Deathwatch (The Faded Earth Book 1)(18)
The entire purpose of having a programmer here was to troubleshoot the damn things. A deeper dive showed that she could run the basic troubleshooting programs as well as one or two slightly more advanced options, but everything having to do with sensors, location data, mission parameters, and dozens of other sensitive variables rested beneath labyrinthine security measures.
Beck smiled and began opening the handful of programs she’d custom written to solve problems just like this.
Then she froze. Eshton’s warning flashed through her mind. Sending him a message was one thing; he could overlook such a relatively minor infraction. Slicing through security this way would violate the contract and almost certainly land her in a world of shit, legally speaking.
Beck had never hesitated in this way before. She had, at first on her own and later with Carl’s permission, taken deep dives into the code driving nearly every piece of machinery in the mine. But Carl was in charge and ultimately would be held responsible for anything she did. When he let her tinker, it was with the knowledge that her work would probably increase efficiency.
This situation was definitely not that. The contract was dangerously precise on what was allowed, here.
Beck pulled her hands away from the terminal and committed to her only remaining option. She thought it out.
“You guys worked fast at first, then slower as you got closer to the hill,” she said to the drones. “Why? Is the concentration of minerals more dense as you move in?” That might explain it. Wouldn’t want to risk losing precious material through wasteful spillage from drilling too fast. A quick check disproved that theory, too. The rate of target minerals produced hadn’t fluctuated much either way since work began here.
In fact, other than a few odd dips and spikes, the production rate stayed quite stable. It was the fluctuations that caught her eye. She pulled up a graph of production over time and started plugging the numbers in to a pattern recognition program. Something felt off about the rates. Not in amplitude, but frequency. It nagged at her.
She put the terminal aside as it worked through the data and took out her lunch. Whatever was going on here wasn’t dangerous, that much seemed clear. It was just weird. As she ate the sandwich prepared for her by Fisher—a rare treat, bread and actual meat—Beck considered the possibility that she might be creating trouble where there was none. Any number of factors could have inclined the people above her toward slowing things down. There might be no deeper explanation than an abundance of caution and her overactive mind needing to find a point of interest.
By the time her excellent meal was done, the analysis was complete. Beck glanced over the screen casually the first time, then with intense interest the second.
The time intervals between spikes was not random. Production slewed outside the norm in either direction according to a mathematical pattern. She had seen stuff like this before by programmers trying to design instances of actions that looked random but weren’t. It was lazy work, and it gave away the game.
Nothing was being mined at this site. Or if it was, Beck had not the first clue what the real target might be.
9
The inquiry was short and to the point. Since the only person in their chapter of the Deathwatch above Eshton was Warden Stein, she had total authority over investigating his actions. Though he never expected a serious rebuke over the use of his gun, the seriousness with which Guard training focused on the use of weapons had hard-coded nervous worry on the subject into him.
She handed down her judgment within a day.
“I reviewed the video from the scene,” Stein said after calling him to her office. The space was strewn with personal items, old keepsakes sharing real estate with trophies and awards. A few books—actual paper books—sat on a shelf behind her desk. “I know we drill into you guys that using a firearm should be the worst-case scenario, but I need you to unclench a little. This was justified, and you were right to let your suit handle it. There’s no way you’d have made a quarter of those shots on your own, and definitely not in time to save those people.”
Eshton nodded stiffly. “Thank you.”
She leaned back in her chair, steepling her fingers. “Brogan, you saved lives. You better than anyone should know how highly we prioritize that. Now, I had to send my report up the chain. No way around it. I won’t lie to you and say some regional commander or bureaucrat might not decide to call you in an ask some harder questions, but if they do I’ll back you to the hilt. You went in there and did what you had to, and saved my people in the process. People I should have been there to help.”
Eshton looked up and met her eyes. “Ma’am, that wasn’t your fault. You had no choice.”
“I know that,” Stein said. “Neither did you. I need you to get through whatever this funk is you’ve been in for the last few weeks. I’ve never seen you doubt yourself like this, and you know how important it is to me that you’re on your game. We’re close.”
Eshton inhaled sharply. “You’re sure?”
Stein slid a tablet across the desk. “Your little side project got handed the dig site two days ago. I’ve been watching her dance around the security protocols. She’s smart enough to work out that something isn’t right, and cautious enough not to push too hard.”
Eshton frowned. “That doesn’t sound like her. The caution part, I mean.”