Agent X

Meteors and servers

'Exactly!' X snapped his fingers. 'That's what I was trying to remember. We need to use the weapon as a track, or as bait or something instead of the scientists. We just have to figure out how, since Shell doesn't even need more weapons anymore.'

'Wait, that isn't true anymore...' Meteor piped up. 'If I'm not mistaken, there was an incident with one of the weapon detachments that were supposed to be sent to her. Something went wrong and they were excluded from the final shipment to her location.'

'Did you say 'her location?' Do the weapon suppliers know where she's currently hiding?' X asked, visibly perking up. She smiled and nodded.

'It's a huge risk for her to have someone like that have access to her location, but that weapon is the key to everything, and it's too important to overlook. Without the weapon, there's no incentive to threaten the leaders, and without incentive, the leaders will obviously never give up their countries.'

'Yeah, that's right. And you'd said that there is a small part of the consignment that has to be delivered to her. I'm assuming it needs to be done before you've handed over your vital information?' Sheaf queried.

He saw a faint blush cover her cheeks when he mentioned her traitorous passing of information to their enemies, but it quickly passed as she straightened up to cover her embarrassment. 'Yhup, the information I'm giving them is the last piece of the puzzle, and it pertains to the timings for launching the vessel. Before that is decided, all the VX needs to be safely stored in the vessel in the first place.

The deadline for filling the tanks with VX is two days from now, and it can't be delayed any further than that. This means you guys have two days to find the weapons supplier and make them reveal highly confidential information before it's too late.'

'Wow, thanks for the vote of confidence, Miss sunshine.' Sheaf muttered sarcastically. X rubbed the sides of his forehead to ease its irritating throbbing. Then something suddenly struck him.

'One minute, how do you know about the weapon and the delays?'

'Ah well, as I've said, we all have a common server where we discuss the common details of the plans pertaining to multiple parties affected. Since the beginning, we've all anonymously communicated with each other through this server. I don't exactly know who my fellow scientists are, only the ones I directly report to. I'm sure this is the same situation for everyone here. And it's this way that the weapons issue was communicated to all of us.' She informed him.

'A common server... with everyone present in the group...' He repeated to himself, trying to tie up the knots together. 'If everyone is present on the server, it means that the weapon supplier will be connected here as well, right?'

'Yeah, but it's not that simple. Everyone on there is anonymous like I said, so we don't even know who's who. I myself have no idea as to which of them is the supplier.' She answered.

'Okay. So do you have all your conversations stored somewhere we can access them? If I go through the messages and use ACE's database for clues, maybe we can figure out who this dealer is.' X mused, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

'That's... actually not a bad idea,' Sheaf interjected. 'ACE is keeping track of almost all the weapon dealers in our country, and quite a few abroad as well, so we can even use database systems to help us in connecting the dots.'

Meteor tilted her head to the side thoughtfully, turning the idea over in her mind. 'Hm... that seems like a solid plan to me. I might be able to help with that, but I'll need as much time as you guys since I never tried to actively identify the team.'