The Achkaerinese embassy was where the cloned drive of data from Rowe's unit had been taken, it was here that
Amy Taylor a poacher turned gamekeeper in the cyber world so to speak was in the process of attempting to decrypt what data they had. "Someone's not messing around." she said as she typed command after command "Multiple layers of encryption, some of this is more secure than others. I don't even know the file names."
"So we have no idea what's on here which means we have to take it as it comes?" Joe asked
"Pretty much." Amy said "And so far I've only got two things, take a look." she brought the first up on her computer screen.
"That looks like a medical consent form for a surgical procedure in January 2007." Robyn said "Look at the patient name."
"Beatrice Anselmo." Joe said "Must have been a routine thing, but why's it here?"
"I don't know yet." Amy said "This is like doing a jigsaw without knowing the final image or shape of the pieces."
"Where did she have it done?" Joe asked
"2007 it's probably the medical wing of Pyrena." Robyn said "Still needs the consent form for obvious reasons though."
"So what's the other thing?" Joe said
"This." Amy said bringing up what looked like a photograph of a young Evanthe "It's off a Gowu newspaper website, it's got the date 10th January 2001 on it."
"Well that's no mystery, that's the Constellation Ball date." Robyn said "But again why's that important?"
"There may be more pieces of the puzzle I can get at with time but I think we need to ask people questions." Amy said
At the Imperial Palace the task of asking those questions had fallen to Kayleigh, well via a phone call anyway, stepping out of the Palace while Alex was still on the phone she approached Evanthe first and handed her a copy of the photograph "This just got pulled off of something we think's associated with this whole mess." she said "I don't know what the heck it means but if you do then it's quite likely important." she left that with Evanthe before approaching Alex as he finished the phone call "Your Highness can I ask you about this?" she handed Alex a copy of the consent form "It's a medical consent form for surgery you signed as your wife's next of kin. Can you tell me who did it and what the procedure was?"
Rion half smiled "Your Empress's press release may have been strongly ill advised because it puts everyone involved in this conspiracy on notice and gives up the element of surprise but it does mean there is now an expectation of action. She didn't name names but she's made it clear what's going on, we don't have any evidence against Rowe, we don't have any evidence against Stanley and we've not really got anything on Groves, ignore Stanley and Rowe" she was writing down a list of names including Groves, Rika Miyano, Ito Tomatsu and Yuriko Faust as well as several other names of other people. "Arrest them on suspicion, bring them in for questioning whatever works for you. They're mostly high profile enough that it may put our conspirators at ease, they may think they've got cover." she tapped the paper "Once they're detained split them up, put them in different places, make sure you have the only list of who is where. If this Rika Mayano is two's company three's a crowd in terms of Stanley then he may enlist Seagull to find out where she is. If there's one thing to remember about criminal enterprises's it's that you should never let emotion cloud your judgement, she may be his weak point and that may be what we need to flush Seagull out. Meanwhile having Groves on the list as well as other Centre Party figures such as Faust makes it look like we're looking at this as a remnant of Ofdensen and not what it actually is. The ones you trust, can be informed and will hopefully play along, when all's said and done those not involved can be released without charge while those party to anything criminal can face justice and the whole thing just looks like the criminal justice process."
Gemma didn't take Asuna's hand, she grabbed her wrist and pulled the Rokkenjiman Empress into a hug "Shut up." Gemma whispered "Doesn't do me any good to hold grudges, my job is to know you and as my soul is bound to yours I believe that logically I know what you mean. Apology accepted." she gave Asuna a kiss on the forehead, just as she'd done almost a year earlier after rescuing her, looking at Serenity she smiled "Any objection if I take miss Starlight here and spend the night on that island?" she continued giving Asuna a slight tickle.
"You'll need to take food with you over there, plus the sleeping bags and stuff for a fire but yeah feel free." Serenity said "She does however do her homework first."
"Michelle?" Gemma asked
"I agree." Michelle said, it would undoubtedly help Asuna to have a little fun and it would give Michelle herself time to compile her thoughts so far before tackling the next steps with Asuna.
"Give me a couple of hours to get things together while you do your homework." Gemma said