by D. B. Goodin
Natasha located Bobby's Bar, a local haunt of Senator Wilson’s. Natasha thought it was incredible how much cooperation a pretty woman got when she wore revealing clothing and tipped the bartender well.
After some discreet questioning, Natasha was able to determine that Senator Wilson was known to visit the bar on the second Tuesday of each month, which happened to correspond with Alice Wilson’s monthly charity events.
Natasha observed the senator in action for about thirty minutes before she was approached.
“What is your name?”
“Gretchen,” Natasha answered.
“What a lovely name!”
Natasha gave the senator an inviting smile.
“Scott is my name. I’m important in this town,” Senator Wilson slurred.
During their conversation, Natasha palmed a small flask which contained a sweet-smelling perfume. Natasha was careful to dab a small amount of the perfume on her left index finger as the senator approached. As he turned his head, she put her left hand on Senator Wilson’s face, then quickly grabbed his face with both hands and kissed him. For a brief moment, he looked dazed.
“Wow, that was great. What can I do for you?”
“Do you want to do something for me, Darling?” Natasha teased.
“Anything!” Wilson exclaimed.
“Give me your wallet!”
Senator Wilson reached for his wallet and handed it to her. Natasha briefly looked through the wallet and found some pictures of his wife.
“Who is this?”
“No one important. Do you want to get out of here?” Senator Wilson asked.
“Thought you would never ask,” Natasha said in a playful tone.
The two of them left the bar and headed for Natasha’s playhouse.
Nigel got the email early the next morning. The timestamp confirmed the message was sent before 3 a.m. It was from Collective Systems and was titled: A secure message awaits you. Nigel followed standard decryption practices. He needed to know the contents of the message before leaving for school. If it took too long, he figured he could skip a shower.
The message read:
Greetings Nigel,
I hope this note finds you well. As promised in your information package, your first assignment awaits. Reply with your acceptance if you wish to proceed with the assignment and details will be sent. You have the option to decline if the timing isn’t convenient. You have twelve hours to respond.
Nigel didn’t have to think long. He quickly typed, “I accept,” then clicked the send button. It took several minutes, but he received a confirmation email instructing him to view the details on the Collective Systems app.
Crap, I forgot to install the app, Nigel thought. He didn’t have time to install it now; it would have to wait until after school.
Ralphie was late for breakfast. He hadn’t been his usual self since the incident with Jake. Ellen was worried about him. At least Nigel was also more reliable!
“How you doing, Honey?” Ellen asked.
“Fine. I didn’t sleep well.”
“Jake won’t be bothering you again,” Nigel said.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I talked with Jake. He promised to leave you alone.”
Ralphie visibly perked up. “Oh, before I forget, I found this in my backpack.”
Ralphie showed Nigel a small black disc. Nigel examined it closely. He remembered Milo talking about these once. This is a tracking module, Nigel thought.
“Do you know what it is?”
“I don’t, but I know who does!”
“Milo?”
“Yeah, we are going to hang out after school. I will ask him about it then.”
Alexei was awakened to an urgent call from Viktor.
“The package has been delivered. When do you want to receive it?”
“Immediately. I will leave now.”
Alexei arrived at the containment area under the cottage where Collective detainees were kept. Upon opening the door, Alexei was hit with a rather unpleasant smell emanating from the package.
“Thank you for delivering the package, Viktor. Did you put the task into motion?”
“Yes, it is done. We received acceptance, and we are awaiting a response.”
“Check for confirmation of delivery of assignment in another twelve hours to account for time-zone differences.”
Viktor resumed his position at the door while Alexei got a closer look at the package. Len sat with swollen slits where his eyes were supposed to be, staring into the space in front of him. Alexei could hear short jagged breaths.
“What is the matter with him? Why are his eyes swollen shut?”
“Reaction from the tranquilizers. The doc administered medicine and said that he will be fine.”
“You probably gave him too much. I need him alive and well,” Alexei barked.
Alexei pulled a chair closer to Len; he wanted to savor the moment.
“Who are you people, and where am I?” Len asked in a weak voice.
“You are our guest,” Alexei said. “I need for you to answer some questions. If I’m satisfied with the answers and you agree to our terms, then I will let you go. Is that acceptable?”
Len made a grunting sound, then nodded in agreement.
“Great! I’m looking forward to spending some quality time together.” Alexei let out a chuckle.
Alexei walked across the room, found a very sharp knife, then cut Len’s restraints. “No need for that! You are a guest in my cottage, and I want you to feel at home,” Alexei said with a mocking tone. “Please give me your full name, email address, and home address.”
Len choked when reciting his ZIP Code. “Water, please,” he said in a soft voice.
“Oh! How rude a host I am. Viktor, fetch our guest a glass of water.”
Alexei gave Len several minutes to recover before the questioning resumed. It took several hours, but Alexei was able to obtain all relevant details of the Dark Glider project.
“I believe you have given me all the information?” Alexei asked.
Len nodded in response.
