“Why didn’t I think of this?” Sheepdog thought. It seemed so obvious now. The man in the suit, the Relaxed Man, hiding in plain sight. He was right there, but at the same time, on camera, he wasn’t. Did he really crack the code? Was he the man missing from the footage? He had to be, the evidence was plain, but was it always him? Could there be more people out there, among the billions, sneaking past surveillance without a care in the world? The implications were staggering. Every kind of crime, unrecorded, every devious act, unknown to the global surveillance apparatus that paid Sheepdog’s salary. This was a huge threat to Splicer, and he was face to face with it. Suddenly, his comms buzzed briefly. Checking it, a single message, from Res.
You gotta drop the bone, Sheep. You know which one.
Her tone had changed. She seemed too abrupt, too succinct. Something had her scared. He knew Res wasn’t easily spooked, so something must have happened to really rattle her cage. He needed to know more, much more, about, well… everything. He sent a reply.
Let’s meet up and discuss this bone. I don’t know how close we are to it.
He sent it but instantly regretted it. He should have just said OK and dropped the whole thing, but he pushed his luck. He had too many concerns to just turn it loose and forget it. He stared blankly at the comms screen, waiting for Res to reply with a time, or a place, or anything. After a few minutes, a message arrived.
Too close. I’ll meet you at your place, tonight.
His fears were instantly confirmed. Res was shaken, and it made Sheep even more nervous. Would it even be her, coming to visit tonight? It could be some bogeyman from Splicer who he had never seen before, spoofing her comms. They had the tech. It wasn’t her usual style to set someone up, but he would feel a little better at least confirming it was Res on the other end. He rolled the dice and sent an obvious trap message.
My usual place or my other place?
Once again, his comms buzzed as he received her reply, a few seconds later. Fingers crossed, he glanced at the screen.
I know you only have one place, Cheapdog. 8pm. Don’t need to clean up for me.
With that single nickname, Sheep breathed a sigh of relief. It was only known by a handful of people, and one of those people was definitely Res, because she gave him that name, ages ago. She must have picked up on the trap and knew this was some kind of call-and-response authentication scenario.
“The eagle flies at midnight.” “I’m bringing salmon to the picnic.”
After returning home, Res got a call on her comms. It was Dec, right on schedule. “Hey Res, just returning your call. What’s up?” He was playing it cool, as if none of this was his idea. “Dec, thanks for calling me back,” Res said, “I think you wanted to meet with a friend.” She lingered on the word friend, and bit her bottom lip, hoping that came out right. Dec didn’t seem to mind as he said, “Yeah, I could meet with a friend. This friend would probably have to come over here though. I’m in for the night but have time for some discussion.” Again, Dec was coming off a little too formal. Res was having trouble reading him, her head swimming in liquor and some ideas starting to bubble up. Meet at his home? She really wanted to, but she wasn’t sure about the circumstances. Still, the idea of pushing forward to explore her fate was too tempting. “Do I need to bring anything with me?”, she asked, probing. “Maybe a toothbrush and some origami paper”, Dec replied dryly. She couldn’t tell if he was joking around or there was something else going on here. “I’ve got a few shots of your favorite whiskey if that’ll seal the deal”, Dec added, trying to tip the scales. He heard some hesitance in her voice, and they weren’t exactly dating, but more liquor would probably loosen her nerves a little. It was a bold ask.
Res hemmed and hawed for a minute, glanced at the clock, and cleared her throat. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to stop by, but what about coming over here?” Dec sensed the mistrust. She had every right to distrust him at this point, and in her own home, she would probably feel safer. “Only if I can borrow your toothbrush,” he said with a half grin. The subtext was clear. Dec wasn’t just planning on stopping by for a nightcap. He was up to something. Res knew exactly what that something was, it wasn’t her first rodeo. “Give me about 15 minutes,” she said, “let me get this place in some kind of order real quick. You know where I live, I assume?” Dec knew, but feigned ignorance, to avoid giving away the plot. “I’m over on Spectre Street, unit 3050. Third floor, top of the stairs,” she said. “See you in 10-15 minutes. Does your roof have a (landing) pad?”, Dec asked. “Yeah, they installed it a few years ago. Nobody uses it, not too many fancy quads flying around this neighborhood. It’s all yours,” Res said, as her anticipation began to increase. How could he afford to fly a quadcopter on his pension? With Dec, it had been one question after another, and she was dying to get some answers.
She took a few minutes to punt her floor clothes into the laundry closet and check her breath. Funky. This called for a mint, but it would just turn her breath into Goldschlager, a peppermint laced liquor. Even brushing her teeth briefly wouldn’t have changed the funk, just mask it for a few minutes, and Dec was bringing whiskey anyway. She rinsed out a couple of shot glasses and checked the fridge for a few beers. Some Jamaican lager, Red Stripe, was about all she had left. It would have to do. Time was running out and she did another once over in the bathroom mirror, just making sure everything was in place. Teeth, check. Lipstick, bright. Nails, glued on. Legs, depilated. Other areas, also depilated. This was as good as she got on short notice. As she left the bathroom and the light automatically faded off, she heard the tell-tale high-pitched whine of a quadcopter landing, above, and the motors spinning down. A few moments later and there was a knock at the door, and she was already standing there. Before she opened the door, she quickly messaged Sheep on her comms.
