[R1999] Short Stories' Collection

A chaotic incident in Sicily (13)

Twenty five minutes ago, in a private laboratory in Lorentz apartment

Tit...Tit...Tit...

"Oh."

Hearing a small sound coming out from his drawer, the boy who had an abnormal right eye with black sclera and yellow iris exclaimed in surprise. He stopped writing the report about the operation of the newest machine and pulled the drawer of his working desk.

Lying beneath the mess of objects, a spot of red light quickly flashed on and off continuously. The boy dug the mess by his hands and took out the device that was the source of strobe light.

"Well, she finally used it."

He smiled with a bit of satisfaction.

"Now, I should inform Madam Z and ask her to give permission for the foreign signal emitting from that invention of mine..."

Without any hesitation, X dropped his unfinished work and left the laboratory, muttering.

"...or else, the information security department will freak out."

As he activated the "TeLEPorT" floppy disk, he immediately appeared in the hall of the Foundation's Headquarter. Some staff members were startled by his sudden presence, but soon recognized his identity based on his ID card. X gave them a slight nod and a smile as greetings, then moved towards the predetermined direction.

When there was only one step to knock on the door of Madam Z's office room, X suddenly sneezed.

'Someone mentioned me just now?'

While thinking so, he took a tissue from his lab coat's pocket to wipe his nose.

'If that was my old customer, I hope they weren't accidentally killed by the errors of the products.'

With a usual friendly smile on his face, X knocked three times on the door and announced the people inside his arrival.

...........

"X has informed me about the emergency signal you sent. After trying to contact Sicily's Office and doing a few tests, we concluded that all the comms from Sicily were unable to connect with the Foundation." Madam Z said.

"Yes, this situation started last night or a few hours sooner, but the connection was still fine before 9 a.m yesterday." Vertin replied.

"There are some words from X you should hear first."

Madam Z passed the cell phone to X and asked the staff members from Laplace if they had determined the location of the devices emitting the jamming signals.

"We've located most of them, Madam!"

"Madam, we also spotted other jamming signals activated throughout Italy."

A staff member of the Laplace called her and pointed to the computer's screen. As she could see, various red dots stretched from North Italy to South Italy, creating a dense network. This meant that the culprits had prepared those things for a long time under the Foundation's nose.

"Hello, Vertin. I will be quick."

While talking to the phone, the boy's fingers were moving swiftly on the keyboard.

"Remember that the device you installed on your phone consumes a rather large amount of energy.Your phone's battery will soon be depleted in the next 7 minutes and 32 seconds. Make sure to keep your speech short."

"Furthermore, it can be installed with other cell phones coming from Laplace. The rules are still the same. That's all."

X returned the cell phone to Madam Z and continued on his extra work - creating another signal to disable those from the jamming devices. Of course, he didn't forget to call his "colleague" over to help.