Light of the Last

by Chuck Black

  “She doesn’t count,” Ridge countered.

  “Hey!” Piper exclaimed and backhanded Ridge in the chest.

  “All right, that’s enough,” Ben said. “It’s amazing you guys—and gal—get anything done around here. Now pay attention. Drew needs some tech designed. Go ahead, Drew.”

  Drew told the team what he had told Ben the previous day about the glasses and a need for clandestine 360 video and audio capture. They asked a lot of questions, trying to get a sense for the purpose and performance specs. Then the five tech geniuses immediately began brainstorming, often talking in jargon way beyond Drew’s technical vocabulary.

  During the discourse, Drew noticed Piper looking at Ben a couple of times. It made him smile.

  The session lasted well over two hours. Drew wondered if at the end of it they even remembered what he’d asked for.

  Drew thanked each one and then followed Ben to his office. He sat down in the chair. “Wow, that was exhausting.”

  “Ha! You hardly did a thing except listen to us brainstorm and talk about your project,” Ben said incredulously.

  “Yeah, like I said, that was exhausting,” Drew said with a wry smile. “By the way, Piper likes you.”

  Ben looked at Drew, expressionless. “Don’t even try.”

  Drew held up his hands. “Don’t blame me. I’m just stating the obvious.”

  “This project is big, Drew, if we do it right. What’s our time frame?”

  “Nice diversion,” Drew said. “Well, considering I don’t have anything now, it’s whenever you can make it happen. What do you think?”

  Ben took a deep breath, then swiped across his tablet and typed a few numbers. “Three to six months, if all goes well.” He looked up at Drew for approval. “And it will definitely impede the LASOK for a while.”

  Deep down, Drew laid some of the blame for his mental condition on the LASOK. He wondered how his overly imaginative subconscious would react to a fully functioning LASOK that couldn’t see what he saw.

  “I’m okay with that. This is important.”

  Drew left NexTech and caught his plane back to Rivercrest later that afternoon.

  19

  DRESSED TO KILL

  Over the course of the next few months, Ross’s mission assignments for Drew steadily increased. Without access to the CIA database, it was difficult for Drew to understand the overall scope of what Ross was trying to determine, but it appeared to be connected to linking terrorist infiltration and activities to high-ranking government officials.

  The extra missions also seemed to be oriented more and more toward the East Coast. Drew arranged with Jake to transfer to Fortress East to assist in their operations, which also allowed him frequent access to Ben and NexTech. It was a good move all around.

  One of Drew’s missions for Ross included a trip back to Puerto Rico to gain access to Andrés Zapata’s database. With some help from Alice, Drew was able to place a miniature USB transmitter on his server that connected with a remote network router bypassing all the firewall and data security. Not only was Alice able to download Zapata’s entire database, but they now had continual access to any updated information as it occurred.

  Drew looked over the information before preparing it for the drop to Ross. Zapata had been busy and had grown his drug and weapons dealings. Drew noted a few customers whose goods delivered were simply annotated as “units.” He wondered if this was a reference to the human traffic business that Zapata had alluded to when Drew was posing as a weapons manufacturing rep for Armstrong Industries. Thus far he counted ninety-two units delivered.

  Ever and always present with Drew were Validus and his team. When threats weren’t immediate, they often disappeared, but Drew knew they were near. Perhaps his subconscious needed a break from time to time, fabricating the images for him.

  Four months after Drew had made his tech request of Ben, he was called back to NexTech.

  “What’s up, Megamind?” Drew said as he walked into Ben’s office.

  The jab didn’t faze Ben in the least. “The glasses are proving to be a challenge,” he said, “but I think we can have something for you in the next month or so. It’s the ‘cool’ part that’s stumping us. Nobody here seems to know what that is.”

  “Ha!” Drew burst out. Ben’s humor had become increasingly witty as his confidence with NexTech grew.

  Ben didn’t crack a smile. He went to a cabinet in the corner of his office and opened the door. “But here’s something I think you’ll like.” He took a black leather jacket off a hook and held it up by the shoulders.

