RETURN OF THE SHADOW - Chapter 189

“So, do I proceed?” asked D.i.c.k.

“Connect to the site, swipe the card and press escape along F6, F9 and F11 and type in my name along with your wife’s middle name,” said Bruce.

“What for?” asked D.i.c.k.

“Only the current president among the ten of us can check the details of the person when there is an issue, but if we are setting up an account there is a way for me to monitor the account by use of a temporary password,” said Bruce.

“You can monitor accounts like this?” asked D.i.c.k.

“If we were actually setting up the accounts, we already are aware of the person’s identity and we were vouching for them. So, it makes sense that we are obviously given the option to monitor them,” said Bruce.

“Ok. I am done. Are you able to access?”

“Yes. Branson Shades. That it?” asked Bruce.

“Yeah. Do you have my account under surveillance too?”

“Yes. But I don’t use it often. I came to trust you over the years, and I have my daughter to keep a look out,” laughed Bruce.

“I don’t care. So, what is your plan with him?” asked D.i.c.k.

“I will keep a lookout for him. I owe that to Walter, and it is good thing that he supports us. It would make things much more difficult if our way of life is disturbed,” said Bruce as he ended the call.

D.i.c.k sent the details of the account to Balthazar and continued on his way in his shuttle. Balthazar had been waiting for D.i.c.k to respond and was glad to receive the details of the account. He needed a secure station to set up a few requests on ShadowCard.

There are a bunch of issue with this. He couldn’t use his wrist band or any devices in the mansion for this. He could be monitored by his family and he needed access to a more secure device. He didn’t want his family to know anything about it. So, he had to go find a secure access outside the mansion, preferably even the city.

Equipment was the main problem for him. He needed equipment to establish a secure communication interface. Such equipments are usually regulated. This would have been a very huge problem, if he hadn’t had his early years in the military being trained about establish communication channels.

Every city has a security organization that provides general security services to various buildings. These security organizations tend have labs which are to be used for providing maintenance services to the various equipment that they provided. That was a place where he could find the required parts and the tools to assemble them to form a device he needs. Apart from that, there would be maintenance personnel who would be using those tools for on spot maintenance work. He thought of breaking into a lab but felt that it was a bit over the top and they would have the best security features to secure the lab entrance. He finally decided to go ahead with robbing the cybercafe that he owned.

He made a call to Rudra and asked him to log off the game as he went to the workshop. The workshop had been outfitted with security by Rudra and he needed to have a look at them, if possible before he broke them and called the maintenance personnel. When he reached the workshop, he found Rudra waiting for him at his office.

“What happened? You sounded serious when you called. Did something happen with that name issue again?” asked Rudra.

“It has nothing to do with Divine Swords. I have handled that issue and there is going to be no legal issue about that. My cousin Jack is with me and he has no intentions to d.i.c.k around about it from now on,” assured Balthazar.

“What I need is something different. I need you to help me with a slight bit of fraud for which I will be paying for. It is kind of urgent,” said Balthazar. “You got at soldering gun from your maintenance supplies.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to. Just be prepared call the security provider for a maintenance personnel. Inform him that there has been some power surge triggering the auditory alarm of the place. Be careful to inform that there was no notification being sent to you, but it is disturbing the environment. So, I the owner who was at the place broke it to prevent the nuisance,” said Balthazar as he went to security control box and pulled it out and started break it apart and took a few parts while using the solder gun to create some burn marks near some parts.

“What the hell?”

“I needed the parts. Make the call. I am waiting,” said Balthazar sitting on the table.

“We need a maintenance personnel,” said Rudra making a call to the security company as he repeated the story told by Balthazar and showed him the broken apparatus in his office. The company replied that it will be taken care of as soon as possible.

“Good,” said Balthazar as he took out a few parts from the control panel. These parts be usually used to transmit secure messages to the organization and to the customers terminal in case of a violation. He could assemble these with a few others and get a device which could establish a secure channel, though it would much slower than those used by D.i.c.k or others.

