Reconfigure (22 page)
“The fugitives are still at large. They managed to recover the body of Dr Alex Wight. We must consider them extremely dangerous and a threat to corporate global security. Capture is no longer an option.” She stopped herself there. That was not the briefing she was about to give. The rehearsed words struggled to be heard in her head again. She was Commander William Roisin Drake and she was not about to issue some sort of hit or all out war. She was in at the deep end here.
“Sir!” She recognised the saluting officer who had arrived in front of her.
“Sergeant Davis.” The Commander saluted back. Roisin felt surprised. She had reacted in a way she had not asked this large body to do. She had also spoken, with a voice that did not match her idea of her voice. It sounded very strange, like hearing a recording of her and thinking do I sound like that?
“Sir, are you OK, Sir!” asked the Sergeant.
There was not an automatic response for her to fall back on.
“Yes Sergeant.” The Commander paused. “There have been some developments.” Something in the back of her mind told her she needed to make some more adjustments.
“Kill the screens Sergeant.”
“Sir yes Sir!” Shouted Sergeant Davis firmly, saluting and wheeling around towards the rear of the stage.
Inside she said, “Oh well here goes!” She started to walk again, towards the podium. Her stride was purposeful, felt strong and heavy. She heard a barked order of “Attention” as she approached the light of the hall from the more ambient corridor she had been in. She heard the gathered crowd standing, heel clicking and observed the saluting. Roisin felt a wave of pride at a fine collection of toy soldiers when she was younger. Yet she knew she never had any toy soldiers as a kid? How ordered and resplendent they had been, despite being stood in a multitude of poses.
She reached the podium, turned and looked out to the rigid figures stood in regimented lines across and through the briefing room.
“At ease.” She ordered with her new impassive tone.
Without waiting for all the crowd to get seated she started.
“Operation Anomaly has reached its conclusion.” She felt right saying that. It was an odd way to speak, but she felt in character. She had not really realised she knew the name of the operation but it had just come to her from somewhere. “All units are to stand down, return all research and evidence to my office immediately.” She was the boss, the big cheese here, she felt a sense of needing to say more. The Commander felt like a driven man, one that had, as she remembered for herself, done some terrible things. At the heart of his actions was a willingness to lead, but lead by example. He never left men behind.
“The fugitives Dr Alex Wight, Dr David Henry and Roisin Kincade are currently with one of our corporate clients. Any further information is on a need to know basis.” She thought that sounded pretty good as it came out of her mouth. An answer with, an implied, no further questions please, to finish it.
“Dismissed.” She said automatically. This autonomic military stuff was going to take some getting used to.
The merged Commander headed back to their office, they sat down at the sparse desk and they looked at their computer screen. He brought up the Operation Anomaly case, he knew the passwords and what he needed to click on to access the data. She re-read it matching what she already knew from her shared memories. She added a note along the lines of the information she had just delivered to her men. He actioned the case closed button. The screen cleared and the next set of documents arrived. Roisin felt a tinge of disgust at what she had done, or rather what he had done. She didn't need to read the file on G38813. She knew that it had been the right thing to do. He had discovered something too important to be shared in any way. He actioned the file as closed. She told herself not to do that again. Her new found military inner voice seemed to not be too comfortable with regrets. She felt inner turmoil. It was like a small gust of wind across her mental landscape. It tried to blow the regret away. The regret stood firm. She felt in control. It was going to be a long two years if William Drake was going to keep fighting back.
She looked at the next document that arrived on her virtual in tray. It was a fresh case, investigating potential hacking and fraud, based around the Blockchain community. Half of her brain was screaming what the heck is Blockchain, the other half filled it in and kept it calm with all the details and technical explanations it could possibly need. Apparently there were some leads on a black hat hacker who had infiltrated CCSO. This was serious, they were under threat and it could not be tolerated. He was about to click the call to action, the let’s go and take this slime down button. She felt the rage, the pride dented by an attack. The disdain that it was sneaky electronic spying, nerds and geeks messing with his stuff. She had a very obvious option on the list in front of her. One to terminate this miscreant. She held back on initiating it. Yet he needed to press it. An inner voice, one of the many, had an admiration for this hacker. He had broken into her systems, faked an id and any number of other things. He must be l33t? This sort of behaviour should be encouraged. She typed her orders.