  “Nice jacket. Where’d you get it?”

  “It’s not mine, Metro-man. This is the video recorder you asked for…except it does a lot more than take video.”

  “Really? A leather jacket?” Drew was impressed. “If this works—”

  “Here, try it on,” Ben said, holding it open for him. “We call it Witness.”

  “You named a jacket?” Drew chortled. “Do you guys name everything you make?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Drew carefully put his left arm into the jacket, then his right. When Ben set it on his shoulders, Drew felt the weight. “It’s a little heavy but not bad. I suppose the electronics added the weight.” He felt the material of the sleeve—it was real leather.

  “Except for the batteries, the electronics added almost nothing. It’s the Kevlar that you’re feeling,” Ben said.

  Drew couldn’t help noticing the proud smile Ben was trying to suppress. “Kevlar?”

  “Well, knowing how hard you are on things, we decided to laminate our two-terabyte array of memory in thin wafers of Kevlar. And then I figured, what the heck, let’s make the entire coat out of Kevlar cloth and thread, all except for the outer layer, which is real leather.”

  “This is incredible,” Drew said, carefully moving his arms.

  Ben laughed. “You don’t have to be so gentle. Believe me, you’re not going to break it.”

  “So the Kevlar is for protecting the electronics…not me.”

  “Don’t get any ideas, Drew. It’s not bulletproof,” Ben said. “But it might stop a knife slice.”

  Drew rotated his arms. It would take some getting used to, but it wasn’t bad. “So what’s it do?”

  Ben looked anxious to explain it. “The question is, What doesn’t it do? The entire coat is laced with microSD cards for RAM storage and a host of other electronics, including two multicore processors—one for redundancy—six 170-degree wide-angle cameras with five megapixel high-definition CCD sensors. We can capture video up to 480 frames per second. The cameras are located here and here.”

  Ben pointed to subdued logos on Drew’s shoulders, back, and chest. “The overlapping images are processed, then stitched together to form a seamless 360-degree image. Four microphones with auto—noise-cancelling for digital recording, built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 6G wireless technology, accelerometer sensor, proximity sensor, barometer sensor, ambient light sensor, gyroscope sensor, magnetic sensor, gesture sensor, bug-and-scan detection sensors—”

  “Whoa, Ben, how could you have possibly incorporated all that into a jacket?”

  “Actually, it was easier than you think. We just took the newest, hottest smartphone, upgraded and expanded the features, and turned it into a jacket. In fact, we had a lot more space to work with. The visual interface for the jacket is going to be the glasses. That’s why we aren’t done with those. There’s a lot of data to access, but by using the jacket’s electronics, we were able to focus on just the visual technology and still keep the glasses lightweight. What’s really going to make this thing sing is Alice.”

  “Your Alice?” Drew asked. “I thought she took a supercomputer to operate her AI.”

  “You’re right,” Ben said. “But we’re working on a mobile version of her to make full use of the tech in the jacket, so until Alice and the glasses are done, you’ll have limited functionality.”

  Drew laughed. “You mean it
will only be able to do what I asked for it to do?”

  Ben nodded. “Yeah, it takes 360 video and audio. However, with the two terabytes of memory we were able to pack into it, and depending on the frame rate, you can take up to five days of footage before having to download.”

  Drew slapped Ben on the shoulder. “Benjamin Berg, you are amazing!”

  “As far as being invisible to bug detectors, it’s not foolproof. Bug detectors are passive listening devices that check for all electromagnetic transmissions emanating from a source. Your jacket auto-silences all transmissions when not in use, kind of like airplane mode on your cell phone. I’m programming Alice to manage that and to make it a priority, but you’ll still have to be careful.”

  “It’s amazing,” Drew said as he moved about. “It wears like a stiff new leather jacket. How did you make it so flexible?”

  “We used nonmetallic, high-flex circuit technology in conjunction with electro-fiberoptic transmission for the high-bandwidth busses. Like I said, all the electronics are protected by thin wafers of Kevlar and Kevlar cloth.”

