Probe

by Douglas E Roff

  Adam nodded in appreciation and left.

  Adam and Misti returned to their flat with Alana. Adam carried his new friend up the front stairs past their MI-5 minders as they looked on. They knew something consequential had happened today, but they had been instructed to mind their own business. So long as the McCarthy woman was safe, their job was done.

  Vera wouldn’t speak of what had happened in her life to have caused such pain, except once to Hannah, Alana and Misti. Then, never again. Within days after her final telling, had she been asked about it, she would have had no reply. The events were simply gone from her memory, erased. Vanished as if they had never even taken place.

  Alana told her story to Hannah and Vera, though once spoken it too was never raised again. Eventually Adam and Alana finished the repairs first begun in Hawaii, and eventually those memories, too, disappeared from her consciousness.

  Alana and Vera became more than best friends and occasional lovers. They shared a special bond, a unique personal insight into the true significance of a great evil that few could ever have experienced, survived, and then overcome.

  Adam, however, would find no peace, not on this day nor ever after. Misti would never leave his side nor inquire too deeply into Adam’s reasons for his solitary suffering, even when, as today, she wished to share the burden Adam believed God Himself had placed upon him.

  Adam would tell her that he only ever needed her love and strength to sustain him. With that, he could manage the rest.

  Chapter 27

  The Project Team meeting began promptly at nine the following morning. Edward had promised to get them out by noon, so they could spend the rest of the day and the next few days talking amongst themselves about teams and tasks before they went their separate ways. Adam wanted to depart immediately following the conclusion of the meeting on a personal errand and asked if Hannah could spare James for the afternoon. He’d be back by dinner then he had an important social obligation with Noki that evening and wanted to talk to her before then. Perhaps the four girls, Noki and Adam could all dine together at the Residence?

  Hannah told him that yes, he could borrow James for the day and yes, they could all meet up for dinner. Noki was a great dinner companion and she and Vera often dined with her. Normally though, Noki most often took her meals alone in her apartment and generally kept to herself. She rarely interacted with the rest of Team Hannah, preferring to take her responsibilities to stay close to her boss almost literally.

  “OK everyone, please get seated. I have already given each of you your individual assignments and team packets. If you haven’t had a chance to study the information, please take the time to do so today. Tomorrow I want to discuss first projects and priorities with each of you and I have given you a revised schedule of those meetings. I’ll meet with each of you here in the Tech Centre.”

  Adam asked his father where Rod and Cindy were, and he explained they had been unavoidably detoured on some other pressing project business, then would be returning directly to Barrows Bay. However, he assured everyone they had been thoroughly briefed and were up to speed on all personnel and tasks and would be meeting each on the assembled Project Team when and as required.

  “The purpose of today’s get-together is to review the big picture tasks you each have been assigned and to have an overview of Team members, their roles and the degree of interconnected multitasking you will each have to do.

  “A good place for us to start is with Dr. Edmund McCarthy, one of our newest Team members. Edmund is a physicist most recently teaching and researching at UCSD. His current interest is in quantum mechanics, particularly as applied to the new and emerging field of quantum computing. Our interest in this part of his work relates to quantum encryption, which of course leads us to Tawney and Marcus Thierry. They, along with the Drs. Detwiler in Lansdowne Park, will broadly be working on both encryption as well as decryption tasks. We’ll come back to them in a moment.

  “Edmund wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on thermal dynamics and spent years as a researcher in the field. In addition, he has been involved in research related to the physics of light detection, two very significant aspects of our search for the Gens, both as transformed and in natural state. The Gens in natural state are practically invisible, but Dr. McCarthy believes he can optically detect them, both in natural and transformed state.

  “Hannah has made a very important discovery based on work that Misti recently completed in Barrows Bay relating to a unique aspect of Gens physiology. Based on that information, Edmund will be returning to Barrows Bay when we’re done here to work with Maria and Agustin on two engineering projects related to identification and detection of Gens.

  “Team Hannah has been tasked with three important and equally high priority tasks.

  “First is compiling an assessment or profile of the Gens Collective from an anthropological perspective. Who they are, history, social and political organization, religious and moral outlook, and so on. This work will never end but Hannah and her team will be looking for aspects that will help us find, study and negotiate with them on a needs/wants basis. Strategy around potential negotiations and analysis of their possible objectives will be undertaken by Bethy McQueen and assisted by the predictive modeling undertaken by Bitsie Tolan in Portland and Adam St. James in Barrows Bay.

  “Second, Team Hannah will attempt to ascertain the locations of the Seven Great Libraries, along with an understanding of what is in them and why they exist. This will involve Misti in translations, and Adam and Alana in data mining and research. Her team will not undertake any field work to physically locate the Libraries; that work will fall to Rod and Cindy Suarez and their field teams.

  “Third, Team Hannah will attempt to ascertain the locations of all of the Gens Preserves globally and the locations of their many preferred wilderness areas. Again, Team Hannah will cooperate with Misti, Alana and Adam as previously mentioned and, again, the Team Suarez field teams will do the actual field work.

