The Outsider (Outsider #1) ✔️

Chapter 91 : Bypassing Security

Dusk and Catherine went into the room allotted to Dusk.

Dusk asked the attendants to leave the room. She told them that she will call them when needed. All the maids, both for Dusk and Catherine, had travelled by a separate vehicle and had reached ahead to prepare the room for them. Dusk felt it was excessive, considering that Lord Cartier's maids would have ensured everything was perfect for them.

However, the impact in the Cartier household was just as Shanit Lidwig intended. The staff were in awe that a separate hover-bus had come just with maids and the bags, and that Ms. Dusk Hale was important enough to have her own maids come and take over her room. Being palace trained, they carried just the right amount of arrogance. None of the members of Cartier staff would dare to look down on Princess Catherine's companion for not being a Noble.

Once the maids were out, Dusk turned to Catherine, with her hands on her hips.

"Just what were you thinking, Cath? How could you evade your security staff like that? Do you not realise how dangerous it is? Even I don't do that, though I know there is no risk for me."

Catherine looked at her uncertain, trying to figure out what the correct defence would be. Finally, she said shamefully, "I am sorry Elder Sister, I was not thinking."

"I don't understand. This is not like you. What exactly happened?"

Catherine again kept quiet. Dusk repeated the question.

"You will not shout at me, right, Elder Sister?" Catherine found that calling Dusk as Elder Sister instead of by her name, mostly worked to soften her up. When Dusk nodded, she continued, "I had a good time, but then I managed to get Henry for a dance. Then we did 2 dances... and I didn't want to let him go. So, I asked him if there was any way we could slip out to the garden without anyone knowing about it."

As Dusk looked at her sternly, she continued, "He said there was a couple of passages that no one bothered with. And the guards will not notice us among the throng of guests at the Manor. I found it very exciting if we could give them a slip. It's boring to be monitored all the time... We went off the dance floor, got on to the side passage when no one was looking. Then it came out below one of the arches to the garden."

Dusk shook her head in amazement. How was it that Imperial Security would not know about the 'secret routes' in the building? Or that even Lord Cartier's guards would not know. They would not be stupid enough to let the Princess out unguarded even if Imperial Security missed it. And weren't Imperial Security supposed to be able to scan Catherine's Wearable?

"Where is your PCU?" she asked Catherine sharply.

"Uhh... I am wearing it, of course. Where else will it be?" Catherine asked in surprise.

"And you were wearing it all the time when you were 'galivanting'?" Dusk asked and Catherine nodded, not understanding the reason why Dusk was asking the question.

"Pass your PCU to me." Dusk said.

As Dusk examined the device, an Imperial Security Officer suddenly barged into the room. He bowed to them and asked, "Princess Catherine, why have you taken your wearable off?"

Dusk nodded. As she expected, the monitoring system should have told them something is wrong when Catherine left the ball room. The question is, why did it not. She turned to the officer and asked him to get his diagnostic kit immediately for her to examine the device. He called the Engineering team for a diagnostic kit.

After examining the PCU for 10 minutes, she asked the officer, "What is the is entry in the log file supposed to be doing? Why did it lose connectivity to the server? And you did not get an alert of it going off the grid? This place should have enough connectivity to prevent that from happening. And shouldn't it give a local broadcast if the connectivity is lost? We had it in the Sixth-Sense, how can it not be in the PCU-D76-Pro?"