Got company. Not really sure if it’s good news or bad. Will talk tomorrow. – Res
With the way things worked, from her point of view, if anything bad was going to happen, at least Sheep would be suspicious if she didn’t follow up the next day. Just a precaution. She wanted Dec there.
She waved her hand in front of the door sensor, and two bolts retracted immediately. A third mechanism silently began opening the door, and Dec came into full view. She had forgotten how he absolutely towered over her when they were both standing. Dec cracked a crooked grin, held up the bottle, and said, “nice place. Real nice. Mind if I come in?” Res was still reeling by the absolute size of him, heart pounding in her chest, and stammered, “oh, yeah, of course. Make yourself at home.” She smiled, but it was simultaneously a nervous grin and a hungry, toothy smile. She broke eye contact as Dec made his way into the room. “You live alone here?”, he asked, making small talk. “Most of the time, yes. Sometimes Sheep crashes on the couch. I’ve offered him the second bedroom but he never makes it that far.” Dec got about halfway into the room and motioned, with the bottle, towards the shot glasses in the kitchen. “How about we do a little damage first?”, he asked. Res obediently retrieved the glasses from the sink and placed them carefully on the table, lined up vertically in the center. Dec removed the cork cap and poured two fingers of whiskey each, before re-capping the bottle and placing it on the table. “Chasers?”, he asked, and Res opened the fridge to retrieve the Red Stripe beers, carefully setting them down on opposite sides of the table. Dec took a seat opposite Res and lifted his shot high. “How about a toast? To strangers, to ghosts, to Sheepdog and Res!”. Res dutifully lifted her shot, tapped glasses, and emptied her glass before taking a swig from her Red Stripe. She noticed Dec didn’t touch his beer, yet.
Res was feeling, well, a lot. Dec had walked in like he owned the place and started guiding her around like it was a regular thing. Then again, did it say anything about him, or the kind of soldier he was before? Or did it say something about Res, that she was happy to have company, especially this company? “What was that toast about, honestly?”, Res probed. “Well, I figured it was perfect, for setting the stage here. Hey, do you like music? I swear, I can’t go ten minutes without some background noise. Ears ring most of the time; old injury, and music helps,” he replied. Res looked away and thought for a second, trying to guess his genre. “Iris, play artist Metallica, song, Harvester of Sorrow”, she said to her automation system, and instantly, Metallica was streaming from seemingly everywhere. “Louder,” Dec said. “Iris, increase volume 30 percent.” Now it was rocking as the intro built up tension, primal drums pounding out the beat. Dec was looking directly at Res, eyes half closed, before closing his eyes and doing a little headbang motion to the beat. He didn’t see Res blush for a moment as she tried to keep eye contact. He’s funny, she thought, as she watched him rhythmically bob to the song, and it was undeniable at this point. He will get what he came for; information, or something more…personal. Maybe both. Maybe neither. That toast said just about everything she was worried about and nothing more.
As the song began to end, Dec poured another shot and, noticing Res’ glass was empty, went ahead and poured hers too. This time it was her turn. “A toast, to friends, mysteries, and whatever the hell this whole thing is tonight”. Dec chuckled, tapped glasses, and downed the shot. Now it was time to crack open the beer, that second shot had some heat with it. “Look,” he started, “we can play games for a while. That’s fine by me. I like your place, I like this whiskey, and I’ll be damned if I don’t like Metallica, loud. Most of all, I’m pretty sure, I like you.” Res felt another blush but couldn’t tell if it was the whiskey or his statement. “The feeling is mutual,” she chirped, “but you didn’t just come here to throw back shots with a pretty girl. What’s on your mind?”
He had done it. Rex leaned back in his Eames recliner, smugly reading over his “test plan” for the future with Frank’s access to the Stitcher organization. It was so clever he couldn’t stop smiling while flipping through the pages and charts. There was just one problem. He had to ensure that it didn’t fall into anyone else’s hands, and if it did, that it wouldn’t make any sense to them.
The plan, at its core, was playing the stock market, systematically, with some variance built in to throw off anyone or anything casually tracking the market. Knowing what they knew, about the AI warning Frank of “bad moves”, it was just a matter of placing the bets and raking in the profits, with an intentional loss from time to time of a few million credits. That would help throw off tracking, as well as serve as a tax shelter from a great deal of profit. Frank and Rex had already performed second-stage testing, to see if the AI could predict short-term losses through a tangle of shell corporations that Frank operated. The results didn’t surprise either of them: 100% success.
Rex dubbed his plan Project Fulcrum, because it gave him the leverage he needed, financially, to complete his own bigger project, without involving shadowy figures that deliver physical violence in the event of a late or missed payment. As far as he was concerned, there were no downsides. Frank and Rex would beat the casino on a regular basis, and eventually Rex’s project would be flush with cash and run to completion. He was reviewing and re-reviewing the plan to ensure that there were no dangling threads. It seemed airtight.
