by Nick Thacker
Reggie jumped up when they arrived near the table. “Ben, Julie, I’d like to introduce you to Mrs. E.” He flicked his gaze from one side to the other, waiting for all three to shake hands. “She’s here on behalf of her husband, Mr. E.”
Julie watched Ben’s face and tried not to laugh. They’d already shared with each other their versions of what the enigmatic and paranoid ’Mr. E’ might be like, but each portrayal had just ended up devolving into a hilarious charade of acting out their favorite movie villains.
To see the Mrs. E, in the flesh, didn’t make it any easier to keep a straight face. The woman standing nearby was like a real-life Wonder Woman. Julie even thought she could see veins popping on her sinewy arms.
Julie’s eyes fell to the floor at a last attempt to keep her sanity.
“Please, have a seat,” Reggie said, motioning to two empty chairs at the table. Ben waited for Julie, pulled her chair out for her, then sat down next to her. Mrs. E remained standing. She walked over to a TV on a rolling cart that waited at the edge of the room and pulled it over closer to the table.
Up to now she hadn’t spoken a word, so Julie was surprised at the low-pitched voice and slightly exotic accent from the woman standing in front of her. “Please forgive my husband for his unwillingness to travel. He prefers a more exclusive arrangement.”
Nods all around, and Mrs. E continued. “My name is Mrs. E. My husband, Mr. E, and I are the sole owners of a large multinational communications corporation. We have interests in many sectors, but our most lucrative enterprise is currently in the technological sector.”
Julie glanced at Ben, but couldn’t read his face. Does this make sense to you? she wondered.
“Mr. E has been waiting for your arrival. Please allow my husband to explain further.”
Isabella stepped away from the front of the table and paused, as if waiting for applause. Finally she sat down next to Reggie. The TV flickered to life.
“Hello,” a man said. His voice sounded as lifeless as the box it was emanating from, and he sounded like he was reading a script. “As my wife said, my name is Mr. E. It is a pleasure to meet you.” Another pause, this one far too long.
Was that a joke? Julie wondered. She frowned.
“Thank you for traveling here to meet. I hope you find the accommodations to your taste. The Broadmoor has been a favorite of ours for many years. If you need anything, do not hesitate to ask the staff.”
The man speaking to them looked to be twice the age of Mrs. E, but he didn’t necessarily look old. He sported more wrinkles, short-cropped gray hair, and a style of clothing that looked like it might fit better in the Middle Ages than in modern society. He blinked too much, giving him the appearance of being unsure, shaky.
“I have asked for your presence here today because I need your help. As my wife explained, we own a large telecommunications company and many smaller subsidiaries, including startups and midsize communications organizations.
“We have been following your recent excursions in Brazil, and I have read up on the Yellowstone incident as well. I know you are tracking a company that calls themselves ‘Draconis Industries,’ and I believe I can help locate them.”
Reggie looked at Julie, then at Ben. She couldn’t read his face, but it seemed to be a mix of ‘I told you so’ and ‘here we go again.’
Mr. E continued his monologue. “I have been personally invested in finding the company’s backers and leadership as well, and have employed some of my best minds to track them down.”
He opened his mouth to start again, but Ben jerked his head sideways. “Yeah? What’s in it for you?” he said under his breath, toward Julie, Joshua, and Reggie.
The man onscreen stopped, and cleared his throat. Mrs. E explained. “This is a digital recorder and one-way cellular device,” she said, poking at a small rectangular object on the table in front of them. “You can hear my husband’s voice, and he can hear yours.”
Ben’s eyebrows raised as Mr. E answered his question. “My company intercepted communication two days ago that we believe originated from Draconis Industries. The reason I care — to answer your question — is that they have been hijacking my communications technology and encrypting their messages. It should not come as a surprise to you that they are using my company’s services without paying for them.”
“What do you mean, they’re ‘using your technology?’” Joshua asked.
The man shook his head quickly, clearly not wanting to be interrupted. “What I mean is that they are using my satellite.”
“Your company owns a satellite?” Julie asked.
“No,” Mrs. E said. “We own a satellite.”
“We have been contracted to provide communications, including telephone and internet access, for the entire establishment of US-based Antarctic research stations.”
Julie’s eyes widened. How much money do these guys have?
“We purchased the satellite from Lockheed Martin years ago, but have continued the same relationship with the US research stations, specifically the Amundsen-Scott and McMurdo stations.”
Reggie blew a breath of air out of his mouth. “You think Draconis Industries is on Antarctica?”
CHAPTER five
No one spoke for a few seconds. Finally Mr. E turned slightly, still looking at the camera. “I know they are on Antarctica. We have the origination point of the primary signal, and it is coming from McMurdo Station.”
“So you’re telling us you think Draconis Industries is headquartered inside a United States research base?” Ben asked.
“Not exactly,” Mrs. E said. “We believe they are using the station’s already existing network to send and receive encrypted signals from our satellite, but the station itself does not know about it. We are still searching for a source, as we suspect that even though McMurdo seems to be the origination and termination point there is another route the signal is passed to once it reaches the continent.”
