“Of course,” said Matsushita Heikichi. “There are electronic level sensors and physical measuring floats inside the fuel tanks. They calculate data every minute and automatically upload it to the cloud, so the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology can check it at any time.”
Charlie then asked, “Did you manipulate the fuel level information?”
“I did it,” said Matsushita Heikichi. “My master instructed us not to let the government detect anything unusual, so I arranged for some engine room workers to remove the electronic fluid level sensor and its associated error reporting module. The physical sensor float was also manipulated, and its level was artificially controlled to create the illusion that fuel consumption was very slow.”
Charlie thought to himself that he had already expected this, then asked him, “What method did you use?”
Matsushita Heikichi said, “Inside the fuel tank, a small, micro-controlled motor is suspended from the top of the fuel tank using a strong magnet. The motor is controlled by a microcontroller. The motor drives a coil, which slowly lowers the float to create a false fuel level reading.”
Charlie asked him, “What would happen if the microcontroller motor failed, causing the float to quickly return to its actual liquid level?”
Matsushita Heikichi said, “That’s scary. The system will think we’ve rapidly consumed thousands of tons of fuel in the few seconds or tens of seconds between two data readings. This is clearly far beyond the fuel consumption of our icebreakers. Therefore, the system will immediately determine that it’s a fuel leak, and a high-speed leak at that, which will trigger a level-one emergency signal.”
“Okay,” Charlie asked him, “If I need you to destroy this device, can you do it without anyone noticing?”
“It’s not difficult,” said Matsushita Heikichi. “I can change the microcontroller’s program parameters to make it reverse gears quickly and lower the float within a certain time. Once that’s done, I can simply rewrite the microcontroller to restore it. At that point, the data will be irretrievable, and no one will know I’ve manipulated it.”
Charlie smiled and said, “Okay, then wait for my message. Do it immediately if necessary!”
…
Because they had to travel almost 3,000 kilometers and the road conditions were complicated, Kohei Kikuchi specially arranged for a tanker truck to accompany their convoy.
Otherwise, the mileage of any car would be much shorter than three thousand kilometers.
Moreover, the harsh environment here requires large amounts of fuel for heating and warming up the equipment, making the overall fuel consumption even more astonishing.
After the tanker truck was added to the convoy, Kohei Kikuchi checked the condition of all the vehicles and, after ensuring that everything was in good working order, said to Bolin Wu, “Masato, we can leave now.”
Wu Bolin nodded and said to Kikuchi Kohei, “Let’s go right away!”
The convoy of four snowmobiles and one tanker truck immediately set off, moving southwest along the coastline before turning northwest to complete a U-shaped route.
A one-way trip would take about eight days, and Charlie could use the oil tankers’ locations to track their movements in real time.
Four days after Wu Bolin left, Charlie called Matsushita Heikichi and said, “Now you can operate the buoy.”
Matsushita Heikichi immediately replied, “Yes, sir, please wait a moment.”
After hanging up the phone, Matsushita Heikichi immediately went to the fuel tank and rewrote the program for the microcontroller of the recommended control system.
Then he returned to his lounge, and after waiting for five minutes, the entire cabin was filled with alarms!
The system’s AI alarm sounded from the loudspeaker: “Suspected fuel leak, please check immediately!”
Since a Level 1 emergency had been activated, everyone on board was alerted. The technician immediately went to the fuel tank to assess the situation. After discovering that the problem was with the float, he immediately re-inflated the float and then manually entered a code to deactivate the alarm.
The alarm sound lasted about three minutes.
In those three minutes, Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology was in an uproar.
Once an alarm is uploaded, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology system sends a synchronization message to the senior system administrator.
When they saw that the research vessel had issued a Level 1 emergency alert indicating a rapid oil leak, they were all terrified.
After all, this research vessel is the only heavy icebreaker in all of Japan. If anything were to happen to it, the entire country would lose its icebreaking capability for a short period of time.
When the top brass asked the research vessel questions, its responses left them confused.
The research vessel stated that the fluid level monitoring system was damaged, but the problem has now been resolved.
It initially appeared to be a false alarm, but observant staff soon realized something was wrong.
Electronic liquid level measuring systems are prone to failure, as sensor problems are not uncommon.
However, it is a bit odd that the physical buoy was damaged.
Additionally, the float malfunctioned by suddenly emitting a low fluid level warning, which proved that the float physically shifted downwards in an instant.
However, a lifebuoy is a hollow, enclosed object made of corrosion-resistant material. It’s shaped like a floating board specifically used for swimming lessons. If it’s placed in a closed pool and no one touches it or external forces act on it, it won’t sink to the bottom on its own, let alone in a month or two, or even ten or eight years.
This means that even though the float in the fuel tank may be stuck and remain motionless, it is absolutely impossible for the float to suddenly plunge into the fuel and become stuck, as this does not conform to the logic of physics.
Therefore, the staff member immediately realized that the lowest liquid level detected by the buoy should be the actual liquid level of the icebreaker. The reason why such a low position had not been detected earlier must be because something was limiting its sinking speed!
He took the icebreaker’s data and, using the difference in altitude between the two buoys, quickly concluded that the icebreaker had underreported its actual fuel consumption by at least 1,300 tons.
A thought crossed his mind: what were these people doing in Antarctica, secretly using 1,300 tons of fuel?!