“I have a challenge,” Jeffrey started.
She held up a hand and motioned around, “I already have a challenge.”
Jeffrey looked around, “Not so much, you have a passion project that is helping move humanity forward in an admirable way.” He turned to look back at Michelle. “This is great, but you are one of many scientists in the field and pulling you from this would be a problem, but in the end your contribution is going to be one of hundreds maybe?”
She admitted, “Probably dozens, but I get your point. Go on.”
“Ok, one of dozens who are helping. I’m not suggesting you aren’t a major force in making this happen. I’m offering you a challenge you haven’t solved yet. One that doesn’t have government oversight or involvement. I can also guarantee it has the funding already in place that will allow, no, require us to solve this problem in months…”
“Weeks.” Marcus said.
Jeffrey turned to him, “Really? Everything is ready to go that fast?” Marcus nodded.
Michelle thought it was interesting that the scientist was telling the suit the timeframe and the scientist was telling him it was sooner than projected.
“I guess I better make this pitch a whole lot more engaging.” He smiled back at Michelle, “Ok, her is the really long pitch I was prepared to say: We are putting civilians on the moon in weeks or a few months maximum. The governments don’t know about this and we need to see what it will take to grow food up on the big white ball in the sky damned fast. We don’t ‘think’ the governments can shut us down, but we don’t want to find out the hard way that they have accomplished it. So, we want the moonbase to be self sustaining as soon as possible. You come highly recommended by a previous co-worker with NASA…”
“You working with them dumb-shits at NASA?” Michelle started.
“Look, there are good people there,” Marcus retorted, “just because politics are the name of the game at the top, no need to belittle everyone else.”
Michelle looked closer at him, “You know what’s bothering me?”
“Not a clue,” Jeffrey admitted.
“It’s that Marcus here does look like a face I remember from over a decade or maybe more ago. Problem is, this Marcus is too young.” She turned in her chair slightly, “You have a father in the field?”
Marcus answered her question, “No, my father was a high-school band director. But he’s passed away now.”
“Sorry, my condolences.” She said, “I occasionally suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.”
“I’ve found it common with most of my scientist friends.” Marcus admitted.
“You seem pretty laid back, you must be on the civilian side of the microscope.” Michelle commented.
Jeffrey interrupted, “Uh, he has government experience, trust me.” Then continued, “I’m here to ask you if working on viable food growth in outer space still intrigues you, and would you be willing to go immediately,” he stopped talking and looked around, “Or very close to immediately dropping your existing work if we pay to have another take your place. Also, would you be willing to keep it to yourself?”
“Why, looking to rape the moon?” Michelle asked.
Michelle was starting to get on Jeffrey’s nerves. “No, there is no ‘raping’ and I might add that is a harsh word. My boss is not going to take it lightly if you say that around her.”
“Your boss is a female?”
Jeffrey pursed his lips, “Should it matter? What happened to gender equality?”
She waved that off, “When it happens, let me know. That is going to be in the far future anyhow.” She was about to continue when one of her men came into the camp and then talked excitedly with her. She answered with a question and he replied. She turned back to the two men, “How did you two say you got here?”
Jeffrey answered, “We didn’t say. Why, is that important? We are going to leave the same way as we showed up. On foot.”
“Because my man here says your footprints just suddenly appeared in the sand. There isn’t any disturbance around the area but it looks like you jumped off of something not that far away from the camp.” She spoke again with her man and waited for his reply before she turned back to them. “He says no one out on the perimeter heard anything, either.”
“You need a perimeter guard out here?” Marcus asked, looking around as if something would jump out of the bushes.
Michelle ignored Marcus, “That’s a pretty incredible feat.”
Jeffrey shrugged, “You said we had to be here tonight otherwise we couldn’t get an interview. You didn’t say that we had to explain our transportation.”
Michelle drummed her fingers on the chair arm-rest. She finally said, “You are working on my curiosity, aren’t you?” Jeffrey nodded. “Do I get to see the magic carpet first, or is accepting the job a prerequisite?”
Jeffrey considered her question and turned to Marcus, “How trustworthy?”
Marcus stopped looking around at the bushes and turned his head to speak to Jeffrey. His eyes continued to dart around, “Very. Hates liars and won’t put up with idiots.” He answered. Michelle’s eyes drew narrower as she studied Marcus who was presently oblivious to her scrutiny.
“Very well,” Jeffrey answered, “here is my offer. I’ll show you our transportation if you will take a thirty-minute ride in it with me. I’ll drop you off right back here if you want. However, I will require your personal oath that you will not on purpose, or with any intent, divulge what you learn or help others learn of it.”
“Until when?” She countered.
Jeffrey wanted to roll his eyes, damned scientists! He turned to Marcus, “How long before you think it will become a moot point?
Marcus answered without looked at him, “Maybe six months?”
Jeffrey answered Michelle, “Give us one year.”
She pointed to Marcus, “He said six months.”
“And I’m a ‘suit’, be thankful I only doubled his assessment, not quadrupled it.” Jeffrey retorted.