  Drew looked the coat over very closely. If Ben hadn’t shown him, he would have never been able to tell that it was anything other than a normal leather jacket. “How do I activate it? What’s the interface?”

  Ben opened a drawer in his desk and lifted out a small plastic case. He opened it to show Drew. “Your standard nano earpiece, but the inductive loop is built into the jacket.” He handed the miniature three-by-two millimeter unit to Drew. It was as small as anything the CIA had.

  “How do I control the jacket?” Drew asked as he set the earpiece deep into his ear canal, unseen from any angle. He could feel it resting against his eardrum.

  “Voice command, of course, but”—Ben held up his hand to stop Drew’s protest before it came out of his mouth—“in case you don’t want to be labeled schizophrenic by talking to yourself…you are the alternative interface.”

  Drew looked sideways at Ben. “Not following.”

  “With all of the sensors built into the jacket, it knows the positions of your arms and where the jacket is being touched. You can tell it to memorize any movement or touch you make and relate it to any command. Your pockets are lined with high-resolution sensors that you can also use to access Alice. Put one of your hands inside and press against your abdomen.”

  “Hello, Drew,” Alice screamed into his ear.

  “Ah!” Drew cringed. “Too loud!”

  “Oh…I forgot about your sensitive hearing. I’m sure Alice has already adjusted.”

  “I’m sorry, Drew. Is this better?”

  “Yes, much.” Drew turned to Ben. “This doesn’t sound like your Alice. It sounds like…” Drew didn’t want to say her name.

  Ben smiled. “Sydney?”

  Drew scowled. “Are you trying to torment me?”

  “No, just wanted to make sure you listened to her. I knew if she sounded like Sydney, you’d listen.”

  Drew shook his head. “I hear Sydney’s voice in my head enough as it is. How about a Brit, or an Aussie, or a South African? And I thought you said Alice wasn’t working.”

  “Mobile Alice isn’t. She’s accessing your jacket from the mainframe through Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Once you’re out of range, your jacket goes dumb. Why don’t you tell her to change voices.”

  “Alice, change your voice to an English accent,” Drew said a little too loudly.

  “Okay, Drew. How’s this? And by the way,” Alice said in a charming English-accented voice, “I can hear you if you whisper.”

  “Remarkable. So real it’s rather scary. How did she know it was me in the jacket?” Drew asked.

  “The pocket sensors read your fingerprint. From now on no one else can access the jacket except you.” Ben crossed his arms and looked on his work with pride.

  “Ben, you’ve outdone yourself,” Drew said. “How much did this little project cost us?”

  Ben looked at him, then went back to his desk to close things up. “You don’t want to know.”

  Drew just stared at him.

  Ben sighed. “With three engineers and four programmers, custom fabrication, materials, and equipment…you’re wearing about a two-hundred-thousand dollar jacket.”

  Drew just about fell over. “What? Ben…that’s ridiculous!”

  “Hey, you asked for it, and besides, the first one is always the most expensive. When you’re ready to commercialize it, I’ll bet there are plenty of wealthy folks out there and maybe a few government agencies who would love to have a jacket like this. Don’t worry, partner. We’ll get a return on it.”

  Drew actually had no argument against that. Ben had become quite the savvy businessman. No wonder NexTech had mushroomed overnight.

  “Okay,” Drew said with nod. “Let’s see how this thing works.”

  20

  THE LASOK EXPERIMENT

  “Drew, take a look at this,” Jake said, turning up the volume on the television in his office at Fortress Central. Drew was back in Rivercrest for a week to connect with Jake and visit his mother.

  A major news network was broadcasting a press conference with the president of the United States. Anchorman Tom Vincent was getting a live feed from the conference, where reporter Sophia Bryant was on location.

  “Hey, I know her,” Drew said. “Looks like she made it to the big time.”

  The screen was split in two, showing the seasoned but agelessly handsome face of Tom Vincent on the left and the fresh, fiery face of Sophia Bryant on the right. Vincent was speaking.