“Yes,” Mr. E continued. “We began looking at the transportation records as well, which would be more difficult to fake. After all, if someone is down there using our satellite to communicate, they would need basic necessities — fuel, food, etc.”
“And did you find anything?” Julie asked.
“We did. The McMurdo-South Pole Highway from McMurdo to Amundsen-Scott carries caravans of equipment, supplies, oil, and anything else needed from one US-operated base to the other, but some of these caravans over the time we’ve been watching have gone “missing.” They don’t appear on the receiving log, and the only record of them is in McMurdo’s encrypted logs of dispatched traffic.”
“Hold on a second,” Reggie said. “There’s a highway in Antarctica?”
“There is. It was finished in 2006, and it’s essentially a flattened strip of snow that carries transport vehicles 1,000 miles to the South Pole and back. Anyway, these caravans are not easy to lose — the vehicles are usually self-driven, following a pre-determined route and GPS coordinates. There would just need to be someone on the ground at McMurdo altering records to allow a few of them to be redirected.”
“Who would alter the records? These are scientists we’re talking about, right?”
“Actually, no. Most of the personnel at these stations are support crew, not scientists and associated field professionals. They aren’t paid at nearly that level, which makes them the sort of people who could be ‘bought off’ easily. It wouldn’t take much money at all to order someone to reroute some self-driving vehicles to another destination, especially if that caravan returned to McMurdo empty, right on schedule. There aren’t a lot of people needed in that whole arrangement, and it would allow for an almost limitless supply of stuff.
“Furthermore, the US’ shrinkage policy for Antarctic bases includes a massive amount of wiggle room: there’s a built-in expectation that some of the equipment will go unaccounted for, and even if there wasn’t, someone who’s got some experience with supply-chain logistics — or just a decent computer
program — could put together a believable stream of transportation hiccups.”
Reggie pinched the crown of his nose. “Okay, fine. But you mentioned a few people helping them out on the McMurdo side, but there would be a lot more, just to build this ‘secret base,’ and there would have to be a way to get them onto the continent.”
Mr. E started nodded even before Reggie finished the question. “Yes, and the Hercules LC-130 flies there regularly and can land on skis. Get someone in the right ATC job to ‘forget’ to record the takeoff, and you’ve got a free plane full of supplies and personnel that can land anywhere that’s flat and covered in snow. And there are plenty of flat places covered in snow in Antarctica.”
“And how do you know it’s Draconis doing all of this?” Ben asked.
Mrs. E turned to address Ben’s question. “The communication we found originating from there was using the name ‘Dragonstone.’”
“…And Dragonstone seems to fit the requirements for your enigmatic company,” Mr. E added. “Mysterious, interested in keeping themselves out of sight, and has a name related to the word ‘Dragon.’”
Ben had to agree — the company, if it was in fact named ‘Dragonstone,’ sounded like the sort of organization he’d been chasing.
“It’s them,” Joshua said. Even the man on the television screen seemed to turn to look at Joshua. “My father spoke of work they were pushing in Antarctica. They had a subsidiary there, focused on establishing a working relationship with numerous US and European stations on the continent. I wasn’t aware of the details, but it seems like they may have bypassed the ‘working relationships with other stations’ altogether. I have no idea what it is they’re doing down there, but I have no doubt it’s the same company.”
“So what do you need from us?” Reggie asked Mr. E.
“We need you to go see what they’re building,” he said.
CHAPTER six
“I know all about what ‘going to see’ entails,” Reggie said, “and I’m not sure I’m interested.”
Reggie wore a half-smile on his face. One side of his mouth curled slightly upward, giving the impression that he was confident, yet concerned. He watched Mr. E’s reaction on the screen as the man listened to Reggie’s response. Rather than addressing Reggie’s hesitation, he waited even longer.
Ben caught Reggie’s eye, and he stared at his friend at the table.
“Okay,” Reggie says, “Fine. I’m interested, but that doesn’t mean I’m going. And I’m speaking for all of us here.” He looked at the television screen. “If you would have told me this before I flew to Alaska to grab the lovebirds, I’d have just skipped the trip and told you to find someone else. Besides, why not send someone else? I mean — no offense, guys — we can’t be the best you’ve got.”
“You’re not,” Mr. E said, without skipping a beat. “I’m sending a private security force: eight well-trained, very well-equipped soldiers, down there too. We’ve been scanning an area one hundred miles from McMurdo, after an electrical spike caught our attention there, and we suspect that there are other parties that might be interested in whatever’s out there. We assume any threats to be hostile, so it is in our best interest to have a contingency plan in case things get hot. But I need more than just soldiers — I need specialists. And I can’t just start asking around my own network. It’s hard to find anyone in the real world who actually believes this organization exists, so if I start trying to persuade people to go on a wild goose chase to the South Pole my reputation goes downhill fast.
“So you’re it. You’re not familiar with the geography, but one of my men is, and he’ll brief you as needed. I need something from each of you, though.”
Reggie waited for him to explain.