“It is best if you let me do the talking,” said Balthazar as he collected the required parts. “Is a private space available, where I can do my thing.”

“I will look into it,” he said, and he checked the logs of the place. “Have two available currently. You can take one. The thing was booked and will be in needed in an hour. For how much time do you need it?”

“That depends on the arrival of the maintenance personnel. Just, be prepared to temporarily offer some other with some excuse of maintenance if the customer arrives before I am done. I also need a few spare parts for network interfaces. I believe you will have a few available,” requested Balthazar.

“Yes,” said Rudra. “What do you need?”

“Two pairs of network interfaces preferably the best you have. Should be backwards compatible with older versions,” started Balthazar and continued with a list of other parts commonly used in computers which could be tinkered a bit to transmit data encrypted and secured.

The maintenance personnel soon came to the place in a few minutes and started shouting at Rudra for busting the box. “It is irresponsible of you to just break the control box. You could have just broken the speaker. Breaking a control box was useless and would cost a lot more to replace,” he yelled.

“I was the one who broke the box,” said Balthazar stopping the personnel. “I have already identified the issue, there was an electrical surge that burnt through few of the parts and caused malfunction of encryption module failing to transmit the alarm to either the customer or your company. It was an issue with the electrical conduits which had caused an issue in few of our devices.”

“Who are you?”

“I am Balthazar Blyth, the owner of this place and also currently providing my engineering services. I have noticed that the lights of the control panel were indicating it to be the cause. So, I broke it to prevent any issue before the customers get worried. The speakers have also been harmed and I have managed to set them right before you came along with other issues that sprung up, but I realized that the working ones would continue with alarm. So, I decided to bust up the control box, then I noticed the burns and disposed of the burnt parts. The rest are all here,” explained Balthazar.

“You are Balthazar Blyth, the colonel of the border force?” asked the guy.

“Yes, I am. I own the cyber cafe. Nice to meet you, Mr.?’

“Justin Barber. It is an honor to meet you, Colonel Balthazar,” said the man.

“I hope that you have the required parts to replace them,” said Balthazar.

“You understand these systems?” he asked surprised. Though Balthazar had a reputation of a person who managed to stop an invasion effectively and helped the alliance realize that there was a hierarchy among the apes, none know of him. They all expected him to be a capable administrator not a man with much technical knowledge.

“I started my military career as a communications engineer,” replied Balthazar. “I have a very good idea of these systems and would have set it up if I had the required equipment.”

“Oh!” said Justin. “I will need to go and get the required parts from the office. I didn’t expect this. I just thought that there would be some reassembling of the box and some basic components.”

“I suppose so. I doubt a security company would allow personnel to move encryption ch.i.p.s and the like without proper paperwork,” said Balthazar. “The serial numbers were partly melted but these were the ones at the end. I managed to get these from the part that was a bit legible. I believe you can match them,” he continued as he gave him a paper on which he had copied down the numbers at the end.

“I would rather have the devices,” said Justin. “You know company protocol.”

“We put them in along with the rest of the electrical equipment and threw it in the trash. The smell was disconcerting to the customers. So, we disposed of it. But I do know that you need to verify it. So, I had the serial number or whatever is readable ready for you,” replied Balthazar with a smile.

“I am sure you meant for the best, Colonel, but I would have to inform my boss,” said Justin worried. He was afraid that Balthazar might take it to be insinuating that he might be stealing or something. Most people would misunderstand.

“I understand. It is protocol. You don’t need to explain,” said Balthazar in a cordial fashion. “I would insist that you inform and get the process moving. It would help in replacing my systems faster.”

“Ok. Cool,” said Justin nodding his head enthusiastically. He called his boss and talked about it. The boss was a bit pissed initially, but Balthazar joined the conversation and told that he had just disposed of it as he had already known of the systems and apologised for jumping the gun. Considering his reputation and his family, the man let it go.

“I will go and get the parts, then,” said Justin. “By the way, can I get an autograph,” he asked Balthazar.

Balthazar had been planning to find a way to get friendly with the Justin, request his tools to help assemble the parts he managed to steal, but he didn’t expect to be given a way by Justin himself.