‘Counter intelligence to follow up on this lead. Make contact with the individual. Provide him with a level 5 retainer payment.’ She hit send.
She allowed herself a feeling of smugness. She had just saved a life. She had also just hired him. His brand of non-conformist thinking would be ideal to start a cultural shift at the CCSO. She had to do this a little at a time with small adjustments in policy, in staffing and in attitude. If she went overboard there might be some sort of mutiny. She knew she had to work this, she knew she had at least two years to try and straighten this out.
“Sergeant Davis!” She said deeply. She heard the rapid footsteps of her bagman as he arrived like a pet dog ready for a stick to be thrown.
“Sir!” He arrived at the office door and saluted. “Would you like your breakfast now sir?” he asked.
She thought about her usual breakfast. Her military memories were of strong black coffee and bowls of granola, or some bland field rations in a silver pouch.
“Yes Sergeant. Today I need tea and some toast.” Sergeant Davis looked at the Commander, a slight confusion in his eyes as he questioned to himself if they had any tea anywhere.
“Sir! Yes Sir.” He turned to seek out the menu change.
“Oh and Sergeant, Marmite on the toast.” Her request came out, she didn’t feel the need to add any please on the end.
“Yes Sir!” Sergeant Davis acknowledged as he dashed to the mess hall. He pondered on his march that the Commander certainly was not himself today. Orders are orders though!
Commander William Roisin Drake sat in his chair, looking at the screen at another problem. Someone had embezzled over £2 million from several corporate entities. She knew she had a meeting with the clients at 10am to update them. They would want some results. The evidence from former analyst G38813 indicated guilt. The suspect was already under close surveillance and it looked as if he was going to continue stealing. She felt the weight of the decision that sat before her, and him. It was with a heavy heart she issued the termination order. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but this was a greedy dishonourably thief. Sacrifices would have to be made for the greater good. Apart from the guilt the ability to make this sort of decision seemed second nature. The subservient HumanConcept of William Drake would be able to help her keep a level head. Maybe he was not all bad, just making difficult decisions but for the wrong reasons?
“Your breakfast Sir!” Sergeant Davis said as he placed the tray on the desk, saluted and left. Roisin bit into the toast. The Marmite, at first tasted revolting. What was he eating? Then she remembered how lovely Marmite was, and he stopped worrying about it and enjoyed the sensation.
In a hidden laboratory under a farmyard two bodies sat immobile. In the dim emergency lighting lasers glowed and flickered. One of the servers under the desks started to make a crunching sound. A cooling fan scratched itself to a halt. Components on the motherboard started to heat up, just on the borders of their heat tolerance levels. Like a cat in a quantum experiment they sat, in a state of working and not working at the same time, teetering on the edge of failure. They just needed to hang on for the next two years.
Thank you to everyone who took at look at this and gave their comments and for some additional technical sense checking.
Andy Piper
Rikki Prince
Michael Rowe
Dave Taylor
Ian Hughes / Epredator is known as a Metaverse Evangelist and specialist in emerging technology and innovation. Over the past 30 years he has worked on numerous leading edge technical projects. The first 20 years were in a corporate setting, and now with his own company, Feeding Edge Ltd - ‘Taking a bite out of technology so you don’t have to’.
From the early days of the Web and social media to 3D printing and haptics he is always engaged in new ideas. He specialises in virtual worlds built on game technology, how to use those to better communicate, learn and also have great experiences. That journey has included creating the systems, but also sharing the concepts in the press, public speaking and mentoring others.
He was the resident ‘super g33k’ for 39 episodes of the UK TV series The Cool Stuff Collective. Bringing the same enthusiasm for new technology to the next generation as to the board room.
His wife and two children share his passion for the self defence martial art, Choi Kwang Do. He is a head instructor and holds an il dan (1st Degree) blackbelt.
He is an avid gamer, and has been since the first arcade cabinets arrived at the seaside town where he grew up in the 1970s.