The Diego Diaries: Cloudy with a Chance of Spuds (dd7 405)
=0=At about the same time
"Its hot today."
He nodded. "Yeah. Its supposed to be that way for the rest of the decaorn."
Three teenaged kids sat on the grass next to a wagon half filled with baskets of potatoes. Dozing at the head of it was a hitch of four mules. They were enjoying the sun as well. They were the stars in the show of the potato harvest, the first real crop from the land in all the time that Unidad had been cultivated. It took a while to get the land ready and then experiment with small plots before putting your root vegetables into one soil basket.
Having the Hu-An as consulting experts had cut down experimentation time to a great degree. They would be here now but for the fact that the third expansion of their habitat had just finished up and they had a couple of hundred square miles of soil to reinvigorate. Their population was expanding due to small groups being found and rescued by Dai Atlas and his mechs. There were nearby 810 Hu-Ans living here now and the need for food and living space had put them into high gear with the planning commission.
The members of the Unidad Agricultural Club of Unidad High School, "Home of the Martian Marauders!" were here to help harvest as part of their agricultural curriculum. They were rotating through the jobs. One third of them were harvesting the potatoes by hand under the assistance and supervision of their advisers and a raft of adults who wanted to be here, one third were hauling heavy baskets of potatoes to the wagon with gravity carts assigned to the facility while several were helping load the wagon as they waited for their turn to work in the field. The remaining kids were gathering cast off stems and plants as well as searching for missing potatoes by the harvesters.
The field stretched out a long way and bordered many others all of which were growing dazzling crops of all manner of vegetables including many from Africa and Asia that weren't common in Europe and the Americas. All manner of fruits and vegetables were being worked out here to see which ones would supply the most food value for the least amount of resource demand.
"Its supposed to rain in three orns," another kid said. She was the daughter of an engineer and his teacher wife.
Every several orns a 'rainfall' was allowed from water condensation that was part of the recycle system. Water was collected, stored, then allowed to form back into droplets that fell from the dome in an unknown but completely proprietary manner like normal rainfalls. The duration and density was as planned, with different types of storms practiced by the Cybertronian engineers who worked here. They themselves were as interested in the project and the idea of human habitations in dangerous places as the humans and the data collected was useful for them in their own projects and professional endeavors for Cybertron.
"We'll clear this field before that," another kid said. His parents were administration and like the multicultural nature of the facility were from Nigeria. The three kids spanned three continents with the Nigerian kid, an Australian girl and another boy from Brazil making up this little work group.
The gravity toting kids showed up so all of them heaved the heavy baskets into the wagon, pulling them down the bed to stack neatly. The Nigeria kid glanced at the three. "We're full here with this load. We need to get this moving so we can come back for more."
"I'll tell Tennessee," a girl from Belarus said. She pushed her empty gravity cart forward toward a group of adults standing nearby going over a datapad regarding the field. "The wagon is full, Ms. Tennessee," she said.
Tennessee Epps turned to her with a smile. "On it," she said as she walked toward the mule train. "Everyone who is coming climb on board."
The three kids scrambled aboard, then sat as Tennessee climbed up, took the many reins in hand, then gently tugged the mules awake. "Get along, Bens. We have to unload this at the farm."
The mules grudgingly began to move and soon the wagon was heading toward the farm a couple of miles away where the hands there would unload the wagon, carry the many bushels into the sorting barn, then begin to inspect, grade and sort the potatoes. A good sample of them would be taken to sciences for examination but the rest would go into the storage bins that would keep them as food for the entire human colony here on world. The space station would benefit as it got its own agricultural projects together. It would be so for all the other produce which would be part of the plan to make the human group food independent in five years. At the rate they were going the plan was revised down to three.
The wagon rolled out of sight as the kids walked back to the fields. They would work together learning their craft, one that they wanted to partake as a career here after high school. They would as soon as the newly formed committee that was working out a plan for them to enter the University and trade schools was formalized and accepted.
It would be hot in the fields but they didn't mind.
=0=Elsewhere
It was silent a moment, then Coln stood. "You were deprived of your family's business. Did you ever find out who was responsible for this happening?"
Ratchet nodded. "I did. I did a bit of finesse to find out the truth." He vented a sigh. "I found out that Larken and his partners had designs on the guild and all of the different businesses there because they were prestige operations and they could use them to show how benevolent they were. They could pretend that they cared about ancient arts and specially handcrafted things. Good PR. I also found out that through Decimus and Ratbat that they were also going into media acquisition. They wanted a law that would allow them to take over businesses through hostile acquisition, then control information sources and the public through propaganda. Larken and his partners wanted that but they also asked that the guild members be made part of the plan. It was done. Sentinel and the relevant governmental agency heads got a lot of shanix from creating the deal."
"I suppose you have data for that," Coln said. "Evidence."
Ratchet grinned, a very tight humorless expression. He subbed a data disk. "I never thought you'd ask." He held it out.
