neural.coder 0x0A
We see things from the Agency's point of view for the first time. How close are they to finding Geoff and Jenn?
Missed the beginning? Go back and read the first chapter.
Imelda Marsh sat at her desk in her windowless, yet tastefully lit office. Her position as head of the London branch of her agency demanded the added security of an office with no exterior walls. She flipped through the final pages of a printed and bound report, running down the page and across lines with her left index finger. Reaching the end of the final page, she snapped the leather-bound covers shut. Taking her business suit jacket from the back of her chair, she slipped it on, leaned over her desk and pressed a virtual button on a sleek embedded screen.
“Send in The Watchtower.”
She sat down as the door opened, a woman strode in, late thirties, taller than average, wearing a similarly plain functional business suit.
“Ma’am?”
“Shoreditch Lucia, what the fu…,” Marsh stopped herself, breathing in, mentally counting to five. “Apologies Lucia.”
Lucia Sinclair stopped precisely one metre from the desk. She always did. Every time. She acknowledged the apology with a simple nod.
“Lucia, I’ve read this report the Machine wrote, it’s his usual dry military speak.”
Pete MacHinery was a recent hire, head of the tactical acquisitions team. Everyone called him ‘The Machine’ since his ID card had been misprinted with a lowercase ‘h’ in his surname. The nickname had stuck fast. He’d been here nearly half a year and hadn’t really settled. He wasn’t a good team fit, in Marsh’s opinion.
Lucia, on the other hand, was a perfect fit, precise, professional, and she believed in their mission. In her position as the Watchtower, she was Marsh’s second in command and in-charge of all field agents, including MacHinery and his team.
“Please,” Marsh said, “tell me in your own words what went wrong in Shoreditch.”
“Yes Ma’am,” Lucia said, “Outside forces, that we had not anticipated, interfered with the final stages of the operation.”
“The operation Lucia? It’s your operation, claim it.”
“My operation, yes,” she nodded, “A woman we’ve not been able to identify came out of nowhere and blindsided the whole plan. Facial recognition shows zero hits for her, she had no IMEI ping, nothing. We simply don’t know who she is. Not visually, not electronically.”
Marsh nodded, “Whoever she is, she outsmarted the Machine and his team, his report makes her sound like a super-human opponent.”
“Not quite. Aggressive, yes, but she got lucky, caught them with their trousers down ma’am.” Lucia paused, consulting her tablet, “I’d like to discuss Stalinsky first.”
“Go on, tell me about your investigation.”
“I had a meal with him and his flatmate.”
“Wooing your way into target’s lives again? I thought you didn’t do field work any more.”
“I felt this one was important ma’am. The trick he pulled with his bank balance shouldn’t be possible without a single trace of evidence it happened, and then when I was in the field we had an update that he’d won the lottery.”
“Hacked the lottery?”
“No, it is not possible to hack the results, they still use balls and machines. The regular numbers he plays, came out fair and square.”
“Miraculous then?”
“That was my thought, given how he’d surfaced on our radar already. He didn’t tell his flatmate about the lottery during our meal, so he felt it worth hiding, must have had a hand in it. I was able to dig into what he’s been working on, read between the lines a little. He’d made some great leaps forward in what was possible with a brain computer interface. Great leaps.”
“You suspect something?”
“Yes, I think the Salieri Conjecture is in play.”
“You’re saying he’s category one Inspired? It’s been over a decade since the last.”
“All signs point to that possibility, in my opinion.”
Category one Inspired was rare, this would only be the second occurrence in Imelda Marsh’s tenure as Mother Superior here in London. Category one was the highest level. She preferred the new way of categorising Inspired subjects with simple numbers, not the old one that labelled them by the ranking of angels.
“Interesting, it’s incredibly disappointing that we’ve lost him, hopefully not for long?”
Lucia almost reacted to the admonishment, but you had to know her well to see the tiny signs.
“What about the woman then?” Marsh said.
“She’s a pro, difficult to track, always keeps her face hidden, avoids areas with cameras. We did a historic search and found very few results. The earliest is from eleven days ago, no sign of her before then.”
“How’s that even possible? Did she recently fly in from some surveillance free backwater?”
“It makes no sense, we’re looking into it.” Lucia held up her tablet, “The most intriguing footage is this video from a paramedic’s body-cam. You can see her leaving the scene of an accident just as the paramedics arrive. The accident victim is one Geoffrey Stalinsky.”
“So they’ve met before?”
“Briefly. Cameras in the area captured the accident,” she flicked from the previous video to a new one. The camera gave a wide view of a road junction, a side road joining the main. A young man on a bicycle entered the frame from the left, cycling sedately along the main road. On the side road, a small hatchback approached the give-way line, slowing down. As the cyclist drew in-front, the hatchback seemed to teleport about a half a meter forwards. Just enough to cause a collision.
“That stutter, not dropped frames?” Marsh asked.
“No Ma’am,” she replayed the clip slower, “If you look closely, Stalinsky does not move forward, and the time code stays constant. No dropped frames. That car was in one place, and then the next moment it was a significant distance further forward, resulting in a collision with Stalinsky.”
“Looks miraculous,” said Marsh, “this woman was the driver?”
“No, a random normal was driving.” Lucia flipped to a new video. “Our mystery woman was standing here on the other side of the street.” She pointed at her screen, where a hooded figure was leaning casually against a lamppost, clutching a supermarket carrier bag.
“What’s in the bag?”
Lucia flicked to a zoomed in freeze-frame. This is why Imelda had chosen her as her second in command, she was always one step ahead.
“It’s something boxy and bulky, but we can’t make it out.”
“Right…,” said Marsh, “Are you saying she caused this miracle? Are you saying she’s the category one here, and not Stalinsky?”
“Yes she may be, it’s either one of them for sure. Maybe it’s both?”
“Are you serious? You know the Conjecture as well as anyone in this organisation. There has never, ever been more than one category one at the same time,” she gestured to a chair against the wall, “Sit down Lucia and explain.”
Lucia picked up the chair and carried it to a central position in front of Marsh’s desk, placing it precisely square before sitting in it.
“It’s the only explanation for what we see here. The Archivists have examined Stalinsky’s computer and phone. They tell me there are fragments of software on there that seem able to, they said, ‘tweak the underlying fabric of creation’, which sounds terrifying.”
“Indeed. Could that explain the car’s actions, just software, not a miracle?”
“They say it’s entirely possible, maybe this woman has a similar setup. The software we have is incomplete, Stalinsky’s devices were damaged in the raid. The Archivists were able to pull copies of his files from cloud storage, and erase them as they went. Many of those recovered projects are also incomplete, it appears someone from Jamaica was also accessing and deleting files.”
“Stalinsky routing through Jamaica?”
“Most certainly, we have started the process of tracking that access back to a location. It will take time, but it should be possible given our global access.”
“You really don’t know where they are?”
“Not yet—we will. She can’t be that good, not as good as me.”
“I hope so,” Marsh said, “Get your voices on the ground scouring London for any sign. They can’t have gone far in the time.”
“Already on it ma’am,” Lucia said, showing the slightest of frowns.
Of course she was, she had every right to look insulted.
Lucia continued, “I’ll get to the bottom of how there can be two of them for you ma’am.”
“I’m still not sure if that’s possible, given the Conjecture. More importantly, we need to secure the talent they have been gifted, category one or not.”
“The current flows where we will, ma’am”
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I’m releasing this story as I write it and it’s the first novel length story I have ever released into the wild at the ripe old age of 50. If you like it then please let me know. If you hate it let me know as well. If you want to let loose theory crafting then do that too!
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