“Juliette, you’re an IT and communications pro. You’re going to need to figure out why — and how — they’re using so much data, and then you’re going to try to stop them. I can’t imagine they’re doing anything legal with it. And even if they are, I’m not being paid for it.
“Joshua, you will lead this group. You’ll split your duties with Red, but you’ll be in charge of the operation once you’re wheels-up. We won’t have a way to communicate reliably, so I’m leaving the on-the-ground decisions to you.”
Ben frowned. “Who’s Red?”
He looked around the group and his eyes landed on Reggie, who was grinning from ear to ear. “I’d hoped to break the news to them myself, E.”
Mr. E didn’t even acknowledge Reggie as he answered, as if reading from a script. “Red, Gareth. Gareth Red is ex-Special Forces, Army —“
“Yeah, yeah, we got it,” Reggie said. “They know my history.” He turned to the group. “They called me ‘Red, G,’ a few times and ‘Reggie’ stuck. Sorry, just easier to call me Reggie.”
Julie rolled her eyes, and Ben and Joshua shook their heads.
“Anyway,” Mr. E said, still oblivious to the humor. “My wife will also be joining you, and she is every bit as capable as she looks. Expert in Krav Maga and Russian Systema, and she knows her way around a weapon — doesn’t matter what kind.”
Ben waited, knowing Mr. E would address him next.
“Harvey,” Mr. E began, “though the others around the table and my own team provide the bulk of the required skill sets, this is your fight. If Juliette decides to accept the arrangement, I expect you will be inclined to come along, and I can’t convince you to stay behind. But you have resilience and grit, and that’s something I can’t buy. Do whatever the group needs, and help Julie get it done.”
Reggie nodded as he watched Ben’s reaction. Better than ‘go back home and be a park ranger,’ he thought.
Ben sat back in the chair, sniffed in a deep inhalation, crossed his arms, then nodded.
CHAPTER seven
This is not going to work, he thought. It never works.
He ran the subroutine once again, took a sip of coffee, and waited the two minutes for the compiled code to finish.
It didn’t work.
Johnathan Colson sighed, pushing the glasses back up on his nose. His shirt was wrinkled, having been pressed tightly between his ever-expanding stomach and the desk for the better part of a day. The desk was one of the new ‘standing desks’ that were all the rage for some of the younger employees on the upper levels, who swore they helped them lose weight and stay fit.
Colson was still slightly overweight, in all the wrong places. Shirtless he looked like a pear, growing wide quickly at the waist then narrowing out at the shoulders. With a shirt on, he looked like a grown-up nerd, glasses constantly sliding down his face and the barely-tucked-in Oxford far baggy enough to satisfactorily hide his fruit-shaped body and, apparently, himself when in the presence of the opposite sex.
He had been working on the problem for a week, and nothing he tried had led anywhere. The subroutine was one of many, all pieces of a much, much larger network of subroutines and computer programs, all fired contextually and dynamically when requested. In some ways the program itself was no different than a modern-day video game: the user interfaced with the program and selected from a series of variables that led to different outcomes. Some games took this to a complex level, adding in a choose-your-own-adventure flair that made the game more organic, alive.
For him, games followed a story arc: they had a defined beginning, middle, and end, and it was usually clear where in the story he was. Some games took the player down unforeseen turns, leading to dead ends or serendipitous discoveries, while others were as straightforward as ‘kill the bad guys until the big bad guy at the end is dead.’
Jonathan Colson had grown up playing video games, so the analogy was apt, but it eventually fell short. At a certain point, his subroutines had grown to a size large enough to dwarf the entire code library of the most complex video game, and still these ‘smaller’ programs were intended to be a subset of the whole. The ‘whole,’ in this case, was something vague, ethereal, and not understood by anyone he’d ever talked to.
There were a few other programmers at the station, but he was the team lead for a small library of subroutines that were involved with the processing of what could only be described as ‘the world’s largest computer program.’ Hundreds of outsourced programmers and developers — even designers, he was told — had been tapped to script creative solutions to the problems the company had hired them for. Jonathan’s job, when he wasn’t busy fixing bugs, was culling through this database of scripts and pulling out the promising ones.
He reached over to the cup of cold coffee siting on the edge of the desk without looking up from the screen. His fingers brushed the cup, knocking it off the edge and onto the floor. The smooth, hard floor promptly turned the styrofoam cup of cold liquid into an empty cup of liquid, sending the coffee outward and onto two neighboring desks.
He cursed, stood up, and walked away from his desk to find a Support Services team member. The company had instructed its employees to focus on their own skill sets. No senior leadership should be weighted down with management-level human resources decisions, no salaried employee should take security matters into their own hands, and, in Jonathan’s case, no programmers should clean up their own coffee spills.
Colson swerved over to the closest intercom stand and picked up the phone. It was an archaic communications piece; a phone so old he was surprised he didn’t have to turn a dial to call a number.
The computerized operator at the other end answered immediately.
“Yes, this is Jonathan Col — sorry, employee 739 — I need a cleanup on Level 7, main floor. Yes.”