*
"Ms. Winter," a woman's voice reached Dallas over her mobile.
"You again?" Dallas disdainfully replied. "What do you want?"
"I've been trying to reach you live," Apex politely stated. "I would like to speak with you in person."
Dallas gripped her phone. "Who are you?"
"I'm a person with a battle to fight and I thought you, as a journalist, may be interested in knowing the details."
"What kind of battle?"
"One involving all of our rights and freedoms."
"Oh, sounds simple."
"It's not."
Dallas paused. "Okay where do you want to meet?"
"There's a coffee shop near your offices called the Conservatory."
"I know the place."
"Can you come there today at 2 pm?"
"Yes."
"Good, thank you."
"Wait. How will I know you?"
"I know you. See you this afternoon, Ms. Winter." The caller disconnected before Dallas could ask another question.
A few minutes before 2 pm, Dallas walked into the Conservatory ordered a macchiato and sat down at a table. A minute later a woman approached, placed a clear glass mug of green tea on the table and sat down across from her.
"Good afternoon, Ms. Winter," the woman said.
Instantly recognizing the voice from the phone calls, Dallas stared at an image matching none of her pre-conceived conceptions of the face behind the mysterious threats. The beautiful stranger was elegantly dressed in an expensive tailored suit. Briefly touching her immaculately combed back hair, she carefully placed a designer handbag on the chair next to her. "Good afternoon," she finally sputtered after soaking in the woman's exterior presentation from head-to-toe.
Ignoring the curious regard for her appearance, Apex asked, "May I call you Dallas?"
"Yes, sure."
"First I'm going to come clean and apologize for my earlier phone call. I did not mean to come off as the unrevealed antagonist of a suspenseful thriller."
"Oh I've forgotten about that already," Dallas lied, as she tried to reclaim her composure.
"You see this is a very fluid situation, and I did not want any incidents to occur that could move the needle one way or another."
"What situation?"
"The situation we are going to talk about. But first we need a common understanding. I am not speaking to you as a source for a journalist, you understand?"
"Yes."
"Do you have any recording devices turned on?"
"No," Dallas immediately answered.
"Were you planning to try and use one?"
"No, actually no."
"Okay, we're off to a good start. My interest in speaking to you is strictly to tap into your expertise about the media. The situation I'm going to tell you about is dangerous for the world, very dangerous. I would like to try and stop it, but I would need to understand how I could innovatively use media resources. I asked to meet with you to tap into your brainpower Dallas, not to enable you to write a story, you understand?"
"Okay."
"And you are okay with the ground rules?"
Dallas hesitated. "Depends on who you are and whether this situation you're referring to is real. If you're a credible person who is not wasting my time, yes I'm okay with the rules."
"I'm still going to tell you my name is Apex."
"Seriously?"
"I have good reason."
"Honestly you do not look like someone who operates under a spy name."
"Thanks I suppose. But I am a private person, extremely private and that is the crux of the developing situation we are facing."
"Okay what's the situation?"
"You remember the files you read on the flash drive you found at Infrared?"
"Yes of course. But how do you know I have that drive?"
"We have resources."
"Resources uncovering the late night discovery of a flash drive? That's a pretty specific task. Is someone looking for a missing drive or is it moving from hand to hand as you would have wanted?"
"I had nothing to do with how you obtained the drive."
"Okay, you didn't. But what about someone you know?"
"Not to my knowledge."
"You have no idea where those files originated?"
"Correct, I have no idea."
"Did you or someone you know follow Frez Tyler to my place the night the drive was found?"
Apex defiantly stared at Dallas. "Dallas, the content of those files, and more importantly, the broader story behind the creation of those documents is much more significant than the reason the drive was in the restaurant and ended up with you. I'm going to explain this to you and set a certain level of context, okay?"
Dallas narrowed her eyes, but gave up the fight for more details. "Okay."
"But you need to understand this information is beyond top secret. Think about a situation where information is not top secret, at the highest levels of the government but...from them. The people who control the content on the drive are working outside government circles—"
"Okay Apex, hold up right there. Do you know how many people in Washington are telling fantastical tales of government conspiracies every day?"
"Hundreds."
"Yes hundreds. So whatever you are about to say—"
"Marco Manuel took you blind-folded to an office complex in the northwest quadrant, correct?"
Fighting an urge to shudder, Dallas answered, "Yes."
"You could see the Potomac River from the office you were in?"
"Yes."
"People used biometric ID scanners to enter and exit?"
