The assignment (part II)

***

The morning in the Rotterdam hotel was a first of its kind. After decades of mostly autonomous work -- unnecessary investigations led mostly by nothing but his own relentless curiosity -- Adrian was now forced to work with someone else who led the agenda. Despite their mutual interests, this fact was annoying, and the first morning in the clinical glare of the suite was only amplifying the feeling. Just one standard day ago had been a previous era; now, a new one had arrived. He had fallen asleep quickly, his mind overloaded with the events of the previous day, but the new day dictated a new step.

Morning had always been a time for the simple and the mechanical; it was a ritual that had anchored Adrian across centuries of waking up in unfamiliar places. Even here, in the expensive quiet of the hotel suite, he sought the familiar weight of routine to settle his mind. After decades of mostly autonomous work, he was now a man following a shadow agenda.

The fact that Michael Berndt was now pulling the strings was a persistent irritation, and the clinical brilliance of the hotel only seemed to amplify his unease.

He unlocked his terminal, gray light was cutting through the dim warmth he'd set the night before. He found Mikko's address and typed with deliberate intent:

"Good news is on the way -- I'll be at your party after all. See you soon."

He paused, thinking of the twenty-thousand credit fine and his deactivated access keys and this new era. After a moment, he added:

"Let's leave the bad news for another time."

As a man who placed a high value on the rare bond of a good friendship, Adrian knew he couldn't return to Finland for the gathering with empty hands. With only an hour remaining before his 10:00 copter was scheduled to arrive for the long transit back to Lahti, he headed downstairs into the lobby.

He squinted as he stepped back into that clinical, aggressive glare -- a luxury design where the light bled directly from the marble surfaces in a way he found utterly intolerable. He sought out the same service man from the night before.

"A copter was arranged for the name Adrian Porinen -- could you check that?" Adrian asked, his voice was low and grating from the long night.

"Certainly, sir. I have the confirmation right here," the service man replied with a flawless, professional smile. "You have approximately one hour before departure. Might I offer you some breakfast in the interim, sir?"

"No. Better tell me -- where could I find a souvenir? Specifically, something about the Grote Kerk or Sint-Laurenskerk. Something truly historical," Adrian said without pause, his mind already drifting to the ancient structures he'd seen.

"Not a silly scaled replica of modern times. And... find me a pack of your local beer."

"Of course, sir. There is a specialist shop nearby called 'De Overblijfsel.' It is roughly a ten-minute drive and is the only establishment of its kind open at this hour. I can have a taxi waiting for you at the entrance immediately. Is there anything else I might assist you with?"

"Ah, yes. In case I am late, please inform the copter pilot of the delay. It should be paid," Adrian replied, thinking of his new arrangement with the German Cluster.

"Direct any claims to Michael Berndt -- you will find all the required information in the order."

"Very good, sir. I shall ensure the pilot is notified. And shall I have your baggage brought down for the copter?" the service man asked.

"No. Just forget it. No baggage today," Adrian replied,

It took exactly ten minutes to reach De Overblijfsel. The building itself wasn't something extraordinary; it was a manifestation of ancient city preservation. Like many others in this district, the structure had been lifted to escape the risen sea level, yet every detail -- every stone, every metal decoration -- remained intact. The entrance to the shop was located beneath the first floor, tucked away from the clinical glare of the modern streets. A small set of stone stairs led down, their surfaces unpolished and rough; it was ancient stone bearing the deep scars of centuries past.

The store was split into two parts. The first was standard, organized to allow the usual stream of visitors to buy common things; Adrian wasn't interested in items that were cheaply mass-produced, considering them boring and not worth any attention at all. He moved instead to the second part, hidden from common eyes -- a beautiful mess where a variety of different, non-standard objects were placed.

His eyes were immediately attracted to a long glass box. Inside, several slightly different replicas of a gothic church stood in a row. A description on the back of the case read: "Laurenskerk in Time". Each replica was marked with a specific year, showing the building's evolution. Furthermore, the material of the replicas changed depending on the year -- a tactile detail that appealed to Adrian's appreciation for ancient history and the technical evolution.

"I see your interest in this... yes?" a man said, emerging from the shadows of the shop's cluttered rear section.

"It is very expensive, but you should notice -- each small replica is crafted from its appropriate material", he continued, stepping closer to the glass.

"The first is carved from the original stone of the foundation. The second, which you see is slightly ruined, is cast from the very metal used to shell Rotterdam in the ancient times... and the latest, the one that resembles the building as it stands today, is made of vloeisteen. So, what do you think? Is it worth it? Yes?"

