Box

Chapter 6

Aydin scowled. "You have what?"

"Your black beanie. It's excellent for camouflage," Box explained.

Lee chuckled.

Box fixed another camera at her. "It is."

"Nobody said that it isn't." Aydin's fingers followed the curve of Box's orb in a soothing caress. "But let's have Lee do that."

Box fixed its cameras at the table. Did his handler not trust its ability to do a good job?

"We can't burden you too much, since we plan to entrust the surveillance to you. You'll have to alert us as soon as somebody comes close to that vent."

A weak hint of yellow coloured Box's display. It lifted its cameras to Aydin. "I can accomplish that."

"I know you can." Aydin gave it a smile and another pat on its orb.

"We are counting on you," Lee added.

The yellow glow over Box's screen thickened. "I won't let you down."

"I know you won't," Aydin said before he turned his attention back to the projection. "I don't dare mess with the coding, and I don't even know if there's a possibility of looking at the history of changes made in the Hive's program and who made them, but if your expert could look at that and see if there's any user attached to this code?"

"I'll propose that to headquarters right away." Lee touched her eGlass and when the keyboard appeared, she started to type.

"Another thing that we could focus on is how the narcotics arrive on this side of a shield since border shields are designed to detect illegal substances, that is if they are not carried by mules or stored in containers made out of the lead."

"The easiest way to find that out is to catch the smuggler." Lee stood and joined Aydin, her gaze on the layout displayed on the wall.

A yellow glow like a halo still framed Box's orb. It had been given an important task, which, after Lee positioned two cameras that evening, it took very seriously, keeping a window with the view of the vent always open, even though it had also set a motion alert. It also monitored the Helper in charge of the border crossing and looked up every person who crossed the border in the general database. On average, twenty to fifty people per day crossed the border, but in two days of monitoring, all of them, according to their general personal information, were from either the U.C.E., U.A., or the neighbouring country and seemed like ordinary citizens. But when Box looked at the general database for pictures of criminals convicted of smuggling, they looked like ordinary citizens, too.

"How do you determine when someone is smuggling something?" Box asked Aydin, who was lying on the bed, in his sweat suit pants and a T-shirt he used for sleeping, propped against the pillows, reading via his eGlass. It was nine o'clock in the morning, and Aydin was enjoying the free time he had before the start of his afternoon shift.

Aydin glanced at Box. "If they are old hands, you don't, but if they are new, jitters usually give them away. Why?"

"I've been examining the personal data of all individuals who crossed the border in the last twenty-four hours, and none of them appear to be smugglers. However, when I researched convicted smugglers, they didn't fit the typical criminal profile either."

"That's why it's so important to catch whoever has programmed the Helpers to do their dirty work."

Box who had been on its station, lifted and flew to Aydin. "Who do you suspect, Linda or Mark?"

"It could be Jacob."

"Jacob is a field operative. He lacks the authorisation to access the Hive or the expertise to reprogram Helpers."