When Azrak realized there was an army full of cannibals on the planet and a power capable of tearing that army apart, he understood this mission would be far from ordinary and felt a partial sense of panic. Hikmar, meanwhile, continued his damn meditation. That was what actually made Azrak even more uneasy—Hikmar's constant desire to be in communication with the creature called Volem. Although Azrak trusted Hikmar's wise mind, that creature was beyond the ordinary, and it must have been whispering things that were anything but normal. Therefore, Azrak tried to piece together their assigned mission from beginning to end in his mind.
If there was one thing Azrak knew, it was that the person who set him up for this mission was John Crowrift, the boss of the scientist named Ukar, for whom Azrak had worked for a long time. He didn't know exactly how that man earned enough money to manage such a massive facility. But he must have worked for one of the top 10 corporations, perhaps even as an executive in one of them.
One thing he was certain of was that this man, John Crowrift, had contacted Labiba in the same way. Just as he had offered Azrak the money to heal Jul, he had offered Labiba money that could heal her as well. Although Labiba didn't explicitly mention her employer, Azrak was sure she was working for the man named John. So, what was their mission?
It was a delivery. They were to take the creature named Volem and transport it to an empty patch of land near the city of Calos. At least, a patch of land that appeared empty on the map…
And what did the Volem creature do? It produced, stored, or emitted energy. It was a portable, biological nuclear facility. Who could possibly want to use this, and for what? "Ah… my head hurts the more I think about it," he muttered with a sigh. He shuddered when he realized the camera focused on him at the slightest sound.
Labiba's life was essentially tied to the cargo they were currently delivering. If Volem couldn't be delivered, the risks Labiba took and the things she sacrificed to capture the woman named Sevda would be in vain. Moreover, she would miss out on that damn money.
"Wait a second…" he thought to himself, focusing on the camera. "…the connection to the SWR Net is cut. So, without satellite connection, how are these camera feeds reaching the TESO factory? There must be a powerful antenna at the TESO factory… In that case, I can connect from here to that antenna, and from that antenna to the SWR Net. At the very least, I can upload updates to my combat modules. Jul… if you're listening, you know what to do."
Realizing Azrak's thoughts, Jul emerged from his nest on Azrak's back, went through the vehicle's window, and reached the antenna on top. Crouching next to the antenna in a way the cameras wouldn't notice, he connected to the antenna's USB port with cables extending from underneath him. Within seconds, he had grasped the communication frequency and network scale between the autonomous vehicle and the TESO factory antenna. Without drawing too much attention from the cameras, he turned back to Azrak and immediately settled into the nest on Azrak's back.
The network connection topology was now in Azrak's hands. His first move was to infiltrate the autonomous vehicle's external communication antenna. He knew the TESO factory had inspection systems capable of detecting unauthorized connections to the vehicle. Therefore, instead of hiding directly, he chose to act as if he were one of the hardware modules within the vehicle.
There were a total of twenty camera modules in the vehicle. Four of these were backup modules designed to be activated in case of a hardware failure or security breach. These backups were identical copies of the primary modules, not just physically but also in their digital identities, certificates, and network behavior patterns.
Azrak put one of the backup modules into passive mode and, by mimicking its data traffic exactly, placed his own connection in that module's place. Thus, rather than detecting a new entity on the network, the system believed a camera it already recognized was still functioning.
As long as the in-vehicle network addresses and identities didn't change, TESO's security layers wouldn't flag the situation as an anomaly. For Azrak, it wasn't a matter of breaking down a door; it was about opening it as if the lock already belonged to him.
Connecting to the antenna was the easy part. The real issue was who would connect to the SWR satellite. Going out to the external telemetry network with a camera identity was no different than sending an invitation to TESO's security systems.
That was why Azrak did not connect to the SWR himself.
Backup camera modules only activated when a physical failure was detected. Unless the hardware broke, the system did not declare a "camera loss." This meant that if Azrak were to activate the backups directly, he would give away his identity.
Completely disabling the original cameras was not an option. The backups would wake up instantly, the count of identities on the network would increase, and the fake module would be exposed. Azrak tried another way.
He added deviations to the cameras' data flow—small enough not to damage the hardware but inconsistent enough to disturb the decision algorithms. Frames weren't missing, the image wasn't distorted; the timings just didn't align perfectly anymore.
The vehicle intelligence classified this not as a failure, but as a drop in reliability. The backup modules were still unnecessary, but the system no longer trusted its own decisions.
The protocol was clear: in case of uncertainty, central verification.
The antenna turned toward the SWR satellite. Authorized connection, authorized reason, authorized time. Azrak didn't force any doors. The vehicle knocked on the door itself to get the answer.
For central verification, an update had to be sent from the SWR Net to the general camera systems, including the backups. Therefore, every camera, including the backups, connected to the internet. While the update was being sent, Azrak corrected the deviations in the data flows of the camera system. But he was connected to the internet… He was now inside the SWR Net.
"Thank the heavens…" he thought to himself. "…this place truly is paradise."
He had connected to the SWR Net with the status of a backup camera module. When central verification was complete, all camera connections on the vehicle were cut. The antenna went silent; data paths closed. But his was not cut. Because that decision was no longer made by the vehicle, but by TESO's central software.
Following the uncertainty, factory systems had decided to keep one of the backup camera modules active on the SWR Net for continuous monitoring purposes. This module would be compared with the data flows of other cameras, and the general consistency of the system would be inspected through it. This was exactly where Azrak stepped in.
He substituted himself for the backup module selected for monitoring. He didn't take the identity by force; he ensured that during the SWR's update and verification process, authorization was handed over to his own connection through natural flow.
When the SWR questioned data consistency, Azrak didn't speak from a single source. Referencing flows from other backup cameras, he made his own generated data compatible with them. To the network, this wasn't forgery; it was successful verification. He was no longer a monitored module, but one of the reference points of the system. Until TESO's software layers declared him redundant, no one could terminate this connection.
Thus, he entered the SWR Net and began sending himself some updates. He hid these updates behind the camera updates the SWR Net was performing. An update to increase his reflexes… An update to increase his pitch…
As updates arrived one after another, he noticed something. There was another camera on the SWR Net taken from the TESO factory for an update. In fact, its identity was very similar to his own. In short, it was one of the camera identities from this autonomous vehicle.
"That's why taking the backup identity for the update took so little time. Because a backup identity had already been taken before," he thought.
This meant that Hikmar was also connected to the SWR Net with a backup camera identity. Until then, Azrak had thought Hikmar was only talking to Volem while meditating. Especially since Hikmar had started talking to the creature named Volem, Azrak was quite curious about what he was up to. So, he thought about connecting to the network Hikmar was connected to.
Azrak thought that if he could delay and copy the data from the SWR Net going to Hikmar, and do this very quickly, he could take that data for himself. This delay would be small enough not to be perceived as an error by the system, but long enough to allow the same synchronization window to be filled by İki different sources. The delay from the network wouldn't bother Hikmar because it would be a millisecond delay. Azrak was a thousand times more skilled than the wise Hikmar at infiltrating and managing networks. This was one of the reasons he was called the Great Hunter…
As Azrak copied Hikmar's network, the image before his eyes began to change. Suddenly… he suddenly found himself in a different place. In another world…