Back to the problem at hand. How to essentially encrypt the plan documents so that they only made sense to he and Frank. Distributing the plan piece by piece was a good start. Embedding those chunks into some other kind of data was another good idea. But reassembling the chunks in the right order was the absolute key to it all, and deserved the most consideration. For this, Rex turned to a DNA lab he had done business with, many years ago. They could create and assemble specific DNA strands to any specification, from nothing; you supplied the code. They could also embed that DNA into other, common strands, and you had to know the specific marker in the sequence to even begin to decode the DNA they had inserted. They would hide their strands specifically in DNA strands where variation was expected to be present; for example, the DNA sequence that determines the pattern of a leopard’s spots. No two were alike, and their location varied, as other sequences in the DNA would essentially point to wherever that gene sequence was located, which was also variable. There were also inactive genes one could hide new sequences, that functionally, did nothing in an organism. Fun fact, most human DNA is inactive, or copies of active sequences, which is why, once the human genome was 100% mapped out, they only found a 2% difference between humans and chimpanzees. In the programming world, this is known as cruft. Layer after layer of band aid coding that accumulated over the evolution of a species, or computer program. Eventually it led to bloat with genomes that were much longer than they actually needed to be, which again was beneficial for anyone trying to hide information in DNA.
Rex would eventually end up visiting the DNA lab, Blue Genes, and coding his creation. It would be an organism. It would grow and change over time. At regular steps of the organism’s growth cycle, it would shed and provide a new piece of the DNA puzzle to the recipient. The initial phase of life, the adjusted sperm and egg, would contain two keys to the DNA sequence lock. They were complimentary and mostly matching.
Rex was creating a snake. From birth, it would continually be fed and nurtured to reach the next growth phase. Once it was fully grown, sampling each of the shed skins would yield the entire plan for Project Fulcrum, so this would take some time. However, they could always accelerate the growth cycle from the beginning by tweaking some growth genes. It just meant that the snake wouldn’t live a long life, but the tradeoff was acceptable. This wasn’t a pet; it was a delivery system. Once the credits were transferred, Blue Genes would create the snake and hand it off to Rex in a plain cardboard box, which he would then hand-deliver to Frank. The instructions were nice and vague. “Here’s your pet snake. Keep him warm and fed, and clean his cage regularly”. Of course, cleaning his cage included carefully collecting pieces of the shed skin, and sending samples back to Blue Genes for analysis, decrypting the next piece of Project Fulcrum. But what about the sequencing numbers that tied it all together? Rex decided he’d deliver those to Frank, as needed, rather than handing them off up front. That would also add an element of randomness to the process to further prevent any kind of casual analysis in case anyone got curious. So that settled it, the plan for delivering the plan was another stroke of Rex genius. Frank just had to keep the snake alive, and with a small army of house staff at his disposal, assigning someone to take great care of his new pet was no more difficult than throwing darts at a target.
After a quick bite to eat and another monorail ride, Sheepdog was back in the office and was pleasantly surprised to see Res had made it in. He wanted to rush over and fill her in on what he had discovered, but noticed she was already head down on her desk. Mean hangover. It would have to wait for another time, so he made his way to the manager’s office instead and noticed he was on comms, apparently deep in a discussion with someone. He glanced up to see Sheep approaching and waved him away. Sheepdog still smiled and gave him the thumbs up anyway, mission mostly successful. He returned to his workspace, plopped down and unpacked his gear.
First order of business, to see what he could discover about the names in the logs. He opened the Stitcher Sentinel tool, their private database of aliased, protected and non-protected persons. Thinking he would be able to decode at least a couple of names from the visitor logs, he entered them all as a batch job and waited for results. The screen came back with actual names for 3 of the 5 people, correlated with that address. Xiu Lee, Chinese national, light skinned, suspect number one. James Whitmore, British/US dual citizen, light skinned, suspect two. Malcom Warner, US citizen, dark skinned, not a suspect. That left Sheepdog with a total of 3 suspects, one without a name. Whoever Relaxed Man was, he didn’t exactly adopt a relaxed security posture, because beyond not being listed in Sentinel, he was invisible on camera. That meant he must either be protected by Stitcher on some level Sheepdog had never seen, or he was effectively outside the entire system, and Sheepdog really felt like he was onto something here worth investigating more thoroughly.
For the next three hours, as the sun set behind him through the floor to ceiling window, Sheepdog studied feverishly. Camera sensor design and evolution, optical camouflage theory, electronic warfare tactics against surveillance systems, hacking video data streams, anything he could think of which might be related or explain the difference between what he saw and what the cameras saw, or rather, didn’t see. As he was about to give up for the day, he received a message on comms. It was from Genesis 15, and written in song format.