Michelle smiled, “For a suit, you’re almost human.”
“Yeah, that’s what I say about lawyers.” He responded.
“Oh, you are not leaving me here with the beasts in the field.” Marcus said, shaking his head as he realized there was only one pod. “No way, no how.” He stabbed his own arm rest with each word to punctuate his statement.
“It’s fine,” Jeffrey countered, “I have another that can take you back.”
Mollified, Marcus just said, “Oh.”
“What about my men?” Michelle asked.
“Sorry, they aren’t part of the deal.” Jeffrey answered, “I can’t allow them access to the technology.”
“No, you suit, I’m asking if they will be supported if I go with you?”
“Do you want them to be hired, or be recompensed for a year of their labor?” Jeffrey asked. He wasn’t sure what Michelle was driving towards.
“You would let me have them on my team?”
Jeffrey shrugged, “Why not? If you are going to need support and they can help you, then yes. However, if they are NOT going to be able to help, then you need to make that decision and I’ll see that they are paid monthly for twelve months.”
“Why not a lump sum?” She asked.
“I’ve seen too many go down a bad hole when that happens.” Jeffrey shrugged, “But if you are good with that, I’ll make that change.”
She nodded, “Ok, I’ll take you up on your magical carpet ride. Do I need anything special?”
Jeffrey shrugged, “Maybe something to drink and hit the restroom before we go? We don’t have those amenities.” Michelle nodded and stepped into her tent. Jeffrey turned to Marcus, “You good going back, or do you want to go up with us?”
Marcus considered his response. “You know; I think I’ll go back. See you in the lair?” Jeffrey nodded.
A moment later, Michelle came back out having changed into a clean blouse and holding a bottle of water.
It took the
team just a few minutes to walk far enough away so that the light from the camp didn’t interfere with their night vision. Michelle had asked her men to stay back. She explained that what was going on wasn’t a good thing to know about and their safety in the future might be dependent on them not knowing anything. Unlike most in America, that was good enough for them and they stayed back.
Jeffrey and Marcus allowed Michelle to walk them to an open area that was mostly a large flat rock. The shadows created by the partial moonlight played with Marcus’s now overactive imagination. For whatever reason, he hadn’t thought about the potential for danger on their way into the camp and now he saw a horrible pairs of eyes behind every dark bush.
Michelle was looking around when Jeffrey pulled out a small device from his pocket, clicked the button and spoke into it, “TOM, please bring both down. Marcus is going back to Colorado.”
Michelle turned her head to look up and was straining to see anything for at least fifteen seconds before two dark objects blocked the stars from her view. Seconds later, they were in front of her.
She turned to the men and pointed to the two Pods, “Why didn’t I hear them?”
Marcus grumped, “Null-Gravity.”
Jeffrey smiled at Marcus and told him, “Don’t be an ass! Just because I had something to say about Bobcat’s acronyms doesn’t mean you need to move that argument all the way to Africa.” He turned to Michelle, “Dr. Cambridge here is the preeminent scientist here on earth to speak to about the Pods, but unfortunately he is going back to Colorado and I would just flub it up.” Jeffrey tried his most polite smile.
Which didn’t work.
“Translation from suit-speak, you don’t want him to tell another scientist how it works?”
Jeffrey rolled his eyes, “Yes and no. I’m not actually worried about you figuring it out if he told you.”
“Why is that,” she countered, “the technology’s ‘out of this world’?” She was wearing a grumpy ‘heard this all before’ expression on her face.
“Well,” Jeffrey answered with a huge smile, “Yes!”
He sure hoped not every recruiting trip was going to be with such a recalcitrant individual.
A minute later, the three of them were gone.
TQB Base, Colorado - USA
>>Bethany Anne?<<
Yes ADAM? Bethany Anne was walking over to her father’s office with Ashur tagging along to discuss a situation with Barb.
>> I have finished my review of critical infrastructure issues related to Terrorist attacks. While working through it, I found implanted software and increased communications originating from the hacking group Parastoo out of Iran targeting the U.S. electrical grid operators. Presently, they are set to attack different parts of the national grid system simultaneously. The design of the national power grid is based on integrated support. By attacking different independent grid areas, it will cause those areas without power to pull on their nearby neighbors. The U.S. will suffer substantial national outage issues for weeks, potentially even months, due to the cascading failures this will create.<<
Bethany Anne considered the ramifications of the fallout of a large portion of the United States without power. Some locations, such as hospitals and other core facilities would be able to operate for a time on backup generators. However, trucking in the fuel would become a problem not to mention communications, computers and banking issues.
Can you stop it?
>>Yes.<<
Will they be able to locate you?
>>No. Why would they?<<
To attack you.
Bethany Anne considered what ADAM should do. What did you say to the Chinese at the end of your warning message? No! Not the actual Chinese, translate it for me.
>>I told them ‘Hello, my name is Adam. Stop your cyber attack effort or I will adopt the corrective action. You were warned.’<<
Bethany Anne thought about it for a moment. Can you set up an avatar with a hacker name of ‘MyNam3isADAM’ and then sign all of your attacks and counterattacks with that? Make sure that if they try to back track you, they find out you are somewhere in China.
