the curved needle he put there earlier. We’ll need it in a moment. I tear a piece of fabric off with my teeth and tuck in the remaining end at his back. I make a sign to tell him that I’ll use the fabric later to wipe off all traces of our presence. He nods at me and we descend into the main control room.
Without touching anything, he takes in the slight damage that has been done to the interior, the cleanliness of the room, the bleeping of the control system and the flashing lights, and the series of black screens. He pulls out the needle, takes his earbud out and inserts the sharp end where the small antennae pin is. He wiggles it and I hear a soft crackle in my ear as he makes sure that we can hear them, but they can’t hear us. Then he kneels and hides the black button under a control cabinet.
He stands and waves at me to take my earbud out. I do as he asks and place it in his outstretched hand. It, too, gets pricked; he then puts the needle back into his fabric wrapper. The little poker will go back into the MedKit in his ruck once we’re out of here. I hope we’ll never need it to stitch up wounds.
We leave the control room and walk down another set of stairs and into a large hall that looks like a combination of common room and entrance area. He points at the door. A steel plate is bolted to the wall, covering most of the entrance. We take a careful peek behind it. Wires, light grey packages that must contain the explosives, and a controller that looks harmlessly small. Runner nods, satisfied.
We walk to the side entrance and see the same scene. He squats down and hides my earbud behind a tall shelf, then stands and waves at me to clean up and follow him. I spit at the cloth and take great care to wipe away our clay traces while we walk back up the stairs, into the control room, and higher up and out to the satellite dish.
Runner slides the door shut, turns to me, and says quietly, ‘Both doors were connected to the frames with a thin copper wire. If we had opened them, the wire would have disconnected and the resulting explosion would have killed anyone in front of that door. The thick steel plate is to direct the detonation away from the common room. The force of the blast would rip apart the door and everyone outside within at least a twenty metre radius. You can get in unharmed only with the remote for the small control box you’ve seen at the door. Now, the question is why have they set another trap so close to this first, very effective one? The vines they’ve prepped are connected to an amount of explosives that would kill the person who steps on the vines, but that wouldn’t damage the doors beyond repair and wouldn’t set off the door bombs. The door bombs are constructed so that only minimal damage will be done to the interior. This control centre seems to be of great value to the BSA. Very odd.’
‘Why? Don’t they need to come here for…controlling satellites? Or communicating? Or something?’ I ask. ‘And didn’t Kat say they might be able to control a different satellite cluster? Ours? So isn’t it logical to do it from here?’
‘No. To answer your first question: The communication can be done from afar, they don’t need to sit right here in the observatory. We don’t do that either, do we? And no one says that whoever controls satellites for the BSA has to be here in Taiwan. That man can sit anywhere on the planet.’
True. I’ve never been inside a satellite control centre until today, but I’ve been using satellite data and imagery for months now. I tip my head at him.
‘If they don’t care about maintenance or long-term use of this particular control centre, they don’t need to come here again,’ he continues. ‘About your next question: Why would the commander of this BSA group be the same person who controls satellites for them? If they had any brains, their satellite control centre would be far from any Sequencer’s base. I expect the BSA to leave Taiwan
Without touching anything, he takes in the slight damage that has been done to the interior, the cleanliness of the room, the bleeping of the control system and the flashing lights, and the series of black screens. He pulls out the needle, takes his earbud out and inserts the sharp end where the small antennae pin is. He wiggles it and I hear a soft crackle in my ear as he makes sure that we can hear them, but they can’t hear us. Then he kneels and hides the black button under a control cabinet.
He stands and waves at me to take my earbud out. I do as he asks and place it in his outstretched hand. It, too, gets pricked; he then puts the needle back into his fabric wrapper. The little poker will go back into the MedKit in his ruck once we’re out of here. I hope we’ll never need it to stitch up wounds.
We leave the control room and walk down another set of stairs and into a large hall that looks like a combination of common room and entrance area. He points at the door. A steel plate is bolted to the wall, covering most of the entrance. We take a careful peek behind it. Wires, light grey packages that must contain the explosives, and a controller that looks harmlessly small. Runner nods, satisfied.
We walk to the side entrance and see the same scene. He squats down and hides my earbud behind a tall shelf, then stands and waves at me to clean up and follow him. I spit at the cloth and take great care to wipe away our clay traces while we walk back up the stairs, into the control room, and higher up and out to the satellite dish.
Runner slides the door shut, turns to me, and says quietly, ‘Both doors were connected to the frames with a thin copper wire. If we had opened them, the wire would have disconnected and the resulting explosion would have killed anyone in front of that door. The thick steel plate is to direct the detonation away from the common room. The force of the blast would rip apart the door and everyone outside within at least a twenty metre radius. You can get in unharmed only with the remote for the small control box you’ve seen at the door. Now, the question is why have they set another trap so close to this first, very effective one? The vines they’ve prepped are connected to an amount of explosives that would kill the person who steps on the vines, but that wouldn’t damage the doors beyond repair and wouldn’t set off the door bombs. The door bombs are constructed so that only minimal damage will be done to the interior. This control centre seems to be of great value to the BSA. Very odd.’
‘Why? Don’t they need to come here for…controlling satellites? Or communicating? Or something?’ I ask. ‘And didn’t Kat say they might be able to control a different satellite cluster? Ours? So isn’t it logical to do it from here?’
‘No. To answer your first question: The communication can be done from afar, they don’t need to sit right here in the observatory. We don’t do that either, do we? And no one says that whoever controls satellites for the BSA has to be here in Taiwan. That man can sit anywhere on the planet.’
True. I’ve never been inside a satellite control centre until today, but I’ve been using satellite data and imagery for months now. I tip my head at him.
‘If they don’t care about maintenance or long-term use of this particular control centre, they don’t need to come here again,’ he continues. ‘About your next question: Why would the commander of this BSA group be the same person who controls satellites for them? If they had any brains, their satellite control centre would be far from any Sequencer’s base. I expect the BSA to leave Taiwan