Fortnight in Utopia: Day 07

"Should this be this easy?" I muttered to myself.

I moved as soon as I saw a camera. There were no people in there, but there were bright bluish lights. They probably came on automatically when the bay doors opened. I had to neutralize the cameras fast, that light could give us away. I set up my pulse device and set up a loop; now the two cameras in this bay would not betray us.

"It's clear," I whispered. Hitomi right, me left-we entered the bay. It was mostly empty. The boxes and crates were marked for the casino or the hotels. The few crates that were full contained lawn mowers, an ice-making machine, mini-fridges, and small engine parts. "I'm sure it was smuggling; there's no major repair in the ship logs. And there are no guards because there's nothing here really valuable. They must've already delivered the sensitive cargo."

Hitomi was looking at something on a clipboard. She turned a page. "Yes, delivered," she mused, "but one delivery is suspicious. See?"

I moved next to her. "Contents: miscellaneous equipment? Destination: 012-9191?"

"That looks like a phone number. Should be what we're after."

"Probably. There's a way to find out." We left the bay and shut the doors. I removed the video cables from the cameras. "See if you can find a phone directory on the computer, baby," I said while I worked.

"I'll try."

I finished my clean-up. It would be tough for anyone to tell we'd been here, even if she or he was looking.

"There's nothing," Hitomi said. "No local phones have that number."

"It must not be local then," I theorized. "We'll know soon."

I installed a micro-camera of my own at the dock, so I could see who boarded the yacht. We returned to our hotel through Hitomi's window. From there, we went to my suite.

"So," I said, sitting in front of my laptop, "this is the list of all country, city, and area codes. We'll use trial and error to find out who we're after."

"That could take a while. Why don't I get started on that while you see if your robot can tell us anything?" Hitomi suggested.

"The robot?"

She opened my window. Sure enough, my emission-sensitive robot was back. "Good idea, thanks. It's back early."

"It won't do much good if you don't check it," my girlfriend laughed. "And shouldn't the other robot be back too?"

"That one's not coming back. It was destroyed." Hitomi looked at me, alarmed. "No worries," I said quickly. "It was just an accident." (I felt like a jerk for not telling her everything, but I knew when Ayane's name got into the discussion, Hitomi would want to know why I trusted her. I wasn't sure, so I couldn't possibly explain, so that meant I had to keep mum on the robot's demise.)

I'd had high hopes for my emission robot. I was disappointed; it had recorded no unusual findings. I gave it some power. Maybe it would have better luck tomorrow.

"How's it coming?" I asked the German girl. I plopped beside her on the long sofa.

"Pretty quickly; a lot of these places don't have 012-9191 in service. I'm getting through the list okay."

"Want my help?"

"Sure, start at the bottom of the list and we'll meet in the middle."

We finally got done at about 0040. "No luck," I said, annoyed. "I'll bet it was one of the not-in-service numbers. Once the conspirators had used it for their business, they discarded it."

"Maybe." Hitomi sounded dubious. "For some reason, all those ones in the number bother me. Three ones, a zero, a two, and two nines: it feels...off."

"We'll figure it out, love." I stood and extended my hand to her. "Come to bed."

-End of Day Seven-

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