  “Adam will work with all Teams, and all individuals on just about all tasks. His primary duties will be to write code for the engineering projects undertaken by Edmund, Maria, and Agustin. He will conduct all DL Main related research, assisting both Hannah and Misti, as well as all other teams needing its massive computing power.

  “In addition, Misti will be my second in command. Her tasks are threefold; first, undertake and coordinate all translations and coordinate with Team Thierry on encryptions/decryptions. Adam will coordinate with Misti in translating documents in modern or well-known ancient languages from the Library using the DL Main. Second, coordinate with Team Hannah by providing data for analysis by Hannah and her team. I will assist with this as will the rest of Team Hannah. Third is to coordinate, manage and track all team assignments, progress, and reporting, including field team assignments and data recovery.

  “Resource requests should be made to Vera for Europe and the rest of the world, or to Misti for North America. If there are sensitivities surrounding equipment deliveries to specific foreign countries, requests should be channeled through Bethy McQueen.

  On a final housekeeping note, complaints and conflicts should be resolved internally by Team Leaders and then through Misti finally to me. I expect conflict resolution issues never to reach my desk.

  “Team Thierry will work with the Drs. Detwiler on the encryption/decryption tasks and coordinate with Misti and Adam for computer time on the DL Main and on results. Results will be then handed off to appropriate teams, research, or field. Tawney will undertake work in Statistical Mechanics with Edmund, while Marcus will focus on specific decryptions with the Drs. Detwiler.

  “Team Alana will be comprised of Alana and Adam primarily with Misti coordinating results. They will focus on two ongoing and key areas related directly to the Gens Collective, capturing their research activities and the traffic in communications. Alana in turn will coordinate with both Team Hannah and Misti, Adam and me in intelligence gatheri
ng generally, and with Team Suarez tracking the Gens in the field.

  “Her two areas of responsibility will be to access and monitor Gens activity in their research facilities, corporate offices and field teams. She will accomplish this by hacking into their global communications network and planting software provided by her and/or Adam that will allow us to listen in at all times. In addition, she will scour the digital Gens world to see what they have built that can be accessed and access it. This also includes general Gens communication with the Collective in general as well as with their brethren in the field at Preserves or in the wild. Her second task will be to provide false information and disinformation either by manipulating and altering data in their possession, or by providing new false information, or by allowing the Gens to obtain new, altered or false information we want them to have. False leads, disinformation, and misdirection.

  “Done properly and professionally, the Gens will never have any idea what the source of their information/disinformation is. Where air gapped intranets are concerned, Team Suarez and Team Maria will provide the hardware/software tools that have been used so effectively at the facility in Princeton. If anyone is unsure about what the Princeton project was, email me and I’ll send you the field report.

  “Team Maria will be comprised of Maria and Agustin, Edmund and Adam. Team Maria is tasked with developing the tools for the physical detection of the Gens both in transformed and natural states. We need to be able both to “see” them and distinguish between a transformed Gens, a natural state Gens, a human being and some other stray mammal in the vicinity with similar biological markers.

  “Maria has been provided with data from Misti, and confirmed by Hannah, that the normal core body temperature of a Gens in either natural or transformed states is approximately three to three and one-half degrees higher than the average core body temperature of a human being. Thus, calibrating thermal imagers and other similar instrumentation can provide us with preliminary and potential ID of natural state and transformed Gens. Although not foolproof, it will, in most cases, lead to an easier and more accurate identification and classification of various mammalian species. In natural state, instrumentation need only be calibrated to core body temperature of Gens, then further distinguished by size and the temperature of other animals.

  “A secondary project is to be undertaken by Agustin and Edmund, utilizing the physics of light and the chemical properties of animals having the ability to change coloration and blend in. Agustin has elected to focus on the cuttlefish as the most promising analog to what the Gens describe as their most potent adaptation, that of blending into the background of their immediate environment in such a way as to be virtually invisible.

  “To that end, Agustin has requested a large supply of cuttlefish, an aquarium and a blender.”

  Everyone laughed, although it would probably seem far less funny to a cuttlefish, had they been asked.

  “Team Maria will also be involved in the development of the weaponry that we envision using in the event we need to engage the Gens.”

  Adam spoke up. “Which will be what exactly?”

  “Maria has designed a weapon that will fire a projectile …”

  “A bullet?”

  “No, a projectile that separates into other smaller programmable projectiles and finally into a nasty little bugger about the size of buckshot. It can be programmed to change shape to a bullet, penetrate the target and either explode or inject a toxin upon contact. Or, when it hits a target body, it can flatten and attach to the epidermis of the target. It can then quickly analyze the heat signature and chemical properties of the skin, then do one of two things. Depending upon how it’s armed, it can explode, killing the target, or it can inject a toxin to incapacitate.

