Things begin to move...
#############
“Please wait, link is being established... authentication in progress.”
Ichikawa Zenigata was sitting in a shielded communication room of Space Patrol at Marsbase Sara, waiting for the link to Arthur Nkomo’s vehicle at Jenga being established. Small status lights of the encryption module were switching from red to green one by one until the screen finally lit up.
“Good morning Arthur, good morning Jürgen.”
“Hello Zenigata,” Arthur Nkomo replied. “I hope you have good news for us.”
“Yes, I have... Mizuki and me managed to find the Fen who imported and waved the truck we were looking for” Zenigata replied. “We don’t have a hard link who bought the vehicle, but we have everything else. Pictures, model, performance parameters. And we know that it was sent to the Moon to be collected by the customer.”
Arthur thought about this for a moment and nodded.
“Yes, that is really good news. I think we need to involve specialists from the White Tower right now” he decided and pushed a few buttons on his console to activate a conference call. “Great work Zenigata, now its time the Patrol earns their pay.”
The screen on both ends split in the middle, making space for a third communication partner.
“Jeff Patson, Data Mining... what can I do for you Mr. Nkomo?”
“Hello Mr. Parson, I hope you got the memo about my current case?”
“Yes i got it” Patson acknowledged. “So tell me what we need to dig up for you.”
“I need your group to find a vehicle involved in my case” Arthur answered. “The vehicle has only been in Fenspace for a few month so I hope you can find it quickly.”
“I am transmitting you everything we know about the vehicle” Zenigata continued, “the last known position of the vehicle was the Moon, two months ago. It was parked there on a public parking lot to be collected by the contractor.”
“I just got your data package, that should be enough to start hunting for the vehicle. I assume this is a priority request?” he asked back and Arthur instantly nodded.
“Yes, it is. We need to find the people who use this truck at the moment, as fast as we can” Arthur replied, “you don’t need to call me back when you found it, we will come to the White Tower in the next 24 hours.”
After the connection to the White Tower had been shut down Arthur looked at Zenigata again.
“We will be leaving Jenga in the next hour, I expect to meet you at the Tower tomorrow. Hopefully Section 7 will already have found some data when I arrive” Arthur said. “I will also send a request to Section 6 to keep one of their FESWAT teams on standby, as soon as we know where to strike I want to be able to do so.”
“See you at the White Tower” Zenigata replied.
----
Jeff Patson sighed as he turned off the external link and switched over to the White Towers cyberspace.
“I don’t know why people always think its easy to find data quickly” he murmured, “without us they wouldn’t even know where to start.”
The Data Mining group was officially part of Space Patrols technical support section, the little brother of Space Patrols hacker and codebreaker teams. While their job involved no exciting cyber combat or hacking, most people had just no idea about the scope of Data Mining’s job.
Fenspace produced an incredible amount of data each day, most of it totally boring and useless for everyone. Until someone came up with a request that redefined ‘useful’ for the last couple of months... or years.
“Okay my friends, we have a new job... priority request from Great Justice.” he said after he logged in to White Towers cyberspace. “I am uploading you the description of a vehicle... we have to find it and its owners. We have to look both through our own recordings and external sources.”
“That sounds like some fun” one of the AI’s replied, “what are our parameters? Any loops to jump through?”
“None this time. Cameras, traffic sensors, video blogs, look at everything that stores sensor data which could be useful for us” Jeff said. “If a Fen put something on the web that is useful for us, take a look at it. I don’t think you can move a vehicle to the Moon and back without hitting a dozen recording devices.”
“What is about external databases? Shall we ask the Hackers to take a look at them?”
“Only if it is necessary, we have pretty good official backing for this. Contact the Supers, we need to access their recordings too.” Jeff answered after a moment. “If they give you access or coordinate with you we are happy with it.”
He could see that the AIs were already looking forward to the challenge.
“Oh, one more thing... if you uncover something keep me informed. Section 6 already told me they are on standby to kick in someones door. So if you need some active surveillance, they might be willing to organize it for us.”