“See to our guest’s comfort. We will resume after the verification process is complete.” Alexei headed for the door.
Chapter 12
Senator Scott Wilson was greeted by his assistant, Brenda, when he arrived at his office on Capitol Hill. “Brenna, the lobbyist from Pretzelverse Games, is here to see you.”
“Send her away; tell her I’m in meetings all day.”
“I would love to, but she is already in your office; she must have arrived when I was at break,” Brenda said.
“Then I will throw her out myself.”
When Senator Wilson opened his office door, a woman with average height greeted him with a warm smile and extended her hand. “Senator Wilson, thanks for seeing me today. We have much to discuss,” Brenna said.
“I’m afraid that I’m double-booked today and running behind. Can we reschedule?”
“Sure. What days are you available?”
Senator Wilson opened the appointment book on his desk and flipped through the pages in his appointment book for almost a full minute. “I’m booked solid until January. Talk with Brenda about setting something up then.”
“I’m afraid that will not do, Senator.”
Before he could protest, she dropped an envelope on his desk.
“What’s this?”
Brenna said nothing as he quickly scanned the photos which showed the senator fraternizing with a blonde woman at a bar. As Senator Wilson flipped through the photos, other more intimate photos of the couple presented themselves. In many photos, the senator was bound and gagged, with the blonde woman standing over him with a whip.
“Now do you want to send me away?” Brenna asked with a satisfied smile.
“This is an obvious forgery,” Senator Wilson demanded.
“Feel free to have them authenticated by the local police, if you’re certain that they won’t circulate.”
<
br /> “You have ten minutes—but I need your word that these won’t circulate, and all copies will be destroyed.”
“Already done, as you hold the only copies.”
Senator Wilson just scowled.
“I would like you to reconsider your position on the pet tracker bill. It has already passed the House. All we need now is Senate approval,” Brenna said.
“The bill is immoral, indecent, and against everything I stand for.”
“Ahh, I believe the bill is more decent than your positioning in these photos. I’m prepared to offer something in return, Senator.”
“What can you possibly offer me?”
“For one thing, Pretzelverse intends to open a call center somewhere in the central United States. I believe it will create hundreds of jobs, something that your district is lacking. Also, your Senate seat is up for reelection. I’m sure you could use a generous donation to your campaign. Do we have a deal?” Brenna asked.
Senator Wilson said nothing for a very long time. “Yes, I will cast a yay vote when the bill comes to the floor.”
“Thank you, Senator. Have a good day,” Brenna said cheerily.
Sybold was a leading manufacturer of electronic voting machines and automated teller machines (ATMs). Independent security researchers had recently discovered vulnerabilities in both machines. Many banks that used the Sybold ATMs had made very public statements addressing how they patched the vulnerabilities; however, local and state governments had been slow to respond, if at all. Alexei’s shadowy, off-the-books crew had purchased a number of older models of these machines in online auctions, gutted them, then sent the circuit boards to Gregor’s lab at the cottage. Gregor intended to test these machines at various patch levels to see how vulnerable they actually were. There was embedded code somewhere on a chip, and Gregor intended to find it.
Viktor walked in, examining each piece of disassembled equipment with an air of authority. He looked like he was the one that designed it.
Damn it, he’s here! Gregor thought. Smug bastard.
“Privyet, Gregor.”
“How can I help you, Comrade?”
“I’ve come for a status report.”
“My crew has mapped each circuit, and we are in the process of reversing the code.”
“The boss is wondering why it is taking so long.”
“Reverse engineering code takes time, especially when it’s on read-only memory (ROM) chips. It would help if I had a schematic, but I’ve run into difficulty locating one for sale.”
“We will obtain a schematic. You will have five days after that.”
“By my count, we have twelve days until the vote, and I will need almost all of that time.”
Viktor left the room.
Gregor could hear Viktor talking to someone in the next room.
Viktor came back and said in a matter-of-fact tone, “The boss has already dispatched Natasha to gather the schematic. She expects to have it by this time tomorrow.”
“Great! I look forward to getting it,” Gregor said, then added under his breath, “If Natasha was sent, apparently some persuasion was necessary.”
Almost ready for execution, Sasha dialed Alexei to deliver the status of his plan.
“Hello, Sasha.”
“It took some time, but I finally got the campaign back on track—no thanks to that lazy Gregor.”
“I thought he came through for you?”
“Not quite. He got some of his crew to help, but they only came up with pieces of a vast puzzle. Viktor helped the most.”
“Really? I didn’t think he was that technical!”
“He isn’t, but he is very methodical, which helped the process. Several calls to Gregor didn’t hurt, but I could tell he didn’t really want to help.”
Sasha explained the campaign and execution to Alexei; he must have explained it dozens of times, but Alexei never seemed to get tired of it.
“Putting together a misinformation campaign is like creating a work of art. It takes time, patience, and love to ensure that it is well received,” Sasha said.
“Indeed. You have my approval to proceed.”