  “In addition, it can probe and sense DNA markers to determine whether the target is human, Gens or other. One case will result in death; in the other, incapacity for identification. We simply need to know who’s who. Whether it does anything at all depends on programming and is the same nanotechnology employed so effectively in Princeton by Team Suarez. This is simply an adaptation of materials to needs and use requirements. Of course, Maria is essential to engineering the pellet design, functionality, and delivery systems.

  “Maria has begun extensive research with her own team of outside researchers on nano-coupling, applied materials, nanostructure, organic nanostructure and quantum information of light. Obviously, there are overlaps for both Edmund and Agustin.

  “Edmund will be working exclusively hereafter in Barrows Bay.”

  Adam asked, “Where are we on the project?”

  “Beyond the conceptualization phase at present, but not near readiness. However, our ramp up is measured in months not years for most aspects, including those most lethal. Other more nuanced functionality is in the design phase. The availability of Edmund and his background together with his hands-on engineering skills are a lucky break for the project. Between what Alana can do, and what Edmund can do we have advanced our project by decades. Once we get the Gens language deciphered and any encryption mysteries solved, then we will know everything we need to know.”

  Adam asked, “Then?”

  “Then we have a powwow about War and Peace with Paulo and the leadership of the Gens Collective. Perhaps when presented with the overwhelming advantage we possess in numbers, expertise and lethality, they will halt whatever course they’re presently on. Hopefully that will generate an opportunity for Bethy to develop terms and a negotiation posture based on the work done by Hannah and her Team along with behavior modelling by Bitsie Tolan.

  “That leaves two more items. As I hinted at earlier, Bitsie Tolan will be working with Team Hannah and Team Suarez on predictive modeling based on known parameters and available data. Her work is still off in the distance, so she will, for the immediate time being, be working with Adam and Alana on DL Main security and data mining. The software to process the immense amounts of data and capture useful information about the Collective cannot all fall to Adam alone. Bitsie is fully on board with our project and will assist where possible. Our hope is that Alana will find ways to shorten these tasks and focus on more highly relevant data by understanding what the Gens themselves have deemed to be important. Eavesdropping on their communications, and meetings will likely be important drivers to our success.

  “That leaves a final word on Team Suarez. Rod and Cindy departed yesterday for Princeton. They will detain several Gens on their way to work or on the way home to secure blood, saliva and other organic specimens for further research in identifying new ways to detect and differentiate humans and Gens. These will be disguised as common street crimes and no real harm will come to the intended targets.”

  “How many samples?”

  “No more than eight individual Gens working at the Princeton Lab, who will be tracked from home to Lab and then back home again. We will approach opportunistically and incapacitate the targets for less than ninety seconds over two successive days to minimize suspicion. Once we know the locations of the other Gens Labs in the US and Canada we intend to secure additional samples and verify results against the Princeton specimens.”

  Edward carried on explaining additional new projects but then decided that the team members should break out to discuss team building, and the mechanics of task undertaking, assignment, and management. They would spend the next several days in consultation, but by the end of the week they would all go their separate ways.

  ***

  Adam cornered Noki on his way out with James to confirm she was coming to dinner at the Residence that evening, and she was otherwise still wanted to collect on her reward. Adam was looking forward to the evening but detected some new reticence from Noki.

  “Let’s talk when you get back,” she said. “I have to admit that I’m not as progressive or forward thinking as you, and the Gang of Four, so I’m feeling a little uncomfortable. But my curiosity is strong; Misti says I’m being too old fashion
ed, and that I should just explore the experience and think no more of it afterward. Still, I want to talk to you about this first, so off you go for now and I’ll see you at dinner.”

  There is something about this woman, Adam thought. Something…

  He quickly banished any further thoughts in favor of the task ahead. Misti and Alana had gotten Edward to approve their new work plan; Adam had decided to take it one step further. He hoped the girls would approve; his plan was simply an extension of what needed to be done for the safety and security of the Teams. The Residence was a great interim residential solution, but it was a security nightmare.

  The girls would giggle in delight, and he would be a hero again. He hoped so anyway.

  Chapter 28

  When the daily session with Edward ended and Adam had departed with James on his secret mission, the girls, now formally dubbed the Gang of Four by Edward, crossed the hall to the Residence intending lunch and strategic session for future activities. They invited Noki, as she seemed somewhat stressed with recent events as well as her upcoming date with Adam.

  While Noki might be many things, being forward thinking on matters of men and sexuality, shyness and modesty, and new and adventuresome erotic pleasures wasn’t among them. Noki was quite conventional and happily so. She liked men. She liked romance. She liked the idea that one day she would be a mom with a couple of kids of her own.

  Period.

  She was fine with the goings on in, and around the project with Adam and the Gang of Four but merely as an observer. She found the whole situation more than a tiny bit odd and a tiny bit uncomfortable but well within her ability to tolerate human conduct from a safe, non-involved distance. Noki considered herself a non-judgmental observer of the human condition, and a woman interested in expanding her somewhat narrowly defined comfort zone, but incrementally and not without strict boundaries. College and her stint in the military helped expand the horizons of her own personal and professional capabilities, but her cultural and ethnic sexual boundaries were well established and deeply ingrained.