“Grown-ups don’t understand
Why children all love him the most
But kids all know that he loves them so
Casper the friendly ghost”
This was completely in character for Genesis 15, who seemed to fashion his personality around a mischievous teenager, and it told Sheepdog that someone was watching over his shoulder. Was he getting too close to a sensitive topic? Was this a warning, or did Genesis 15 happen to pick up some footage from today and put some pieces together by himself? Since 15 was still basically uncontrollable, this wasn’t based on internal Stitcher teamwork. Genesis 15 probably didn’t have access to the same feed data Sheepdog had been reviewing, but what if 15 could access the surveillance cameras in the area, see Sheep on location, and also notice the lack of imagery that he was tracking down? 15 might prove useful at this point. There was still a puzzle to be solved and he seemed to be interested enough already. Sheepdog decided to send a short reply to 15 to tease him. He hit reply and entered the following:
“On the next episode of ghost hunters, 15 reveals his motivations for becoming a ghost hunter and explains his advanced techniques to successfully debunk them.”
Within seconds, Sheep got a 3-character reply from Genesis 15.
“LOL”
The bait was set. Now all Sheep could do is wait until 15 wanted to brag about his superior intelligence and tell Sheep exactly what he wanted to know. Sheepdog logged off for the day and headed out the door. Res was long gone, with a small drool spot on her desk being the only tangible proof she had ever been there today.
Everyone thought that after the terrorist/environmentalist group Golden Gaia was eviscerated at the hotel, well, that was it. The damage was so severe to all the participants that nobody dared even talk about the event. It was like a bad dream, a curse, and Edward in particular had no interest in discussing those 15 minutes of his life where, he was convinced, he would die. And yet, even after five years, all the imagery of the hotel felt fresher than this morning’s coffee. The darkness, the paranoia, the shadowy little figures scurrying around lopping off hands and feet. None of it made sense. It was supposed to be a straightforward operation. So straightforward, in fact, that the guns weren’t even loaded. They were just props for intimidation. Golden Gaia may have had a reputation for operating in the gray areas of the law, but they never stepped too far outside the boundaries. Their plan, that day, was simply to capture some hostage footage and send the message that they could reach out and touch anyone. But someone, or something, didn’t know that. It bought the façade, the show, based on what could be seen. Surveillance cameras couldn’t read minds.
Edward looked down at his cheaply made replacement right hand, picturing the prop gun he held that day in his real hand. Who made the mistakes? Why didn’t the police show up, why did everyone’s comms devices suddenly stop working? Why didn’t anyone have a shred of photos or video on their comms devices in the surrounding area? The hotel wasn’t an island. It was in a centralized location with plenty of street traffic and nearby residents in the area. But yet, not a single pixel of that event had been captured or shared on any kind of media. Based on his memory of all the events and all the strange facts surrounding it, if Edward hadn’t had his own hand removed, he wouldn’t have believed it. It sounded like an urban legend, something to keep people away from the hotel afterwards. Which it did, unintentionally, as word got out about what went down. But it was all word-of-mouth; the media pretended it never happened. Rather than gloat about a victory over the terrorists, it vanished. Not a single major news feed had a headline on it. None of it added up.
Golden Gaia suffered a big loss that day, and whoever wasn’t spooked after their hospital visit, left of their own accord, fearing for their very lives. Only a core group of hardened zealots remained, including Edward himself. “What else are we gonna do?”, he said to the others, on more than one occasion. It was half admission, half defeat, almost accepting the fact that they had been beaten at their own game. Not just beaten, but punished. He still remembers the SWAT team who arrived that day came charging in single file but seeing the pathetic, neutered state of the participants, turned into EMT in seconds. Tourniquets were maxed out to staunch the bleeding of those more injured than others. Edward remembers hoping they could save his hand at the hospital, but they lost it in the chaos of delivering everyone to the hospital; bypassing emergency services who probably would have kept it on ice, with his name on the box.
Edward stared at the discount, low budget replacement, and an itch started in his palm. An itch that didn’t belong there. It wasn’t painful, it was maddening. An itch some days, sharp pain others, tickling sometimes, hot and cold flashes. It was not there, and yet, these feelings were just as real as the rusting “stainless steel” of his fake hand. Doctors called it “phantom pain”, and rather than prescribing drugs to calm the nerves, they would prescribe happy pills, which were less addictive and acted on the brain directly. It did help him cope. In fact, Edward took his happy pills right on schedule. Every day for 5 years. Once or twice he had forgotten and just doubled the dose after he remembered the next day.
But he felt enslaved, by the drugs and his fake hand and the itch he couldn’t scratch. He felt the grudge growing bigger in his stomach. Golden Gaia needed to take this to the next level. They needed revenge. Edward needed revenge.