“Milo!” Nigel said as he waved him over.
Nigel was sitting with Jet at a back table of the lunchroom.
“Hey, Nige!” Milo said as he balanced his lunch.
“Need a hand?”
Nigel grabbed the backpack that was sliding down Milo’s shoulder, making his lunch tray unstable. Milo quickly put his tray down, then took a seat next to Nigel.
“Why is your backpack so heavy?”
“Been working on a radio project.” Milo opened his backpack and showed Nigel a large handheld scanning device. It appeared to be crudely constructed, and several wires were sticking out in various spots around the casing.
“What is that for?” Jet asked.
Milo looked at Jet suspiciously. Nigel caught the small but significant interaction between his friends.
“Milo, this is Jet. She is helping me with a school project.”
Milo nodded.
“This is the antenna genius I told you about,” Nigel told Milo.
“Pleased to make your acquaintance,” Jet said as she held out a hand.
Milo smiled.
“Now I know why I haven’t seen you much! Didn’t know you had a girlfriend.”
“Wha—no we are just friends,” Nigel blurted.
Jet snickered and gave Milo a knowing look.
“I have something to ask you about,” Nigel said, hoping to divert Milo’s attention.
Nigel held out the disc he got from Ralphie.
“What’s this?” Milo asked as he examined the disc.
Nigel watched Milo play with the disc. Milo turned on his homemade radio-looking device and waved it around the disc. A screeching noise emitted from the device.
“This appears to be a receiver of some kind. Where did you get this?”
“Ralphie found it in his backpack. Is it a tracker?”
“Might be, but it responds to my signal tracker, so it is based off of a radio frequency. I think it is an identification tracker.”
“Tracker?”
“Yeah. Its signal is strong when my signal tracker is close, but when I move it away, the tones are faint, which means that this requires a transmitter to be close by.”
“Transmitter?” Jet asked.
“Yeah. It can be anything with a radio, even your cell phone. Usually these work off of Bluetooth technology and have a very limited range. I can examine it some more and let you know.”
“That would be awesome! Thanks, Milo.”
It had been over six hours since Nigel received the message from Collective Systems. The message would be expiring soon.
“Mom? Ralphie?” Good, no one home. Need to sideload the app on the phone, then confirm the assignment, Nigel thought.
Nigel got to the bedroom he shared with his brother Ralphie and emptied the bottom desk drawer to pull out the laptop hidden there. He plugged his phone into the laptop, which made it possible for him to install apps without the overwatch of the app store. The process was quite arduous and required specialized knowledge and software, but finally it worked.
“There, done,” Nigel said.
“What’s done?” Ralphie said.
Ralphie must have sneaked up on him during the sideloading process.
“Nothing, just updating my phone.”
“Oh, I think my phone needs to be updated, too. I got all these texts asking me to vote.”
“You got a phone? How?”
“Dad got it for me for my birthday.”
“Let me see it.”
Ralphie tossed his phone to Nigel. There were hundreds of text messages reminding Ralphie to vote. Each message was sent from a unique reply address, which made a mess of sifting through all the messages. However, the message that caught his eye referenced mobile voting.
“That’s strange. You are way too young to vote.”
“Tell
me about it. The texts keep interrupting my game.”
“Turn on your ‘do not disturb’ feature; it will stop the text notifications.”
Nigel tossed the phone back to Ralphie as he continued to fiddle with his own phone project.
Cassidy’s study session was interrupted by a series of texts which came in rapid succession. Cassidy opened the text from her brother, Milo, first.
“With Nige, be back before dinner.”
Milo always does this, Cassidy thought. He forgets about Husky, and I have to walk him.
Cassidy closed her bedroom door and started looking for Husky’s leash. Milo usually got home before Cassidy, and it was his responsibility to walk him. Alice, their mother, was very insistent about it, but Cassidy almost always covered for her little brother.
Husky was lying by the door, head drooping. The dog rarely messed in the house, but Cassidy didn’t think it was fair that the dog wait longer than necessary. She hooked the leash on Husky’s collar, put her headphones in, and left the house for an extended walk.
About twenty minutes into the walk, a series of beeps interrupted Cassidy’s music on the phone.
“My stupid phone is exploding,” Cassidy muttered.
Hundreds of texts were displayed on her phone: “Don’t forget to Vote,” or “Vote using mobile.”
Chapter 13
Alexander Vandervoss needed to borrow some programming talent from his friend, Alexei Breven. What Alexander wants Alexei provides, Alexei chuckled as he pulled a red cell phone out of his desk drawer and dialed Viktor.
“Boss, how can I help you?”
“Pretzelverse needs additional programming talent. I need freelancers. I don’t care about backgrounds or criminal pasts. I just need raw talent to help with a few projects.”
“Consider it done. Please send the details the usual way.”
“Thanks, Viktor.”
Viktor orchestrated an operation known as Project Walled Garden. The project got its name because Viktor distributed the code via USB sticks within walls scattered around the globe.