#############
“Please wait, link is being established... authentication in progress.”
Ichikawa Zenigata was sitting in a shielded communication room of Space Patrol at Marsbase Sara, waiting for the link to Arthur Nkomo’s vehicle at Jenga being established. Small status lights of the encryption module were switching from red to green one by one until the screen finally lit up.
“Good morning Arthur, good morning Jürgen.”
“Hello Zenigata,” Arthur Nkomo replied. “I hope you have good news for us.”
“Yes, I have... Mizuki and me managed to find the Fen who imported and waved the truck we were looking for” Zenigata replied. “We don’t have a hard link who bought the vehicle, but we have everything else. Pictures, model, performance parameters. And we know that it was sent to the Moon to be collected by the customer.”
Arthur thought about this for a moment and nodded.
“Yes, that is really good news. I think we need to involve specialists from the White Tower right now” he decided and pushed a few buttons on his console to activate a conference call. “Great work Zenigata, now its time the Patrol earns their pay.”
The screen on both ends split in the middle, making space for a third communication partner.
“Jeff Patson, Data Mining... what can I do for you Mr. Nkomo?”
“Hello Mr. Parson, I hope you got the memo about my current case?”
“Yes i got it” Patson acknowledged. “So tell me what we need to dig up for you.”
“I need your group to find a vehicle involved in my case” Arthur answered. “The vehicle has only been in Fenspace for a few month so I hope you can find it quickly.”
“I am transmitting you everything we know about the vehicle” Zenigata continued, “the last known position of the vehicle was the Moon, two months ago. It was parked there on a public parking lot to be collected by the contractor.”
“I just got your data package, that should be enough to start hunting for the vehicle. I assume this is a priority request?” he asked back and Arthur instantly nodded.
“Yes, it is. We need to find the people who use this truck at the moment, as fast as we can” Arthur replied, “you don’t need to call me back when you found it, we will come to the White Tower in the next 24 hours.”
After the connection to the White Tower had been shut down Arthur looked at Zenigata again.
“We will be leaving Jenga in the next hour, I expect to meet you at the Tower tomorrow. Hopefully Section 7 will already have found some data when I arrive” Arthur said. “I will also send a request to Section 6 to keep one of their FESWAT teams on standby, as soon as we know where to strike I want to be able to do so.”
“See you at the White Tower” Zenigata replied.
----
Jeff Patson sighed as he turned off the external link and switched over to the White Towers cyberspace.
“I don’t know why people always think its easy to find data quickly” he murmured, “without us they wouldn’t even know where to start.”
The Data Mining group was officially part of Space Patrols technical support section, the little brother of Space Patrols hacker and codebreaker teams. While their job involved no exciting cyber combat or hacking, most people had just no idea about the scope of Data Mining’s job.
Fenspace produced an incredible amount of data each day, most of it totally boring and useless for everyone. Until someone came up with a request that redefined ‘useful’ for the last couple of months... or years.
“Okay my friends, we have a new job... priority request from Great Justice.” he said after he logged in to White Towers cyberspace. “I am uploading you the description of a vehicle... we have to find it and its owners. We have to look both through our own recordings and external sources.”
“That sounds like some fun” one of the AI’s replied, “what are our parameters? Any loops to jump through?”
“None this time. Cameras, traffic sensors, video blogs, look at everything that stores sensor data which could be useful for us” Jeff said. “If a Fen put something on the web that is useful for us, take a look at it. I don’t think you can move a vehicle to the Moon and back without hitting a dozen recording devices.”
“What is about external databases? Shall we ask the Hackers to take a look at them?”
“Only if it is necessary, we have pretty good official backing for this. Contact the Supers, we need to access their recordings too.” Jeff answered after a moment. “If they give you access or coordinate with you we are happy with it.”
He could see that the AIs were already looking forward to the challenge.
“Oh, one more thing... if you uncover something keep me informed. Section 6 already told me they are on standby to kick in someones door. So if you need some active surveillance, they might be willing to organize it for us.”