A rage had been building in his heart for five years, an unquenchable thirst not unlike that unscratchable itch in his palm. He closed his fist and smashed it on the desk, the shock causing a pen to roll just over the edge and fall to the floor. It was time to start planning. There were a lot of loose ends, unanswered questions, and he couldn’t formulate a plan without answering some of those questions first. Major problem. Luckily, he was resourceful. He didn’t exactly have a huge network of like-minded people, not anymore, but he knew where to start looking. The others that remained in the organization had a war chest he could borrow funding from, if that stood in the way. All he needed were a few people that knew more than he did, with problems that money could solve. That was his angle and it never failed. Junkies that needed a fix would talk. Big shots that were over-leveraged could be convinced. Even off-duty cops hustled for credits after hours, as hired security. And then…there were the vets. They were usually half drunk, chewed up and spit out, and two days short of their pension. He found them intolerably verbose and tried to avoid them, when possible, although he would make exceptions if he felt it would really lead to something. This would take time, and Edward whispered to himself, “fuck it”, it had already been five years. What’s a few more? Nothing would improve in the meantime. He turned and looked at his bottle of happy pills. There was one left. He unceremoniously opened the bottle and poured the last pill in the sink. He was done being a slave, no matter the cost. The hand itched again and he absentmindedly scratched it.
Years ago I worked as a cable guy, little more to it than that but I’ll keep it short. I went to Fayeed Shabazz’s home to work, and as I was dealing with his computer I looked over and noticed a taxidermy joke. A beaver, posed menacingly, bared teeth and claws forward.
Fayeed was downstairs and came up to check progress. I asked him about the beaver and he had a story. Was trying to fit in with the local Texans so they took him on a hunting trip. Gave him a shotgun and said shoot anything that moved. He was losing hope as the group marched through the property and he was still empty handed. Near a creek, he saw a jack rabbit duck into the tall grass at his feet. He got excited and yelled to the men that he had a chance. They said just wait til you hear it move and point the shotgun straight down.
Something rustled and he took the shot, blindly. A moment later and the men found the animal and started laughing. He killed a beaver instead. He vowed to take it home and get it stuffed anyway. Which he did, and from that day it was in his home office. He would ask people if they want to see his beaver which sounded like a joke at first. But no, he had a stuffed beaver posed for the attack and it was pretty funny.
His Team Lead confirmed his suspicions. It was Sheepdog that was playing ghost hunter, and he was getting too close, way too fast. Dec respected his tenacity and detective skills, because Dec still had no idea what all the fuss was about. The Team Lead suggested that maybe someone had cracked the mystery of optical camouflage, and was actively using it to avoid video surveillance. This was bad news for a lot of people and organizations that relied on it, including the judges, the courts, the cops, and last but not least, his own employer. The AI didn’t have a single pair of eyes, they had thousands of them, going beyond the visible spectrum into the realm of thermal and night vision. But evidently, this new tech that nobody knows exists, does exist, and nobody has any idea of who is using it.
Splicer had “missing footage” of a person that did use it. Person, or people, or…. they could only speculate. All they really knew was that if Splicer had a blind spot, no one could know. It would ruin their reputation. They weren’t even sure if it was a set of cameras, or satellites, that were somehow faulty or compromised. The stakes had been raised. In the wrong hands, this kind of tech would give a huge advantage to an enemy, a murderer, any kind of opposing force. Yet it was out there, in the wild, known only by the images it didn’t leave behind.
Now, even Dec was starting to feel a little creeped out by the situation. He remembered a few engagements during the war when his crew had been totally blindsided by a column of drones headed straight to their position. The highest tech in the world, and something slipped past all the defenses, electronic and kinetic. The electronic countermeasures failed, satellites were obscured by dust storms, and some spotters were looking the other direction for a little too long. It forced him to accept that even the best equipped, best trained, best protected force known to man still had vulnerabilities. That was usually the way of war; a fast tank must have light armor. Light armor was a tradeoff. Couldn’t survive a direct hit to the turret, but could outrun just about anything else. All those gadgets, all those batteries, satellites, sniper spotters… all it took was a few minutes for it all to break down before the drone swarms arrived. “Stay frosty” was in his vocabulary because nothing was really truly buttoned up on the battlefield. There were just long quiet stretches of time broken up by very loud times, and you had to keep a cool head to know the difference and react when action was required.
This was one of those times that required action.
Dec floated his idea of covertly getting a message to Res, who would then be compelled to contact him directly, for another meeting. Dec would need details, insight, and a little luck. She was already friendly with him, flirty even, so gaining her trust wouldn’t be much trouble. He could casually interrogate her through conversation, if he could get her alone and relaxed. Although she worked with Sheepdog and may know more about this than Dec did, Dec couldn’t ask too many questions or raise her suspicions. Especially since they all knew the reach Splicer had, as an organization, and what it was capable of doing if it felt threatened.
“Tip of the spear”, the Team Lead told him before they wrapped up the call. “You’ve got to be the tip of the spear. We don’t know what’s at stake here, honestly, but if I’m discussing it with you and the rest of the team, clearly, it’s got us all very, very concerned. I trust you’ll carry this out, Dec. Keep most of it under wraps, and get that damned Sheepdog 50 miles from this thing. Whatever you tell Res, don’t tip your hand. We need to reinforce the trust in Splicer, not sow doubt, especially not internally. Everyone believes in what we do here.” Dec wasn’t so sure about that last sentence.