>>My calculations indicate that Parastoo will not believe a Chinese hacker is responsible for protecting American interests.<<
Oh, they won’t. Bethany Anne agreed, but they will be trying to hack into Chinese interests and I doubt that the Chinese will take very kindly to it.
>>No, no they won’t and yes, I can do this easily.<<
Good, then I release you to hack the fuck out of Parastoo after you protect the U.S. Grid. Let me know if they are set to attack any other countries and figure out how to protect them as well.
>>What if Parastoo is connected with a Nation-State?<<
Tell me, but if I’m not available the answer is a Boolean solution. If Parastoo, then attack equals true.
>>Understood.<<
Go get ‘em, tiger! Bethany Anne smiled as she knocked on the door to her father’s office then stepped in with Ashur sitting down at the door.
Ten minutes later, Bethany Anne left the office deciding with her father that Barb should stay on the Polarus with Frank for the next couple of weeks while the two of them tried to locate the black ops group that was using her. Lance suggested, and Bethany Anne agreed, to have Mr. ‘Super Spy’ work with ADAM to let Barb’s boss know that she was safe.
Now, if Bethany Anne could make sure Barb wasn’t freaking out, life might settle down. Time would tell.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
QBS Polarus - Mediterranean
“I’m still having trouble believing all of this.” Barb Nichols said.
Frank and Barb were located inside a new office on the Polarus that allowed them a little more space. Frank had moved his multi-monitor setup into the office. He and Barb had turned the main desk around so that it was up next to the wall, which allowed both he and Barb to see the monitors.
“Which part?” Frank asked. He opened two of the tabs and reviewed the information on tracking the black-ops group. Unfortunately, the black ops group were damned professionals and had left very few crumbs for either him or ADAM to follow. Lot’s and lot’s of cut-outs so that whenever they found a string it ultimately led them to a dead end.
Just like Barb.
“Your whole international operation to support the protection of the world, all while staying under the radar. I mean, how are you able to accomplish that feat in today’s age?”
“Not very successfully.” Frank admitted tersely.
“Oh, sorry about that.” She replied, a small blush rising up her cheeks. “For what it’s worth, I never did figure out how you did a lot of what you accomplished. After having flown in a Pod here, I realize that the Pods were used for a large amount of the moving around.”
Frank simply nodded his head, half paying attention to Barb, the other half tracking down a new query he had just made.
Barb noticed that she didn’t have Frank’s full attention. She had learned over the last few days that usually meant he had found something which peaked his curiosity. If it peaked his curiosity, she became inquisitive. She rolled her chair up next to his, “What did you find?”
Frank whispered, “One moment…” and Barb realized he barely registered her presence. She watched him as he studied a report on his left screen and then pulled up a 3D image of the world on the right. Then, four different satellites were highlighted and arcs were drawn surrounding all of them.
Frank pointed his finger at Shanghai, China. “Got you, bitch!” He reached across in front of Barb with a quick ‘excuse me’ and grabbed the phone.
He dialed three numbers and waited a moment before speaking, “Dan, it’s me. I got the bitch. Yeah, Kamiko Kana. Mmmhmmm. China. Yeah, no shit. Shanghai specifically. No, don’t know what she did to set it off and it seemed a little weak. No!” Frank chuckled, “Not even close to Bethany Anne’s ripples. What? Yeah, that would explain a lot related to Barnabas’s information. Bethany Anne’s pushing ripples anywhere from fi
ve thousand two-hundred to seven thousand one-hundred miles away from Shanghai. Depending on where Barnabas was, it would be at least a few thousand I would think. What? You know, I don’t know how that works. According to Barnabas he can sense direction…sort of. Why in China? I think she is tied up with someone in the military. The cyber-warfare guys? Mmmmmm, that would make a lot of sense. Probably only with one or two specific people though. I doubt she is running a huge game over there. No, my experience over the last eight decades suggests she is more mind over matter. The story I got from Gabrielle mentioned all of her guards she used to attack, and she bolted before it was close to over. So, most likely she’s an intelligent survivor and she moves pawns around is my best guess. No, I can’t suggest where next. No, the system registered an entry and an exit, but they were both so close together the system puts them within the same hundred yards. That could be, she is walking like Bethany Anne but she can’t go very far which doesn’t surprise me. I’ve talked with Bethany Anne, it takes a large amount of energy to pull this off. She jumps as far as she can, then does whatever and either walks away, or immediately grabs more energy. She wouldn’t be the type to be without her most precious escape strategy. I’m not sure how to block that ability. You need to talk with Bethany Anne on that one. Possibly? I mean, the method for tracking is triangulation and you could build something that the team could use to give you an idea of which way to go, but nothing direct and once that is over, what are the odds you will be able to catch her? Ok, your welcome. Make sure you say ‘Hi’ to Bethany Anne for me, ok? Maybe I’ll get out of the dog house. What? Hell no! I absolutely don’t want that ride of shame again. Alright, bye.”
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