Chapter Sixteen: Heads on a Swivel

December 24, 2017. BAINE Headquarters.

"Is this really necessary?" asked Valdain, feeling somewhat uncomfortable as Rhodes rooted around in his back. "I can't help but feel that my mechanical nature makes me a target for this sort of thing…"

"Wish I could say you were wrong, but we have to take every precaution," Rhodes replied. The Koh'i'Noor was face-down on an operating table in front of them, his insides opened up and ready for operation. "We can't take the risk that Echo somehow had you bugged."

Had his eyes been more expressive than a pair of lights, Valdain might have rolled them. "I'd like to imagine I'd be aware if a tracker had been placed on me," he said. Then remembering the events of just over a year ago, he bashfully cleared his throat. "In any case, carry on."

As Rhodes, assisted by Gina, scoured his inner workings for any kind of transmitter, Dr. Xu observed. "When you're finished here, would you mind answering a few questions about the Koh'i'Noor?" she asked Valdain. "I was hoping to ask you more back at Station Delta, but you had to leave rather quickly. I might not get an opportunity like this again, considering how hectic our schedule has been lately!"

"If you'd lend a hand, I'm sure this would go a lot faster," Gina said. "There's a lot of nooks and crannies in here where a transmitter could be hiding…"

"Me? Oh, I'm afraid I'm no good when it comes to tech," she said. "Biology is my area of expertise. Speaking of which, I believe you mentioned that the Koh'i'Noor were once an organic race? Is there any chance you could shed more light on that?" Valdain stayed silent for the time being.

After the thorough search was done, it was determined that Valdain was not compromised. "That's all we'll be able to do," said Rhodes. "We've double and triple checked anywhere something could be hiding, so if there is one, it's beyond our abilities to find." He helped the mechanical man down off the table. "You're free to go, Val."

"And while I would love to go, I believe there are more pressing matters that require my attention," he said. "Namely, the location of this alleged 'bug.' I would like to do what I can to stop Mr. Echo from further disrupting our operations via his surveillance."

"You're welcome to try," said Gina, "but we still haven't been able to come up with anything. Of course, it's hard to coordinate when anything and anyone could be responsible…"

Valdain pondered this conundrum for a little bit. "Anything, except something that he couldn't physically compromise. Something like that network of satellites I was able to put together. Rhodes, your computer is the only place that those satellites can be accessed, and I imagine you would be able to tell if someone had made it into your room uninvited, yes?"

Rhodes was beginning to see where he was going. "Right, exactly!" He looked around before gathering all of them up in a huddle. "So long as we keep this to the four of us, we should be able to use those same satellites to search for any unregistered outgoing signals. If we're careful, he won't even know what we're doing."

Acting as nonchalant as they could, they made their way back to the lab. Every person they passed, every security camera, could very well be the one that would feed their plan directly to the enemy. Much less so than the certainty of being compromised, the uncertainty of just how they were was what really made it so tense.

After what felt like hours, they were finally safe. Rhodes sealed the door, just in case. "Let's hope that miracle array of yours can do something like this," said Gina.

"Of course it can," Valdain assured her, as Rhodes got it ready. "I designed it to detect something as faint and imprecise as a warp signature. Picking up radio signals should be child's play."

"Forgive me if I sound naive, but what exactly are we expecting to find?" asked Xu. "If it's just as simple as tracing a call, wouldn't we have noticed something by now?"

"Not without this system," said Rhodes. "Echo wants whatever this is to be discreet, as you'd expect. It's probably on a closed system, or piggybacking on one of our lines, or something like that. Without something as sensitive as these satellites, you wouldn't notice anything was wrong even if you were looking right at it."

She shrugged. "How convenient."

Before long, the feed was active. "Okay. We're seeing a map of every incoming and outgoing transmission to and from BAINE headquarters," Rhodes informed them. The data displayed probably didn't mean much to the average layperson, but they clearly could make sense of it. "Hmm…it doesn't seem like there's anything abnormal."

"Echo's probably using some Gem tech doodad to mask his signal," said Gina. "How tight can you make it?"

Rhodes adjusted the figures, but still nothing. "Unless the mole's writing him letters, there should be some trace of what he's doing," he said, beginning to lose hope. "Could one of our own really have turned against us?"

"I know it's hard to accept," Dr. Xu said, "but it's entirely possible. There is precedent for BAINE agents allying themselves with Mr. Echo, after all…"

As she said, Rhodes didn't want to accept that. "No, there has to be something we're missing here. What kind of transmissions can't these satellites pick up?"

"Letters?" Gina suggested, clearly grasping at straws.

"They should be able to detect all sorts of information being transmitted," said Valdain, at just as much of a loss as the others. "Even ansible technology leaves some sort of a trace. Unless he isn't operating on the ground, then…" He suddenly went silent. Everything gradually began to click into place, but the others were too occupied to notice at first.

