Foaly sighed. ‘Simply put. Really simply. We got pinged. Is that plain enough?’
It was. The room resonated with stunned silence. Pinged was an old naval term from back in the days when sonar was the preferred method of detection. Getting pinged was slang for being detected. Someone knew the fairy folk were down here.
Root was the first to recover his voice. ‘Pinged. Who pinged us?’
Foaly shrugged. ‘Don’t know. It only lasted a few seconds. There was no recognizable signature, and it was untraceable.’
‘What did they get?’
‘Quite a bit. Everything North European. Scopes, Sentinel. All our cam-cams. Downloaded information on every one of them.’
This was catastrophic news. Someone or something knew all about fairy surveillance in Northern Europe, after only a few seconds.

The Eternity Code, Chapter 2