“My autograph?” he asked as if he was confused. “Sure.”

“Dude, can you get me a hat the one in the merchandize section,” he asked Rudra. He immediately signed with him and after a few minutes of friendly chat, he managed to convince Justin to leave his tools here as he went ahead and got the parts required to repair the control box.

“You are quite good at this,” said Rudra who had been staying quiet all this time.

“Practice,” said Balthazar calmly as he took the tools and went ahead to the private room to assemble the device that he needed. He had already done everything other than assembling the encryption devices which are main parts of the security device with the network interfaces, which he managed to do in a couple of minutes with tools from Justin’s toolbox.

“You did this all for a device to setup a secure comm channel? You could request it from your family or the military,” said Rudra.

“Don’t want any of them to know about it. I hope you can keep this a secret,” said Balthazar.

“You some kind of government spy or something?” asked Rudra.

“No. I am not doing this for the government, but I am hunting a few criminals. Nothing that would hamper my reputation. It just needs to be hidden,” said Balthazar.

“I don’t think it is best to keep secrets from your family.”

“If that was true, I would have been dead by now,” said Balthazar looking at Rudra with a smile. “It is best if you don’t worry about it. I will go ahead. I hope you will keep this a secret.”

“Fine. I guess you want to use the workshop for using it,” said Rudra.

“No. God no. Why would I want to do that? I will find some other location an isolated place to get it done. It wouldn’t be useful to do it in a place which I own,” said Balthazar as he got up and made way out of the room.

He also needed to get a hold of a decent chunk of money to use freely, if he had any intention of accepting a bounty in the ShadowCard. He needed to get to a place to get a set up a bounty anonymously in the ShadowCard.

Apart from his own city, the nearest place that he had a place to stay was in the Entora City. He had a large plot of land, some of which he was using to set up a hospital. He had already talked to Winston about it and they were setting up a hospital which he intended to leave in the hands of his cousin if possible.

The construction of the building had just started for about a week, but it was just the bas.e.m.e.nt and a few rooms that were done. Though Winston had his contacts start the work, the land was under Balthazar’s name and he was the one who signed the required paper online to begin with the construction.

He went to them under the pretence of checking the development of the project. About 90% of the land used to be covered with trees, but that reduced 70% now. The area was being considered by development by the local and apart from his land, there were other area where construction of buildings are already underway. This was relatively isolated are where he could have a small place for himself away from the supervision of his family.

He went to the constructor and asked for a small private villa to be made beside the hospital. It was the best he could do. He needed a place, a safe house away from his mansion and this was the best he could think of right now. He told the contractor that it was for a friend who was interested in buying it and he gave the name, Branson Shades which was used to make his ShadowCard account.

Having discussed the future plans for a private place away from the family mansion, he went out to a shopping mall. He bought a laptop and went to a cyber cafe in the Entora city and booked a private room. He used the device to setup a secure communication channel.

He had to check a bunch of things in the ShadowCard. The first was to check the available contracts in the ShadowCard. This is the main reason for which he needed an account urgently. One couldn’t have access to the bounties put on the ShadowCard without an account. He needed to check if there were any that were placed for two people.

One was Dave and the other was Ryan Rowley. He found that there were bounties on both Dave and Ryan. There was only one bounty on Dave, but it requested for any verifiable information along with addition bonus pay for capture and specified that there won’t be any pay on death of the person.

On the other hand, Ryan Rowley had three different bounties on him. All three were to kill him as fast as possible. It also provided pay to anyone who gave information regarding his location and information about any who came into contact with Ryan Rowley and these were placed just for more than a single day. It was clear that the people who put these bounties were convinced that Ryan has some information and wanted to bury it. This made him more convinced that working with Ryan Rowley might serve his needs.

There were a few bounties which have been placed for any person of the Nirbaadh pirates and he also saw a few other bounties that he could be interested in. These were on some well-known rebels and brigands. He took a large-scale bounty set against the stragglers of Nirbaadh pirates before he logged out.