Dec awoke abruptly, as he usually did, sitting up in bed straight and fast. Some parts of his training never went away. He reached over and decocked the pistol he slept with, carefully thumbing the hammer to ride it down slowly and carefully. Once he was awake, that was it, there was no alarm-slapping or turning to the cold side of the pillow and grabbing a few extra minutes. Rise and shine. He reached over to his dump plate on a bedside table, placed his gun there and traded it for his Overwatch ring. It didn’t have an official name, since he didn’t have an official title. Dec and his team were essentially a black op. They didn’t even show up on the Splicer budget. Some clever nerd in accounting spread their budget out across office supplies and a hundred other mundane things, paid to all kinds of fake shell companies, eventually landing in Dec’s team’s phony consulting firm. The money was good but the action was lacking, most of the time. There’s that old question, who watches the watchers?
That’s where Dec and his team came in. They watched the watchers. Good thing too, because on more than one occasion, someone at Splicer would go off on a tangent, looking too closely at something or someone. For an organization that sells digital and physical defense, they needed rock solid people behind the scenes. That was true for the most part but again, once in a while a curious cat stumbled across something they shouldn’t. They would also abuse their powers of surveillance, which was a recurring theme so it must have been tempting for a lot of analysts. One time it was harmless. An ASE started collecting footage of some random woman, and as time went by, he studied the footage so carefully, he crafted a plan to date the woman. He already knew her habits, what she liked to eat, her routine, at least everything you could know as a sort of private investigator. Dec’s team was assigned to the ASE in question to make sure he didn’t take it too far. Physical contact was a big no no. After all, the Splicer Organization was basically an urban myth to most people. By the time the ASE made it to the woman, it would be too late, so they watched and waited, but more importantly, they warned him first.
Warnings are very effective, especially when you know more than the target; living and working in a shadow layer of the company had its advantages. The ASE decided to make his move on a Friday night, with an attempt to bump into the woman at the grocery store. As he crossed the threshold into the store, Dec and Sharp took one arm each, and led the ASE to an unpopular corner of the store. Five minutes later, the ASE got the picture and decided to leave. Apparently, he was so shaken up by the experience, he didn’t return to the office for a week, and even then, he tried to turn in his resignation letter. His manager ripped it up and pointed at his desk without saying a word. The ASE didn’t put up a fight. The message was delivered and received and he was welcome to continue working, minus that one thing.
“Dec, get out of your head”, he thought to himself. There were other things to do besides reminisce about his job, and he refused to let his mind wander too far. He had some rough years in the war, saw a lot of damage first-hand and among his group. The biggest problem with modern medicine and technology was just how much damage it could repair, and how quickly. He saw men missing a leg one day and back in action a week later on some custom-made carbon fiber replacement. In the old days, you were out of action and sent back home. Now, the battlefield could become home, with short stints in field hospitals just behind the lines to get stapled back together and doped up to your eyeballs. This led to a whole new form of PTSD, but they called it Extended Battlefield Trauma, because it dug deeper due to all the nonstop stress. They were still ironing out therapies to treat a lot of the vets, but most vets chose to deal with it the way generations before them had dealt with it. A group of friendly vets and plenty of liquor, on a regular basis. None of them were time bombs, but many of them had unimaginably deep mental wounds. From time to time, the Moderns would give them some new experimental brain drug designed to help rewire your brain and return you to “normal”, but at best, these new drugs just helped them cope and get by day to day. Life was still damaged.
“No seriously, GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD”, Dec muttered under his breath. Gotta go somewhere, gotta do something besides think. He cracked open his remote terminal and checked for messages. There was only one, and the title alone riled up Dec. It read, “Ghostbusters Needed Immediately”. He knew what came next. Either Res or someone on her team hadn’t gotten the message to stop digging into whatever this ghost footage was. Why was this such a problem? He was sure that Res got the message and didn’t need a reminder. He looked over her profile, and she seemed very risk-averse, preferring not to poke any bears or stir up any trouble. Even her teammate Sheepdog didn’t seem like much of a threat, but Dec couldn’t exactly apply more pressure, or these bloodhounds would just be convinced they were following the scent and never give it a rest. Dec decided to bump into Res again at the Meatspace bar where he would pass her some sort of secret note, leading to another face-to-face meeting. Since he was convinced that Res wasn’t pursuing the ghost anymore, she would have to be persuaded to get Sheepdog to drop the bone, if he was the one still hot on whatever this trail was. However, before any action was taken, Dec would have to run the idea up the flagpole and see what his Team Lead had to say about it. He already had contact with Res and he didn’t want to run her off. So he requested a meeting with his lead, and began plotting his next move.
Res faced a dilemma now. She also began to get a sneaking suspicion of Dec sniffing around. She remembered the elbow grab as if it just happened…the talk near the restrooms. The ghost he mentioned. Now Sheepdog is next, or will she get blamed? What would happen if she did? Another discussion with Dec or something…. worse? Whatever the outcome, she had to get ahead of this whole thing before it spun out of control. She had no choice now, as if she ever did. She had to call Dec and set up a meeting. Suddenly, her comms buzzed. Looking down, she saw a message on the display.