"Do you work in that building?"
"No."
"What do you do for a living?"
"I own privately-held Internet companies through a silent investors fund."
"Where do you live?"
"Both coasts, depending on my work."
"Would I have heard of you?"
"I hope not. I'm serious when I say I'm intensely private. I think we should all have the option to protect ourselves from prying eyes. I find our current online world absolutely incredible. Our default personal information, the only unique identifiers we have are data we cannot replace, and its being tossed around as bits on the Internet as if the facts were worthless."
"You work in online privacy?"
"Not really, but let me ask you, when you were in Manuel's building did you notice the ID scanners?"
"Yes."
"Had you ever seen similar office ID anywhere else in D.C.?"
Dallas considered the question. "No...no, I don't think so."
"What else did you notice?"
"Just a lot of serious people walking in and out."
"In and out of which building?"
"The one I was in."
"And the other buildings?" Dallas thought back to her brief glance out the window of Marco's office, and suddenly recalled there were no people entering or exiting the other buildings. "Dallas, did you see any people at the other buildings?"
"No...no, I don't think so."
"No, you wouldn't have because the other buildings are a server farm."
"Sorry?"
"Buildings designed strictly for housing servers for data processing."
"Office buildings for data processing servers?"
"Yes, the concept is actually a good idea. The buildings are skeletons, there are no services, just reinforced floors for the servers. Building vertically allows for much more space and the maintenance costs are low. You only need to keep the place cool and dry. Options by the way that are severely lacking in a D.C. summer."
"Yeah, no kidding."
"But that's not the point. The people who bought the complex needed temporary space. In early 2008, businesses were scheduled to occupy the buildings, but the original tenants crashed along with the rest of the economy so the purchasers paid almost nothing for a shell. They con
figured the incomplete structure for housing servers."
"Who were the purchasers?"
"Private investors."
"What are the servers doing?"
"Churning through data. Your data and the private information of millions of others. They are developing the most intrusive technology tool we will ever know."
"What?"
"A complete surveillance and data integration program code-named COSA." Dallas looked skeptical. "I know I am sounding like the conspiracy theorist again, but you have to understand Dallas, some conspiracies are real."
"Okay, tell me about COSA?"
"Imagine total surveillance of everyone's actions, physical and digital, all the time. As I mentioned, a beyond secret process has been set-up to lay the foundation for implementing COSA across the country, and around the world. And I mean actually laying a physical foundation. They are going to build more server farms capable of using facial and body recognition to search through surveillance footage to find anyone on earth."
"Body recognition?"
"Yes, how you move, walk, stand, swing your arms. They are looking to be able to use those features to confirm identity."
"Why?"
"To catch bad guys, national security, take your pick."
"You mean if they have a suspect, this system would look at all surveillance everywhere in the world to try and find him?"
"Yes that's about right."
"But that sounds okay. I mean law enforcement is probably already using similar technology, this city has cameras everywhere."
"No, no one is doing this level of surveillance now. Cameras here and everywhere are recording the activity wandering by. But if law enforcement wants to see the video they have to know which cameras to search for and who to ask for permission to obtain the recording after an incident has occurred. In the future, the process will be reversed. They will have a suspect first, put the name in the system, and using face and body movement records, receive a data feed displaying the current and past locations of the suspect."
"But that sounds okay too. What am I missing? They will be working from information about suspects and evidence they have already identified to catch bad guys."
"Yes but searching for criminals is only part of the plan. To confirm identity, surveillance will be directly tied to all of your online activity, which in the future will be everything you do. I'm not talking about surfing social media and buying from an online retailer. In the future, you'll have your entire home and work life on an integrated system designed to track you throughout the day. Your workplace will be tied into the system, capturing when you are working and the tasks you are completing. Online activities can be cross-referenced to your physical presence in the world as identified by the cameras and sensors. There should be no more false arrests, at least not based on time and location, because the cross referencing of information should pinpoint the exact suspect."
"Okay I can see how the intrusion is increasing, but still I'm thinking the idea of catching criminals bef—"
"The system would know you, all about you," Apex angrily continued. "If you always do online ordering at one store, but physically like to shop at another, the system captures both data points. Everything you buy, read, see, everyone you talk to, where you go. The data would be aggregated to create a profile for every American, and eventually everyone on earth."
"A data profile for everyone on earth?"