This blend of history, aesthetics, and engineering was exactly what Adrian's relentless mind had been seeking. Though he was never a man for shopping, he could already imagine the glass box resting beside him on the copter back to Lahti, a tangible piece of art to accompany him back. Even with the twenty-thousand credit fine weighing on his file, this felt like a necessary acquisition and best gift for the upcoming event.

"No. But I will take it, right now. Please pack it, and... I don't have luxury of time today, if you understand me", Adrian replied with a stone face.

He returned to the hotel exactly on time -- not a minute later, nor sooner. He carefully carried the glass box of replicas, this tangible piece of art, toward the ordered copter. The second box, filled with the local beer he had secured, he delegated to the pilot to load into the storage bay.

During the lift-off he had a mixed feelings, like the mix of architecture beneath the copter it was a mix of two opposite feelings: sadness about the passed times and curiosity of the future upcoming things.

During the lift-off, he had mixed feelings. Like the mix of architecture beneath the copter -- the ancient, historical buildings moved piece-by-piece to the heights to save them from the risen sea level, now surrounded by the cold logical structure of the modern city style -- it was a clash of two opposite emotions.

He felt a heavy sadness about the passed times, the times of recently ended era. Yet, competing with that nostalgia was a relentless curiosity about the new things to come. The HEI transmitters, the unknown party, and the fact that Lizzie Wolters now represented a third state of living being for him -- it was a lure he couldn't ignore. Even with his loss of autonomy, the need to strip away the mystery of these new unknowns was already pulling him into the deep.

***

Mikko and Virta had been consumed by the preparations since the very morning. While Adrian was navigating the clean streets of Rotterdam to carry his catch back to the hotel, Mikko was busy orchestrating the arrival of provisions. The usual rhythmic calm of their home had been replaced by the rare bustle of coordinating their upcoming anniversary gathering, with Mikko managing the logistics for the delivery of local food and drinks.

The event celebrated Mikko's two-hundredth standard years anniversary, a milestone significant enough to summon a wide circle of individuals from their solitary routines. Circle was the precise term -- a network of professionals bound by constant communication, and sometimes by genuine friendship that remained a much rarer commodity. The guest list was a diverse occupation: engineers from varying domains, researchers in bio-tech and physics, and safety experts. They were unified by a single, defining trait: their long lifespans. Because such gatherings were rare events, occurring perhaps only once or twice a decade, they served as intellectual crucibles. This was the reason an investigation expert could comfortably support a discussion or provide a rigorous argument regarding the latest breakthroughs in particle physics; with centuries at one's disposal, the boundaries between professional domains naturally began to blur.

Events of this magnitude were a logistical nightmare. Because every attendee operated on a rigid, long schedule, the date and time had been etched into their calendars standard years in advance. In a world governed by cold logic and calculation, finding a window for everyone to gather in the same place physically was a feat of engineering in itself.

Yet, despite the centuries of planning, the final days before the anniversary were always hectic. For Mikko and Virta, the rhythmic calm of their home had been replaced by the bustle of coordinating provisions.

There was, however, a long-standing tradition that offered a rare crack in the rigid protocols and policies: the unexpected guest. It was considered a common courtesy to surprise the host or another attendee with a visitor whose presence hadn't been announced on the events feeds.

Despite the brooding, dark grey skies and the damp chill in the air, Mikko felt a rare sense of ease following Adrian's latest message. He looked out toward the small copter pad just a few hundred meters from his backyard. The landing surface was clean, slightly elevated above the street to avoid any clashes with the surrounding buildings and the glare of the city lights. Copter traffic was sparse here; Mikko and Virta's neighbourhood was a quiet residential area, tucked away just on the edge of the city centre.

"Hey Mikko, you will hear that specific noise soon -- the switch from the airplane mode to the heli when... ahh, how many guests are planning to use the copter today?" Virta asked, interrupting his staring at the pad.

"A few. Adrian and Koenn, and... somebody else. The pad reservation contains three records of upcoming landings", he replied, his eyes finally drifting from the clean, elevated surface of the pad back to her.

"Okay, and when is the closest?" Virta asked again, her voice was carrying the same familiar warmth she always had when they met after a long separation.

"Should be almost here", he replied again, a slight, ironic smile was touching his lips.

The stillness of the residential area was finally fractured by the low-frequency thrum of approaching rotor blades. It wasn't merely a mechanical noise; it was the physical protest of the damp air being compressed and torn as the heavy craft began its deceleration.

A sudden, sharp shift in the acoustic pitch signalled the transition -- the distinctive mode-switch from high-speed air plane cruise to vertical thrust. Emerging from the brooding grey clouds, the black, slick fuselage of the copter looked like a masterpiece of aerodynamic evolution, a centuries-refined descendant of ancient flight machines.