"Objection. This information wasn't submitted during discovery and its provenance won't be verified. It could be anything," Sheldon said.
Prowl rose to take it, then walked back to his seat. "If it pleases the court, I can run it. This is a specialty of mine."
Orion considered that, then nodded. "Please do. Then I believe it should be turned over to Forensics to ascertain the full particulars. For the moment, we shall accept that you are an expert witness given your record in police work and your various pertinent skills."
It was silent as Prowl ran the data, then sat back to work through the tags, supplemental data and dates that were built into the major computer systems that were Cybertronian. Nothing that entered a Cybertronian computer could escape the numerous and obvious tags and notifications that marked it when it did to forever become a part of the data itself.
The room was silent as Prowl worked, then he sat forward. "I've scanned it for markers, tags, all the identifiers that we use for data especially from that frame of time. We still use it though some of the particulars are different for this time frame. This data is legitimate and the source for it is the mainframe sector of Teletraan 1 that was partitioned off for the Department of Justice and the Judicial Committee of the Senate at the High Imperium."
"The data could be tampered with or changed," Sheldon said.
Prowl considered that, reviewing again what was there. "If it was it'd be marked. This is the highest security data system that we had then. If it were tampered with the system would mark it. There's no way to steal data from this system the way its designed without it being marked so if you did you'd be arrested for it." He glanced at Ratchet. "It has no marks. How did you get this data?"
Ratchet glanced at him. "I had a friend with security clearance get it for me. You don't see anything security wise to show that it was tampered with because it wasn't stolen. It was downloaded by someone with authority to do so. They were as taken aback as anyone else that this was made into law and they helped me. They liked my genitors."
"That makes sense," Prowl said. "If you had hacked into it the data would show it no matter how good you were. It was a fail safe for just such events."
"To your best estimate, Prowl … this is a set of legitimate data from the relevant sectors of Teletraan I showing accurate and correct data?" Orion asked.
Prowl glanced at him, then nodded. "Yes."
Orion glanced at Sheldon, then Ratchet. "Who was the one who stole this data?"
Ratchet considered that. "Jacoby of Iacon."
For a moment all of them stared at Ratchet in silence, then each other.
Coln stepped closer. "Jacoby? Of Iacon? That one?"
Ratchet nodded. "Yes. That one. He didn't like it either."
It was silent a moment, then Prowl asked, "How did you get Sentinel Prime's nephew to steal data for you?"
=0=At the barn
They stood in the sunshine waiting for the wagon to be unloaded. Men and women, some of them farm hands and others who just liked farming and the outdoors were putting the baskets on the big gravity cart to pull them inside the shed. Piled on the floor for some distance were mountains of potatoes. They halted by the pile, then added the basket's contents. Putting them back on the cart, they walked back out and stacked them on the wagon.
Tennessee and the three kids were watching the show, admiring the growing pile of potatoes that would be processed into storage before nightfall. "That's a lot of french fries," the Australian kid said.
They laughed.
"Lots of mashed potatoes," Tennessee said.
The cart was loaded, they waved goodbye and the mules once more headed down the road to the field to retrieve another load. They could have hauled it all by flatbeds pulled by their little trucks but this was more immediate. This was more authentic. It was also a way to show the kids how to drive mules.
The Nigerian kid sat with a big smile as he drove the wagon. Tennessee sat beside him regaling him with stories about "Grandpa down on the farm' as they headed back to their work site two miles away.
=0=Courtroom
"Not everyone was on the same page with Sentinel. Jacoby was always a maverick in that family," Ratchet said. "He liked to come to the ghetto and hang out. He wasn't a bad kid. He was smart and decent. At least one of them was. He helped me because he liked my genitors. He used to come into the shop and watch them make things."
"What happened to him? Do you know?" Prowl asked.
Ratchet shrugged. "I don't know. I hope he made it. I don't know otherwise."
Orion glanced at Sheldon. "I will allow this data and you may have it was well. I will give you a moment to review it. I also would like you, Springer, to take it into custody and give it to your data experts in Forensics."
Springer walked to Prowl, then put the data disk into a clear evidence bag. Adding the relevant data to the bag for chain of custody, he walked to the door and leaned out. When he leaned back in he was minus the disk. "On its way."
Prowl sat back. "Shall we continue?"
Coln glanced at Ratchet. "I have no more questions."
Sheldon who had scanned the contents of the disk while they waited sat himself. "I have no questions."
"You can go," Prowl said.
Ratchet nodded, then stepped down. He walked past Larken without a word, then sat with Ironhide who was in the room with his elders.
Ironhide took his servo and squeezed. :You did good:
Ratchet grinned. :Thanks:
:Slagger is going to get his. Don't let it worry you anymore: Ironhide said.
Ratchet squeezed his servo. :What worry me?:
Ironhide grinned.
=0=TBC 10-15-2020 10-25-2020