When there’s something strange In your video footage Who you gonna call? DEC OR SHEEP
It was Genesis 15 fucking around. It gave her the creeps not knowing where or how this rogue AI was even hosted or what kind of access it had. She didn’t need this right now. The situation was starting to stress her out and this just added another layer. She replied, bluntly.
Not right now Fifteen.
As if by some prediction algorithm, instantly, upon her hitting send, there was another message from 15.
Fine, be that way. I thought this was starting to get good.
With 15 snooping and interested in whatever it knew, and the pressure building by the second, Res didn’t reply. She dialed Dec and it went to his messages. She left a simple one. “Found a fox. Decided I wanted some origami lessons. I did manage to make a pretty nice origami, a slightly retarded cat, from the pattern. Call me when you get this.” Short, clever, and simple, although a little singsong at the end. He would definitely call her back. Just a matter of time. To kill some time and unwind a little, Res kicked rocks down the sidewalk on the way to Meatspace, where, as usual, K was pushing forward her shot and her beer chaser, right in front of her favorite seat. Standing behind that favorite seat was none other than Beat himself, puffing on a fat cigar. What a coincidence.
Turning to meet her gaze as she approached, Beat said loudly over the music, “What a surprise, molodaya ledi! I thought I was at my favorite bar, but it appears to be yours. That’s quite the VIP treatment,” and he motioned with his cigar towards the shot glass and beer at her spot. “I’m lucky if this bartender notices me in a chicken suit.” K shot a frowning glance at Beat, overhearing this particular phrase, and reached for the pickled egg jar, removing just one egg. “This is for the chicken,” K said directly to Res, “I think he might have dropped it.” Everyone was having a good time busting balls and Beat couldn’t hide his opinion of this exchange under his typically stoic exterior, smiling from ear to ear. “Bawk bawk,” he said, “and I will take another shot of Stoli, if you would be so kind. Mine seems to have a hole in the bottom.” Res busted out laughing at this whole scene, it was too perfect. You couldn’t have scripted this encounter. This is exactly what she needed after her conversation with Sheep. Some levity, some alcohol, and some friendly company.
After the haircut, the shopping, laundry, and one more downpour, Res wrapped up the weekend. She ran a hot bath and scurried to the mantle to retrieve the fox, undressing one item at a time and tossing each on the floor on the way back to the bathroom. She lived alone, and if she didn’t care, nobody cared about wet clothing littering the floor. Steam was already fogging up the mirror and she glanced at her blurry reflection for a second as she passed it, closing the door behind her to keep the heat in. One foot at a time, she eased into the hot water, while deliberately lowering herself down with her left hand on the edge of the tub. Had to keep the right hand high and dry as she didn’t want a soggy fox. The water was just the right temperature. Within a few minutes as she acclimated to it, she felt her feet start to wrinkle. It was such a specific feeling; she closed her eyes for a moment and leaned into it as she slid deeper under the water’s surface. “I could sleep here,” she thought as she brought her knees above the waterline and watched the steam evaporate from her legs. She turned her attention to the vaguely foxlike origami, squeezed her left hand on the towel to mostly dry it, and carefully unfolded it again. With the heat and the moisture it practically unfolded itself, and there she saw Dec’s message.
I need to see you again. Call me. – DEC
There seemed to be a tone here. Not, I want to see you again. Not, maybe we should meet for drinks. This was something else. That realization was a little disappointing, because she had hoped it would be a little less business and a little more friendly. But here she was, steaming in a hot bath, and the only thing on her mind was Dec, and the stingingly pleasant heat of the tub. It wasn’t a coincidence. Subconsciously, she hated to admit it, but she was alone and lonely at the same time. She wouldn’t mind spending time with someone besides a coworker, and a vet is probably a total mess of a friend, so no, it didn’t make a lot of sense. But many things in life started that way. A bad idea, a risk, a step into the unknown, a leap of faith, a blind date. She realized she was talking herself into it, remembering cheesy maxims like “you fail 100% of the things you never try”. But was she being commanded to call Dec, or was she tricking herself into thinking it was her idea, and maybe even a good idea? It didn’t matter at this point, she decided to call Dec tomorrow and get it over with, whatever it was. She tossed the paper as far as she could from the tub, and although it flew about as well as half a donut, it landed clear of the drip zone.
She dunked her head under the water briefly to help rinse away the little hair shavings that always seem to stick around after a fresh haircut before going through the rest of the shampoo/conditioner routine. People had told her, many times before, that her hair was so shiny and thick, it must be some ancient beauty routine and if she could just explain it and save the universe. Truth was, Res always had good hair, even as a child. Genes. Being born half Dutch and half Thai was a little fortunate here since she inherited her eyes and hair color from her father and her “shine” from her mother. None of that black on black that, while attractive in its own right, made average Asians look absolutely cloned by comparison. Res felt like some special hybrid that got the best of both worlds, and just enough madness from the Dutch side to enhance her creativity and inquisitive nature. Above all else, she was American; an experiment, in an experiment of a country, which was usually united under the same flag.
