Chapter 219 - The watch - I (1/2)
A couple of minutes later, D.i.c.k came into the hall as expected and he had pulled out a bag from the car trunk and handed it to Thaddeus while holding onto a suitcase. ”I will probably be staying here for some time. Would be mighty pleased if you could provide me a room and put my bag there,” requested D.i.c.k while slipping him a few credits.
”Glad to have as a guest, young master, D.i.c.k,” said Thaddeus as he took the bag and walked away leaving him to meet with Balthazar and Glen.
”How long are you planning to stay at the mansion?” asked Glen. ”We might not have much time to spend here,” he added. ”Hope you are familiar with other people here.”
”Oh! I have lot of friends here. Just not ones as young as the pair of you. Anyway, it is not an issue. Until otherwise informed by Bruce, I will be tagging along with you and Balthazar. Maybe even have to move with him back to the border force barracks when he is done with his break,” joked D.i.c.k.
”What? You are planning to stay that long?” asked Balthazar surprised.
”I am finding my position beside you a bit redundant, right now,” grumbled Glen.
”Haha, I am joking,” said D.i.c.k. ”Those were just instructions. It isn't like I am a stickler for orders. So, now that I am joining you guys, mind to fill me in.”
”Follow me, I will take you to a safe room,” said Glen as he took them both out and into the flight hangar of the grounds of the family. He took them through a few corridors and into a private meeting room. After a few preliminary checks, he pronounced it free of bugs. ”Explain it to him, I will guard outside,” said Glen as he went outside, locked the door and sat down leaning his back against it.
”He brought me directly to the hangar. You planning to leave to leave right now?” asked D.i.c.k.
”Not unless you have a way to get us to the planet DH-8 without anyone in the family noticing us,” said Balthazar who had received a message that he was currently lodging at DH-8 at a friend's place and he could come to Asklepian in the morning.
”You are saying DH-8 is your destination. So, close to home?”
”No, it is more of a pit-stop. A place where I can get an old acquaintance to get me to the place I need to go.”
”And what place might that be?”
”Yes, that. Might need a bit of help from you to find that out,” said Balthazar as he pulled out the smart watch from his pocket. ”This is supposed to indicate our destination.”
”This?” asked D.i.c.k taking it into his hands. ”More than a century old. Tech is currently useless. Not a valid option as a communication device, unless someone is broadcasting from a nearby source that source definitely being on the planet. If he could actually put in an interplanetary connection with this shit, he doesn't need to use this. Getting and using the infrastructure require for that is harder and more revealing of his whereabouts than coming to meet you personally.”
”I thought so,” said Balthazar. He himself had some amount of knowledge in communications as that was the field he worked on in the military. But he still found it hard to accept that it was a useless thing and that there might be some other method hidden in it. ”Anything else, you can get from it?”
”Sure, the operating system and other things are not hard to operate. You have a password?”
”Raymond,” replied Balthazar as D.i.c.k put it in and started to examine it. A few moments later, he still couldn't figure out much from it.
”You know, it is a pain to use it for interplanetary communication, but it is not so within the planet a couple of antennas repurposed can give you a planet-wide coverage on this,” suggested D.i.c.k.
”I doubt he would be successful to come to this planet, especially with the bounties on his head. I suspect that he is stuck somewhere, and we might have to be his rescue,” said Balthazar.
”True. Ryan Rowley is in a bit of a pickle, right now,” agreed D.i.c.k nodding his head. ”This was meant to be a clue, right?”
”Yes, he took a lot of precautions to avoid it from falling into other's hands. Even put it in this container have some kind of corrosive agent or something,” said Balthazar showing him the puzzle box.
D.i.c.k looked at it for a second before giving it back to Balthazar. ”Keep it away, it might not be just a corrosive agent which could aerosolize once the glass breaks. Such things were used during the war. Some of these chemicals react with the glass to form a flammable gas causing it blow up. Put the cylinder back without the device and lock it and put it away safely.”
”Wow! That is something. You have quite a good amount of knowledge,” said Balthazar admiring the wide variety of things that D.i.c.k knew.
”You need to know broad scope of things to collect information or hack. Else, even if I am successful, I would remain as clueless as before,” said D.i.c.k. ”Anyway, looking at the precautions he took, I think it is best if I try out a few more things with the device. You have any setup which I could use.”
”These things are so old that I don't know what to use,” said Balthazar. ”But I will introduce you to Ellie. She might be aware of it.”
”Don't bother, I will ask her uncle, Elias. He would be a better option,” said D.i.c.k. He was acquainted with few of the technologically proficient people of the family due to prior interactions. Elias was actually once introduced to him by Evelyn Price as the man to first contact for any communication requirements.
A moment later, Elias was on video call with D.i.c.k. He seemed to be in the party along at Ambrosia restaurant. He looked quite drunk. He first asked them where they were as they were missing the party, but once he saw device in D.i.c.k's hand, his attention was stuck to it. ”Damn! That is a really old one. Can I have it after you guys are done with it?” asked Elias as he looked at the watch.