I get out of the container and quietly close its door. Since every step I take makes an echo, I make sure to step very slowly. I walk toward the door without being seen by the people inside. There are two people working by the door. One is lifting a pallet with a forklift, the other is trying to keep the boxes stacked unevenly on the pallet balanced while swearing. The moment they go into the container, I head for the door.
As soon as I step outside, the sun hits my eyes. Even the smell of oxygen feels different. I start walking. I try to make the connections in my head. When I turn the corner toward the harbor exit, I see two people walking toward me from the opposite direction. These are the men who were standing at the warehouse door before I went inside.
They pass by me and after about four steps, one of them calls out to me.
"Hey! Look at me."
I turn around. "Are you talking to me?" I ask.
"Yes. Where do I know you from?" he asks.
"I don't know," I say.
"Do you work at the harbor?" he asks.
"No," I say.
At that moment the other man lights a cigarette.
The first man asks, "Have we ever done business together? Because you look very familiar. What do you do?"
"I'm a taxi driver," I say. At least let him think he knows me from there, I think, and that is exactly what happens.
"Maybe I got into your taxi one day," he says.
"Maybe. I'm in a bit of a hurry, I have to get to a customer. Have a good day," I say and keep walking.
It takes a few minutes to reach my car. I open the door and get in. I turn the key and start the engine. Then I stop for a second, turn the ignition off, and get back out of the car. I get another coffee in a paper cup, light a cigarette, and start thinking.
The piece marked A-01 that I saw at the blast site was the model before A-02. So it was supposed to be delivered somewhere, but it was destroyed before being sent. There are questions I need to solve. I place the coffee on top of the car, open the passenger door, take a notebook and pen from the glove compartment, and start writing.
Where was the prototype robot going to be sent?
Who destroyed the robot? Why?
After starting production, how many did Helix produce?
Is everything they do legal?
I take out my phone and call George. The phone rings for a long time, but no one answers. I call again. It rings, but it seems like no one is going to answer. Just as I decide to hang up, the phone is answered.
Out of breath, George says, "Yes, buddy?"
"Where are you? We need to meet," I say.
"I'm not very available right now. A friend came over, I'm at home. Is it urgent?" he asks. Now I realize that I have interrupted George's sex party too. Still, the situation is important.
"It's urgent," I say. "When will you be done?"
"Let's meet in an hour," he says.
"I'll be at your place in 30 minutes. Give my apologies to the girl. You'll be very surprised when you hear what I learned."
"Okay," he says and hangs up.
I notice that the wind drank most of my cigarette. I light a new one, put the notebook on top of the car, and look at it with my coffee in my hand. After finishing my cigarette, I get into the car and set off.
About 25 minutes later I arrive at George's house and knock on the door, hoping he is ready. George opens the door. His hair is wet, he did not manage to dress properly. I realize that I rushed him a little too much.
"Sorry, George. But you know work doesn't wait," I say and go inside.
"How could I not know," he says and takes two beers out of the cabinet. "Go on, tell me."
I tell George everything I saw and learned. He waits until I finish. At the end I take out the notebook. "These are the questions in my head," I say.
"Holy shit," George says. He finished his beer while I was talking. He takes a new one from the cabinet. He looks at my beer, sees that I only took one sip, and closes the cabinet. "Let's go one by one," he says.
"Where was the prototype robot going to be sent? Send the serial number you took from the container to Martin. Maybe he can find out where it was going," George says.
I send the number just like he says.
"Who destroyed the robot? Could they have destroyed it themselves? Maybe there is something defective," he says.
"I don't think so. If they had done it themselves, it wouldn't be heard like this. They would handle it quietly in their own area. At worst they would dump it at the bottom of the ocean," I say.
"You're right. Then who do you think did it?" he asks.
"Until we find Travis, it's hard to give a definite answer, but I think there is a group trying to wage war against Helix. Blowing up the first prototype in a public place is something people who want questions asked about these matters would do," I say.
"Makes sense," he says. "After Helix started production, how many did they produce? It hasn't been long since they announced they started. But how can we learn how many they made during this process?"