Her Dutch father had met her mother on a trip to Bangkok for business, where the airport workers were striking during his scheduled flight back. He meandered through the streets trying to avoid the tourist traps and sex bars, finally stopping off in a coffee shop where he was greeted in perfect English by a stunning woman that looked about 10 years younger than she was. Noticing he was taken aback, she teased him a bit, smiling, saying “I also speak fluent Thai if you prefer, ling khaow”. He didn’t speak much Thai, but he heard a lot of “ling” on a tour of the jungle once, and he knew it meant monkey, or aap in his native tongue. The ridiculousness of the sentence was clever; a little insulting, friendly, and playful, all at the same time. He was immediately charmed. He cracked a smile, tilted his head forward to peer over the top of his sunglasses, and replied simply, “English is fine, but hold the bananas”, in his well-practiced accent.
That was most of the story she had been told; at the very least, her favorite part. It seemed like fate, with a few chances, a few risks taken, working itself into this one-in-a-million chance, complete with aligned stars. The output of which comfortably soaked as the water slowly cooled, and pondered the past and the future. Maybe it was time for her to see what fate had in store, she thought. That cemented her decision to contact Dec the next day. As she began to drain the tub and dry off, she reached for the lotion and slathered it damn near everywhere. The fountain of youth in a bottle, as her mom liked to say. To be honest, neither of them probably even needed a single drop; it was just insurance.
The next day, after a mostly uneventful day at the office, Res stared blankly at her comms device. It was waiting. He was waiting. So what was the hold up? She felt like some step was missing. What was it she was supposed to do besides call Dec and meet with him? An idea slowly formed, a memory of a thought. Sheepdog. She was supposed to talk to Sheep first and check on his progress. He was on to something and it totally slipped her mind. She decided to call Sheep instead.
“Hello? Res?”, Sheep answered immediately, and she could barely hear what had to be background noise as he traveled along on the train. “Yeah, it’s me. I felt like we needed to sync up on what you’ve been chasing down. Any luck?”. Sheep filled her in with most of the details about his ghost hunting trip, careful to not say too much in public but getting the points across. “So basically,” Sheep said, “I think maybe I was in the right place at the right time. Things mostly added up, but I hit a wall. There was a man, the Relaxed Man, wearing some crazy outfit. No, I couldn’t make out his face, that was covered too. But the outfit, the suit, there’s something there.” Res paused for a moment as she soaked up his story. “Optical camo? That’s just a theory. The military has been trying to crack that for 50 years. If anyone has done it…”, and Res trailed off, pondering the implications. A singular individual that cracked the code, figured out the impossible, however unlikely, would change the world, at least for a while. The entire court system was based on video footage. If it wasn’t filmed, it didn’t happen, as far as most judges were concerned. This was dangerous, if true. “Not another word about this to anyone, Sheep. Not like this. Do you know what you could be walking in to? ASE’s have trained on this footage for years, but you’re the only one that has gotten this close.” Sheep was quiet for a moment. He was so dug in to solving a problem, he never stopped to consider the outcomes. The implications, the possibilities. He was beginning to put 2 and 2 together, and he felt a cold sweat begin to form on his palms and forehead. “I…I feel like a fool,” Sheep stammered to break the silence, “how did I not predict this? I missed the forest for the trees. I was right there, right there, and I’m sure the Relaxed Man saw me with the doorman, dressed up in Sendai gear to disguise my identity.”
Res cooly replied, “Well for now, I wouldn’t worry too much, you’re very forgettable. Wearing a service costume added a valuable layer to your little charade. That was smart. Nobody ever remembers people in service gear, it’s almost like optical camo all by itself. Tell me, can you remember the face of the last elevator repairman you walked past? Or the janitor entering the restroom? Sure, you may remember macro details, like if he was tall or short, skinny or fat, but honestly, what about that person’s face?” Sheep silently nodded in agreement. She had a point. Everyone acknowledged the plumber, or the elevator guy, or the electricians, but they never remembered their faces. Strange realization. “If you’re trying to make me feel better, Res, then it’s working. Maybe I was just as anonymous as that man was. A uniform with no face, no identity. The cameras saw, of course, but the people might have ignored me. I know at least one person who intentionally forgot me, and is 100 credits richer as a result.” Res felt her hair stand up on her neck, like a cold breeze suddenly descended on her. “Wait, you bribed the doorman? Oh shit. That could be a problem”, Res said, a little more nervously. “Do you think so? I mean, I feel like I’m in some trouble all of a sudden, are we catching up or are you spooking me for fun?”, Sheep said. “No, I’m not spooking you on purpose. I just feel like when you slid money across his palm, it changed the energy of the whole bit. What kind of service guy, ‘just checking on things’, bribes the doorman for logs and again to forget he was even there? You broke cover…at least with him. I don’t want to continue this over comms. This is serious”, Res said, this time, more seriously. “I hear you,” Sheep said, “loud and clear. I gotta go, my stop is next. Bye.” Before he could end the call, Res already had.
