Chapter 28: Confinement

After the wave of anger subsided, Yuki felt a haze of confusion clouding his mind, struggling to grasp the main point. So, after regaining his composure, he carefully reviewed the current situation.

Originally, his goal was simply to prevent the space station from being destroyed by the birthday rocket. Now it seemed there was an even more critical matter at hand: he had to do everything possible to stop the rocket launch! Since it was clear that some unknown force was manipulating the launch from behind the scenes, nothing good could come of it, no matter how one looked at it.

However, stopping the rocket launch was exactly the kind of matter Yuki had always found difficult to navigate. It was also the reason so many people online—including Yuki himself—instinctively tried contacting the NAXA Space Station first.

After all, a public protest against the birthday rocket had already been underway for some time. Ever since the president announced the launch, a large group of people had been demonstrating, and their efforts had only served to draw more attention to the matter instead of yielding results.

Seeing that this path led nowhere, everyone resorted to contacting NAXA, hoping they would confirm the respective flight paths. If there really was a risk of collision, then the space station could present the facts to the Institute of Aerospace Technology and reason with them—surely more persuasive than a crowd of passionate citizens.

In the end, the rumor circulating online about the birthday rocket possibly colliding with the space station was just speculation, with no hard evidence. No one wanted to risk receiving a legal letter from the Institute of Aerospace Technology because of it.

Frankly, if some cosmic entity were to suddenly appear in the room and attempt to assassinate the president, Yuki would have been quite content to look the other way—if not let the president get killed, then at least arrange for him to wake up and stare at an unfamiliar ceiling for a while!

And yet... it was already the third day, and everything remained uneventful. The president hadn’t encountered an assassin or an attacker; on the first day, he was merely blocked by protesters outside the venue until security dispersed them.

Yuki began to suspect that the so-called “threatening letter” was a publicity stunt orchestrated by the president himself, entirely fabricated. After all, he had done something similar before, though with a different motive. In his case, it was pure fabrication, while the president had gone to the trouble of preparing an actual letter and spent casings—props much more elaborate than Yuki’s own efforts.

Today, the president’s agenda took him to the Institute’s rocket launch base. On the day before the launch, he had to make a symbolic tour as the president, just to show his involvement.

Upon entering the base, the group was first led by the site manager into the control room to observe the launch process and hear about the progress of preparations. Then they were taken to see the launch silo, where the birthday rocket already stood, its fuselage garishly painted with the words “Happy Birthday!” in ornate script.

It was truly an eyesore. Yuki gazed up at it for a moment before he had to close his eyes and recover; he couldn’t fathom whether this was considered fashionable. It was incomprehensible—yet utterly shocking.

Their group didn’t linger at the launch silo. After a cursory tour, the manager led them back to a bright, spacious room, reminiscent of a sunken lecture hall at a university. Dozens of staff were inside, some typing away at keyboards, others gathered in small groups around screens in discussion.

The front wall was dominated by a massive display comprised of one main screen and four auxiliary panels. The main screen showed data for the birthday rocket scheduled to launch the next day. The four side screens displayed the rocket’s structural system, propulsion system, control system, and, in bold red letters, the employee code of conduct, as well as a notice reading, “1 day remaining until the end of the lockdown period.”

“This entire building is the launch control center,” the manager explained as they walked. “It comprises the launch control room, command control room, security control room, computing center, and equipment support room. What you’re seeing now is the computing center.”

He continued, “Here we process the monitoring data relayed from the rocket, conduct real-time calculations during launch and flight, and transmit the results to the launch control room, command control room, security control room, tracking station, and the spaceflight control center.”

After a pause, the manager added, “Given the increasingly severe cybersecurity landscape, our network here is fully isolated—internal only, with no external connections. Only the security control room has a single data gateway, which pushes monitoring data to the Institute’s servers. Then, as required by national regulations for commercial rockets, this data is synchronized in real time with the police data center. The synchronization frequency is...”

Over an hour later, the president’s entourage left the rocket launch base and got into their vehicles. After driving for some time, Yuki’s earpiece crackled with the voices of Melika and Takaya Soya in unison: “Yuki! Yuki... can you hear us?”

Yuki played a notification tone, signaling to the other two bodyguards that he needed to handle a communication from Aegis Headquarters. Ignoring the president’s look of displeasure, he opened his pad and typed into the chat channel.

—Loud and clear. What’s going on?

Takaya Soya’s voice came through, reading Yuki’s message aloud. Melika hurriedly explained, “Your wireless signal just disappeared. Your location data was stuck on the highway for an hour without moving, which triggered our monitoring alert.”

Yuki considered this and typed back:

—Must have been the signal-blocked area I just entered. Don’t worry, everything’s fine.

He put away his pad without a trace and resumed his guard duties. Clearly, the rocket launch base’s security was formidable: its remote location minimized outside contact; there were over a dozen security checkpoints on the way in, with guards armed to the teeth—no less than any military installation. As for cybersecurity, their approach was physical isolation—no firewall could beat simply cutting the cables.

Yet after leaving the launch base, the president’s group didn’t return to their downtown offices. Instead, they began wandering the city as if on a leisurely stroll—now a mall, now an entertainment center, never lingering more than two hours at any spot before moving on.

Yuki followed along and gradually understood: the president was stalling for time.

Perhaps the public didn’t have access to the space station’s flight path, but NAXA certainly did! Even though the birthday rocket’s flight trajectory hadn’t been disclosed, its launch site made it possible to estimate its path. Once NAXA compared the data, they would realize trouble was brewing. But no matter how desperately they called the Institute of Aerospace Technology, or even rushed over in person, they’d never find the president.

Could a research institution like NAXA really storm a rocket launch base guarded by armed security?

They would inevitably have to involve the authorities.

Soon after, Takaya Soya’s voice returned to Yuki’s earpiece, bringing good news.

The Institute of Aerospace Technology’s livestream on the Doxia platform had been shut down.

Shortly afterward, the Institute’s website posted a notice: upon instruction from the regulatory authorities, the birthday rocket launch was postponed indefinitely.

Yuki glanced sidelong at the president of the Institute, seated beside him.

The president remained as imperturbable as ever, a faint hint of a smile still playing at the corner of his lips.