Chapter 39: Signal Maps

“Anita?” Weston suddenly said, “I want you to come look at this.”

Anita walks over to where he was in the investigation room and her eyes widen.

There. on the signal map, showed a bunch of signals being transmitted back and forth between Carama and some northeastern part of the Amazon Rainforest about a month ago.

The signal map was a complex map used by New Genesis that utilized nano drones to detect signals and where they came from. It was still in the process of development, because of the lack of changes to the dome and really wasn’t meant to be used yet, however, they were desperate, wanted to try out the technology anyway.

“I can’t believe our hunch was right,” Weston said, “not only that, but I also detected five signals traveling over the Amazon Rainforest to Carama just before these signals started appearing. It seems that the culprits really did build a base somewhere in the rainforest — as insane as it sounds.”

“What are you two looking at?” their grumpy old boss asked as he entered the room, “you’ve been begging me to get you those signal maps for two weeks now, and I only got them for you because I trusted your detective skills. Don’t even get me started with the loopholes I had to pull to get you access to them. I had to get the higher ups at the Surveillance Branch at New Genesis to give us the go-to to use this thing — at least tell me you found something good.”

“Yes sir we did,” Weston said with excitement, “take a look over here.”

The boss stares at a bunch of red dots and colorful lines drawn across the screen and asks, “and what’s this supposed to mean? I’m not familiar with reading maps like these, you know.”

“What this means is that the people behind the warehouse incident most likely have a base situated in the Amazon Rainforest of all places,” Weston explained, “these dots and lines represent where the signals came from and where they were sent to. It becomes less and less accurate the more signals that are sent in one location, which is why it’s hard to pinpoint where exactly the signals are being sent to in the city, but we’re able to tell where exactly they came from out in the wilds. All we need now is the green light to patrol those parts of the Amazon Rainforest.”

“That’s… that’s actually impressive…” the boss said, “well done agent Weston. You might even earn a promotion if this is all correct.”

“I… I’d rather not,” he said, “unless that promotion can land me in a more permanent position in the UCA near my home.”

“Oho? And why is that?” the boss asked, “of course I won’t give you the promotion if you don’t want it, but you used to always chase after this stuff, saying that you need to make more money.”

“It’s just… that someone made me realize that I should probably be spending more time with my family,” he explained, “especially my daughter.”

“Ah so you're a family man now eh?” the boss jokes, “but that’s fine by me. I used to be a big family man myself until my son and two daughters graduated and became adults, so I can absolutely see where you’re coming from. In fact, I’ll see what I can do to make it so that you can get a job that locates you as close as possible to your family after all of this is over.”

“You’ll really do that for me?” Weston asks.

“Sure,” said the boss, “take it as a thanks for saving my dignity with this whole warehouse fiasco. Now I get to keep my clean flawless record of not having a single criminal slip by throughout my whole career as the head of the New Genesis DDF branch in Gran Andes. AHAHAHAHA!”

He lets out a big, hearty, triumphant laugh as he exits the room, the sound of him gloating about how much of a great leader he was as he walks through the halls slowly fading out as Weston and Anita watch him leave.

“So…” Anita casually said, “we've been partners for a decade now, and you didn’t tell me you’re becoming a family man."

“Aww c’mon don’t start joking about that too,” Weston said, “but yeah… it’s definitely something that’s recently been developing within me.”

“Why the sudden change?” she asked.

“Well… remember the highly suspicious girl we met about a month ago?” he asked, “Celia Reiss I think was her name. I saw her in the park we were patrolling and decided to strike up a conversation with her since we’re technically coworkers now, just in a different branch. The more I talked to her, the brighter of a person I realized she was. Did you know that she also got an internship at Terrastock prior to this? It’s amazing what young adults nowadays can accomplish. It’s just that during my conversation with her, I realized that she reminded me a lot of my daughter in a sort of way.”

He closes the signal map on the screen and turns to Anita.

“I guess it made me question things a little bit, and I realized that I should’ve been spending more time with my daughter after all,” he said, “she’s just such a bright young child you know? But sometimes it feels like her dreams don’t really align with how the world is today. I think I should definitely spend some more time with her to see if I can see her point of view on things.”

Because otherwise at this rate, I think I’ll end up arresting my daughter if it really came down to it in the future, he silently thinks to himself.

The small interaction he had with Celia began to change something in him. When he told Celia about the scenario in the far future where he would be forced to arrest his daughter if she kept going on the path, he had silently realized that he would’ve absolutely chosen to follow through with it. When Celia told him however, that as a daughter, she would want her parents to stay by her side, he was hit with the reality that he never got the chance to understand where his daughter was coming from.

“Hmm, well I think that’s sweet of you” Anita remarked, “I think I’ll continue staying childless. That sort of stuff is too complex for me. I find it more fun to pursue my career than to deal with a spawn of myself.”

“Haha!” Weston chuckled, “then I suppose that once everything’s over and the boss finds me a new position back in the UCA, that we won’t be partners anymore? I was going to offer you to come along but it really seems like you’re going for the higher positions.”

“Unfortunately so my friend,” she said, “but hey! We still have a couple days left with each other. It’s going to take a while to get a permit to go through the Amazon Rainforest since it’s designated as a national park. Plus we’d still have to inform our main branches of everything too to let them know that the culprits are being successfully handled and everything.”

“That’s true, but I’m still going to miss you, Partner,” he said.

She smiled and said, “I’m going to miss you too.”