maintenance on the remote nodes."
"Emergency maintenance," she scoffed. "You look like you haven't slept in a week. Go get some coffee before you collapse. And then sign these invoices. We bought 500 liters of liquid nitrogen again. I don't know what you're freezing back there, but if the bill isn't paid by Friday, they're cutting us off."
She turned on her heel and marched back to her desk. "And Surgrim? Next time, leave a note. Or I'm charging you overtime for my stress levels."
We scurried into the safety of the Command Container and locked the door.
The Command Container.
"She's terrifying," Mereel exhaled, collapsing into his chair. "I'd rather face the vacuum of space."
"She keeps us legal," I said, booting up my main rig. "Archi, status on the Shuttle?"
"Welcome back, gentlemen," Archi's voice filled the room. "The Shuttle has cleared the troposphere. It is currently en route to rendezvous with the Nomad in the Van Allen belt. No radar locks detected during ascent. However, Judy's reaction is the least of our problems."
A schematic appeared on the main screen. It wasn't a ship this time. It looked like a belt buckle. "The increased satellite activity indicates that we are no longer flying under the radar. We are a target. If an agency decides to raid this facility, I can protect the data, but I cannot protect you."
"You think they'd raid us?" Mereel asked, suddenly serious.
"If they suspect we possess advanced technology? They wouldn't knock. They would breach. Therefore, I propose the fabrication of Personal Kinetic Shields."
"Like in Dune?" I asked.
"Similar principle, different physics. A miniaturized version of the Nomad's containment field generator, worn on a belt. It detects high-velocity incoming objects—bullets, shrapnel—and creates a localized, momentary force field to deflect them. It is invisible until impact."
"A shield belt," Mereel grinned. "I want one."
"Fabrication will take 12 hours. I suggest you wear them at all times. Because—"
BZZZZZT.
The intercom on my desk buzzed loudly. It was Judy. "Surgrim? There's a technician at the gate. Says he's from Telekom. Something about 'line noise' and 'signal interference'."
My blood ran cold. Mereel and I exchanged a look. "Telekom?" I pressed the button. "Did we call them?"
"No. He says it's a mandatory infrastructure check. He has a clipboard, Surgrim. He looks very determined."
"Archi," I whispered. "Is this legit?"
"Negative. I have accessed the Deutsche Telekom dispatch database. There is no scheduled maintenance for this sector today. The vehicle at the gate has a license plate that was issued three days ago. It is a cover."
"Shit," I hissed. "It's the government. Or worse."
"What do we do?" Mereel asked, panic rising in his voice. "If we send him away, it looks suspicious."
"If we let him in, he'll see the server rack that defies physics," I countered. "We don't have decoys yet. It's just the Quantum Node sitting there looking innocent."
"Let him in," Archi commanded. "Mereel, you are the Network Administrator. You will handle him. I will actively spoof the readings on his equipment. If he scans for power, he will see a standard industrial load. If he scans for data, he will see cat videos. But you must keep him away from the physical casing. If he opens it, the illusion fails."
"Me?" Mereel squeaked.
"You're the expert," I clapped him on the shoulder. "Go. Channel your inner IT guy. Bore him to death."
The Gate.
Mereel walked out to the chain-link fence. A white van with a magenta "T" logo was parked there. The driver was a middle-aged man in a grey uniform. He looked bored, but his eyes were sharp. Too sharp.
"Moin Moin," Mereel said, leaning casually against the gate, trying to look annoyed rather than terrified. "We didn't order a check."
"Infrastructure maintenance," the man grunted, flashing an ID card that looked perfectly real. "We're detecting massive signal attenuation in this grid. Need to check your termination point. Won't take long."
Mereel opened the gate. "Fine. But make it quick. We're in the middle of a migration."
He led the "technician" to the server room. It was humming—a fake hum Archi was generating through speakers to simulate fans. The main rack stood in the corner, a sleek black monolith with blinking lights that meant absolutely nothing.
The man pulled out a handheld scanner. It wasn't a standard multimeter. It looked military. He waved it near the wall. "You pulling a lot of juice here? High voltage?"
"Standard 400V industrial," Mereel recited, sweating slightly. "We run a render farm for... architectural visualization. Lots of raytracing."
The man looked at his scanner. He frowned. He tapped it. "Interfering now," Archi whispered in Mereel's earpiece. "Injecting false telemetry into his device."
The scanner beeped. Green light. "Readings are normal," the man muttered, sounding disappointed. "Thought I saw a spike."
He walked over to the main rack. He reached for the handle of the server case. "Let's check the physical patch."
Mereel's heart stopped. If he opened that door, he wouldn't see servers. He would see a glowing blue crystal core floating in a magnetic field.
"Whoa, hold on!" Mereel stepped in front of him. "You can't open that."
The man looked at Mereel. His hand stayed on the latch. "Why not? Routine check."
"Because it's a sealed clean-room environment inside," Mereel lied rapidly. "If you break the seal without depressurizing, you void our warranty on fifty thousand euros worth of GPUs. And my boss—the little lady in the front office—will literally eat you alive. And she's already mad about the coffee machine."
The technician stared at Mereel. He was looking for a crack. A sweat bead. A stutter. Mereel crossed his arms, channeling every ounce of "annoyed admin" energy he possessed. "Do you have a warranty waiver form? Because if not, hands off the hardware."
The man hesitated. He looked toward the hallway where Judy could be heard shouting at a supplier on the phone. The threat of Judy seemed more real than any government order. "No," the man said, pulling his hand back. "Line seems stable now anyway. Must have been a transient fault."
He put his scanner away. "Have a nice day."
Mereel watched him walk back to the van. As he climbed in, the man gave the warehouse one last, long look.
Mereel waited until the van turned the corner. Then he slumped against the rack, his legs shaking. "Archi?"
"Yes, Mereel?"
"We need decoy servers. Like, yesterday. I almost had a heart attack. And print that shield belt."
"Agreed. The curiosity of our visitors is escalating."