On the elevated pad nearby, the navigation lights shifted their rhythm, glowing in a steady, alternating pattern of red and blue to guide the final approach. The craft hung suspended for a few minutes, its down wash ruffling the nearby pine trees, before it began the slow, precise descent toward the clean landing surface.

It was Adrian's landing, he was the first guest to came. He went out from the copter with a box, even from the distance it was visible that this box was somehow important and expensive to pay so much care to it. Pilot gave the second box to Adrian, made a farewell sign and went back to lift-off -- the air traffic schedule was tight to wait.

The first arrival was Adrian's. As the hatch hissed open, he stepped out from the copter clutching a box with a protective intensity that, even from a distance, signalled its significant value. It was his gift, piece of art he found back in Rotterdam.

The pilot leaned out to hand Adrian a second box, offered a crisp, professional farewell sign, and immediately initiated the lift-off sequence. There was no luxury of time for small talk; the regional air traffic schedule was an absolute calculation, governed by routes planning that demanded the pad be cleared for the next scheduled arrival or emergency landing as soon as possible.

As the craft's engines whined, transitioning back into its ascent, Adrian stood alone on the clean, elevated surface, a weary relic returning to the pristine sanctuary of his home with a head full of new questions and mysteries to solve.

***

Michael felt a profound sense of satisfaction with the outcome of his discussion in the privacy-hardened room. For a man who lived by absolute calculation and cold logic, individuals like Adrian were dangerously unpredictable. They represented the unknown variables in his complex calculations -- the kind of anomalies that could not be solved through a digital profile and caused a persistent, worrying friction in his strategic planning.

Though he held the title of Technarch, Michael was under no illusions: he was still an employee -- a high-ranked one in a system that spanned the Inner system. He remained answerable to the management committee of the German Cluster, reporting to a board of professional masks that valued cold logic and efficiency.

Every credit spent and every shadow-budget allocated had to be meticulously accounted for, creating a constant, grinding pressure. This oversight was the friction in his work, a reminder that while he managed the gears of special operations, he was still bound by the rigid protocols of the very system he served.

Despite the complexity, things were under control -- with the exception of the missing space containers. Michael initiated a leaplink conference, bridging the connection between the Outer System representative resided on the Mars orbital ring and a cargo outpost at the L4 Jupiter Lagrange point. The communication windows were as optimal as physics allowed: a fifteen-minute one-way trip for data to reach toxic cold rock orbit, and forty-nine minutes for a signal to pierce the void to the edge of the L4 swarm near the Jupiter.

Following the previous day's proceedings, Michael found himself back in his office. He had a ten-hour leaplink ahead of him -- plenty of time to sift through the data and extract the information his superiors were still withholding.

"I am warmly welcome the all the participants of this the leaplink. I thank you for the your effort to participate in the this discussion", Michael began, his voice flat and precise as it traversed the enormous chain of relay stations in the void of space.

"But I have the serious question regarding the order NRAPL4W 1000238. My concern is about the missing cargo. It was agreed about the seventeen standard containers; however, we got the only the four of them. We are explicitly hiding the any further the investigation due to the our the agreements..." he made a pause.

He was needing to complete the all the phrases with the maximum of the speed to maintain the clarity, but he was still forced to wait for a very long time for each of the replies to leap back across the the void. Michael described the all of the legal complications and the procedural loopholes.

"Please describe any complication before the crawler loading. EOM" he finished his voice message.

The delay wasn't new to him, but the nature of a leaplink was inherently taxing; it demanded a strange kind of mental suspension. Participants had to stay anchored in the conversation while the void swallowed the minutes -- total silence between replies, yet the thread of the discussion had to remain unbroken. Michael had adapted well, using the gaps to extinguish other fires. This time, he turned his attention to the cargo outpost holding the four recovered containers. He located the secure channel, cycled the encryption keys, and quickly typed:

"Assemble a scanning crew. Conduct non-invasive inspections on the containers in holding. Confirm once the procedure is under way."

The first response blinked onto his console six minutes later:

"Order confirmed. Scanning in progress."

Michael wanted to walk into this marathon discussion fully armed. His strategy was to fill the vast silences of the leaplink with a series of urgent directives, orchestrating as many moving parts as possible while the signal travelled.

Almost exactly fifty minutes later, the void was finally broken by an incoming voice transmission:

"Export of all high-precision equipment to your area is prohibited. This directive was in effect during the crawler load. Refer to the original manifest; data attached. No further clarification will follow. End of link." The flat, almost mechanical drone of the outer system representative severed the connection, leaving the silence of the office feeling heavier than before.