  “In an unprecedented move by President Harden, the security of Camp David is going to be turned over to UN troops. Sophia, what kind of a response are you seeing there?”

  “Well, Tom, as you said, nothing like this has ever been done in the history of the United States. The feelings are extremely mixed. Many applauded the president for his move toward global unity, whereas others feel it is the final straw in handing over our sovereignty as a nation to the UN.”

  “Stay with us Sophia as we replay that announcement for the people who just tuned in.”

  The television screen filled with the image of President Harden, the American flag behind him on his right, but Drew immediately noticed that the presidential flag, normally behind the president’s left, had been replaced by the UN flag.

  “If we, the human race of this great planet Earth, are going to move beyond our borders of dispute, beyond our ethnic differences, we must change how we think of ourselves as nations. In 1831, French historian Alexis de Tocqueville came to study democracy in America and called our nation the Great Experiment. If ever we can testify to the success of that great experiment, we can do so now, after two hundred and forty years of welcoming people of all color, faith, and ideologies. We are a nation of diverse ethnic differences…and we thrive. We are a nation of many peoples…and we thrive. Let the United States of America be the model for planet Earth as we absolve our differences and thrive as a human race.”

  President Harden paused and looked straight into the camera and into the eyes of millions of Americans.

  “People of America, it starts with trust—trust in each other as human beings, trust in leaders of nations. I can think of no greater way to honor that commitment to trust than to offer the security of Camp David, a beacon of global unity, to the forces of the United Nations. On September second, I will be meeting with United Nations Secretary-General Felice Albano De Luca and Islamic Global Alliance Premier Aashif Hakeem Jabbar to commemorate this milestone in the unification of humanity.”

  The scene cut out and was replaced with the images of Vincent and Bryant again.

  “Sophia, as we all know,” Vincent began, “the Marine Presidential Guard has been charged with the security of Camp David for decades. Have you had any response from any military personnel there?”

  “That’s right, Tom. In fact, the Marines have been charged with the security of Camp David since it opened under President Roosevelt. As you might expec
t, we are getting no comment from any of the active-duty military personnel.”

  “Thank you, Sophia Bryant. Now we go to Kevin Watson, who’s doing a follow-up report on the successful quarantine and treatment of over five hundred patients infected during the recent outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Kevin, tell us—”

  “What an insult,” Jake said, clicking off the TV. “I guarantee the Marines are not happy about turning Camp David over to UN troops.”

  Drew shook his head. “So much for national sovereignty. Another American travesty.”

  “You can say that again. How’s Fortress East holding up? You guys have been pulling in some great government jobs out there,” Jake said.

  “Yeah, all is well. Moving Mick there was a great decision. He’s doing a great job managing the team,” Drew said.

  “Good. How’s he doing with your occasional absences?”

  Drew winced. “I’m not fooling him, and we both know it. I think he knew the day I showed up at Fortress.”

  Jake smiled. “Mick’s a smart guy. He knows the score.”

  “The problem is that my, ah, outside work is getting more frequent and”—Drew hesitated as he looked at Jake—“I get the sense that my handler is concerned.”

  “Is that really why you’re here?” Jake asked.

  Drew smiled and shook his head. “Never was any foolin’ you, Jake.” He looked out the window toward the range, then turned back to Jake and leaned forward. “Something’s not right. I can’t put my finger on it, but my last few missions have been all over the place—Puerto Rico, Congo, Washington, DC, Syria, Afghanistan, and even inside the UN. My last assignment to Pakistan was completely solo—no contacts, no support. I don’t have the big picture, but I can tell that my handler is getting desperate for intel, and I seem to be the only one he’s using to get it. Something’s changed in the last few months, and it isn’t good.”

  Jake thought for a moment. “I don’t know what to tell you, Drew. But you have to know where the line is and pull back when you get close to it. A dead agent isn’t any good to anyone.” He thought for a moment. “Are you absolutely sure that you’re not being manipulated or used for the wrong purpose?”