"Either we get the necessary permissions and raid the warehouse, which is very unlikely, or we get information from inside, which is also very unlikely."
"Let's start researching the employees. Maybe one of them can provide the information we need. Is everything they do legal? In a project like this, even if what they do isn't legal, it has probably been legalized. It's not possible to establish a project this big without arrangements by people in high positions," he says.
I stand up, throw my empty beer bottle into the trash, and take a new beer from the cabinet. "You're right."
"Then we'll handle these on Monday," he says. "How about you? How did things go with the girl from yesterday?" he asks.
I take a sip of my beer. "We'll talk about that later."
George shrugs and laughs. "So you're saying you'll stay mysterious."
Everything I went through today is still turning in my head.
"Now let's come to the real question," George says. "You went into that container, right?"
I nod. "I did."
"And there was a robot inside."
"Yes," I say.
George stays silent for a few seconds and looks at the table. Then he suddenly turns to me and says, "Buddy, we may have fallen right into the middle of something pretty big."
I already know that too. I pull the notebook toward me on the table. I take a pen and add three more questions that come to my mind:
Where are the robots being produced?
Why are shipments being made through the harbor?
Will the next target be A-02?
George looks at the notebook. He raises his eyebrows. "Could the reason the robots are at the harbor be that they're going to be tested?"
"What do you mean?" I ask.
George takes a sip of his beer. "What we call a prototype usually stays in the laboratory. But since this one was going somewhere, they must have moved to the second step. They're going to test the robots."
My phone starts vibrating on the table. Martin.
George looks at me. "That was faster than I expected."
I answer the phone. "Martin?"
The first thing I hear is the sound of keyboard keys being pressed. It is very obvious that Martin is looking at something on the computer.
"I checked the number you sent me," he says.
George looks at me curiously.
"And?" I ask.
Martin does not speak for a few seconds, but the keyboard sound continues. "This is not a shipping number," he says.
"What do you mean it's not?"
"I mean it doesn't belong to a container shipment," he says. "This is a project code."
George leans forward in his chair.
"Which project?" I ask.
Martin breathes out. "This code appears a few times in Helix's own network."
"What does it say?"
"I don't have full access," he says. "But I can see the titles of some documents."
I straighten up in my seat and take my pen in my hand. "What are the titles?"
Again the keyboard sounds come. "Autonomous intervention unit," Martin says.
I immediately write this in the notebook. At that moment there is a silence.
"So like soldiers?" George asks, breaking the silence.
"They don't call it exactly that," Martin says. "In the documents the words 'security,' 'control,' and 'intervention' appear."
George first swears, then says, "Great."
I am still trying to think. "So were we able to learn where these robots are being sent?" I ask.
"That part is a little interesting," he says.
"Why?" I ask.
"Because the shipping address does not appear," he says.
George raises his hand a little from the table. "If there's no shipment, why are they taking it to the harbor?"
"No," Martin says. "There is a shipment. And the harbor is the departure point. But the destination points are being kept completely hidden."
George takes a big sip of his beer. "I really don't like this."
"Martin, there's something else," I say. "The robot had 'A-02' written on it. Today I went to the blast area and there too I found a metal piece on the ground. It had 'A-01' written on it."
"Someone may have blown up the first one," George cuts in.
After thinking for a bit, Martin says, "Most likely."
"Do we know where the robots are being produced?" I ask.
"There is no information at all about production facilities," he says.
George shakes his head. "Great. Secret robot factories."
"Martin, can you find out one more thing?" I ask.
"I can try," he says.
"Are these robots active?" I ask.
"There isn't full information in the documents," he says while continuing to search. "Something is written here. It says 'Current status: Sleep mode.'"
"So do we know how many robots there are?"
"According to the records I can access…" He stops and lets out a short laugh. "We know they got at least as far as A-02."
I hang up the phone. George and I look at each other for a while.
"If someone destroyed A-01…" George says. He does not finish the rest, but both of us know the rest. I look at the notebook. Who destroyed the robot? I take the pen and write under it:
Next target: A-02.