"Know what we should do?" said Gina. "We should spread some sort of fake plans, and then see what he does. We'll act like we're trying to keep it a secret, only put it through certain channels, and–"

Before she could even finish the thought, Valdain had darted back behind the computer. With robotic strength he seldom demonstrated, he wrenched the cables out of the back, shutting everything down, and leaving nothing but a blank screen.

After this was done, everyone was quiet for a bit. "Okay, well, we don't have to do that," Gina said.

"I might regret asking, but what exactly was that about?" asked Rhodes.

Still seeming a bit shaken, Valdain came back around the now-deactivated monitors. "Do you still not see? Echo was able to follow our every move because he somehow compromised the satellites themselves! That is how he was able to learn of Project Aftermath despite it being kept under wraps for so long. Everything BAINE has done…he has been watching us from above this entire time!"

"But…but didn't you just say that they can only be accessed from here?" asked Dr. Xu. "You're not saying Rhodes is the mole, are you?"

"The reason I said they could only be accessed from here was because I discounted a very important detail: one can manually access the satellite systems by physically interfacing with the devices. At the time, it did not occur to me that Echo had a way of getting to space."

A sense of dread had begun to spread throughout the others. "Yeah, knowing Echo, he's definitely got something like that," said Xu. "So does that mean he knows about our plan?"

"Right now, we have to assume that he does," Rhodes said. "We sent all those teams right into a trap, and with no way to contact them." He stared at the blank screen, as though willing it to turn back on. "He'd only need to access one satellite to get into the network, right?" he asked Valdain.

He nodded. "Theoretically, yes, but I would wager Echo is no stranger to redundancy. He likely has compromised as many of them as he could afford to."

"As for finding it…" said Xu. "Remind me, how many satellites are in this array?"

Gina took a moment to double-check some of the physical records by her desk. "Twenty-seven," she reported. "And those are just the ones that are currently active."

"'Currently active?' What do you mean by that?" asked Valdain.

"Well, there was that one incident a few years back," she continued. "Something knocked one of the satellites out of orbit. I think it might've been that hand ship, actually. Anyways, it went down somewhere in the Atlantic."

Dr. Xu slapped her fist into her hand. "That's it, then! He must have dredged up that satellite and fixed it! All we have to do is track it down, retake or destroy it, and he'll be flying blind!"

"Hold on, hold on, we don't know if that's even how he's watching us," Rhodes said. "Even if he does have the fallen satellite, it's entirely possible he's found another way in. We need to know for sure before we make any moves."

"Here's a question for you: how are we supposed to find out?" asked Gina. As she suspected, Rhodes was silent. "The moment we go looking, he'll know what we're up to."

"Not necessarily." The other three turned to Valdain. "If Echo really can access this network, then we must assume he can see everything. But, as old and as cunning as he is, he is still only human. Therefore, it is unlikely he knows everything."

Gina blinked. "Explain."

"When we sent several Fireteams to investigate activity hotspots in the desert, we transported them by civilian airplane," he continued. "If Echo saw these planes, he would likely not see anything suspicious about them. Planes travel to and from that area all the time. In order to search without being suspected, we merely have to hide our search behind an innocuous cover."

"Like a fishing boat, or a nautical survey!" suggested Dr. Xu. "Okay, I might be able to organize the second one with some of my contacts. You guys think you can narrow down where that satellite landed?"

Rhodes and Gina looked at each other, clearly not very confident. "Um…we could definitely try," said Rhodes. "Anyway, now that we know that there's no mole or bug, we can speak with Director Mills about this. He'll want to know everything we do."

"Agreed," said Valdain. "Come, let us go at once." He and Rhodes immediately left the room, but Gina stayed behind, her mind apparently elsewhere.

Xu moved to leave as well, but stopped when she noticed Gina hadn't budged. "Everything alright?" she asked.

Gina was staring at the burnt Rhinestone they had acquired from Siberia. "Oh, no, it's nothing," she said, shaking her head. "Come on, let's go." They followed the other two, all of them hoping that half a plan was better than no plan.

Aboard the Sunset Apogee.

His hands shaking, Fitz steadied himself as he set one final panel into place. There was a click, and a diode in the case's corner began to blink green. He breathed a sigh of relief now that his job was done. "Alright, bomb's finished," he told his employer. "We're one push of a button away from complete vaporization via nuclear fireball. So, what's the target?"

"Patience, my friend," said Echo, watching as his Rhinestones continued to repair parts of the ship. "In due time, all of our enemies will be in the same place at one time." At the very top of the device sat what looked suspiciously similar to a satellite dish. "All we need to do is send out the siren's song, and they will come running."