"Yes, the initial set-up will work through the school system, or I should say online access to mandatory primary and secondary education coursework." Apex leveled her voice. "Besides the issues of failing schools, bullying, teacher bias, and rising costs, there is a basic threat to economic growth from the inability of the public education system to adapt to labor market demand. Thinking people realize the shortage of technologists will destroy America's ability to compete. One way to address all of those issues is to provide an interactive online education from pre-K to 12th grade. The idea would be to make the entire curriculum plus advanced placement courses available as a totally immersive interactive program of lectures, books, tests, exercises and a suggested study schedule. Children could begin at any time they are ready to start learning. There would be no set school year, no defined beginning or end time. Parents could schedule the learning day exactly against the hours of their own working and commuting time, and continue through the summer or other holidays based on the family’s vacation plans. All the work a child does would be recorded. Instead of sitting in a classroom and being forced to learn at the pace of the weakest student in the room, each child would be operating at her own level. You could have a girl who is at an eighth grade math level, and a third grade reading level and that would be fine. Plus society would know, statistically at least, exactly how everyone is performing.
A lot of people will love the idea because more children could be tactically educated. Think of the desperate need for technologists, millions of unfilled jobs. But if the kind of kid who would be interested in a tech profession, the kid who can be on a computer all day, can succeed with an online education offering, those students can go through school quickly, qualify for higher learning and move into the working world. Silicon Valley may be the elite place to work, but America could use a dozen more high tech cities creating products tied to government or healthcare, policing and national security. We need ten times...if not 100 times more technologists than we have now. But there's no way we'll have the teachers available to make the push happen. And why should society wait for formally trained people to manage one classroom of 30 kids when we have the technology to move forward and have the same lecture series available to millions?
Education is a process used to provide a human with basic skills, such as reading and writing, required for operating in a modern civilization, and generating a common basis of information to be used as a foundation for future knowledge. Whether the objective is spread out over 2,000 leisurely days, or crammed into half that time, hardly makes any difference to the child’s eventual standing as an adult who has retained the information. Think about a process without the organizational, social and logistical headaches of forcing every child through a common school system dealing with teacher foibles and rising administrative costs. Online education may end up improving focus, accelerating learning, instantly updating to changing labor demands, and saving billions in salaries and infrastructure through one sweep of a keyboard. Even if a fraction of kids could complete the online-only curriculum, the savings would be enormous, and the benefit to those kids would be incalculable. The idea has solid appeal."
"But what about policing compliance? Kids would just cheat."
"You bring in controls. Instead of school buildings you would have study halls where paid monitors patrol the cubicles and maintain order. Of course every room would also have camera surveillance. A disruptive child could be removed and permanently ejected. For fraud detection, students could be required to report for testing at their current level, every 60 days or so, and if they fail to achieve a passing grade they would have to report to a traditional teaching environment for say, six months. The idea is to give parents and kids a level of learning flexibility no generation has ever had. The question will be: why are we relying on the whims of teachers when compliant computers could run the entire process for us?"
"What's the catch?"
"The catch is the battleground for a life online. Every child will end up surrendering their personal privacy and involuntarily creating reams of data for an online profile. A child's strengths and weaknesses would be automatically recorded and, one guesses, maybe an employer could have access to the information in the future. Also to make lessons more interactive, preferences would exist. For example if a student liked skiing, questions would relate to some form of skiing. But this preference would also be in the student's profile. The government and big business would know 'this kid likes skiing.' Suddenly your health care premiums go
up, and you are bombarded with advertising for ski equipment and vacations in Aspen. The long-term danger of this whole idea is the inability to keep your personal data private. Your entire primary and secondary education performance, every second captured online would belong to the state indefinitely."
"A trade-off between privacy and efficiency, the core central battle of emergent technology aimed at consumers," Dallas noted, intrigued by Apex's assessment of the issue.
"Yes, but people have to understand the trade-off now. Because if past developments are any indication, in the future, consumers are not going to be asked to choose. The decision is going to be made for them."
"What do you mean?"
"The situation I've been referring to is already taking place. The foundation for building out the system has already started."
"But how? When?"
"Officially years ago, but functionally within the past eighteen months, they've kind of taken off with their plans."
"Who? How?"
"If you knew your government, or let's say private influential citizens, were engaged in a plan to co-opt your online data and create a national surveillance and activity database what would you do?"
"Reveal the story."
"And if they had plenty of options for suppressing the information, for claiming your story was false?"
"At least the story is out there, you raise awareness."
"Raise awareness?"
"Yes."
"Awareness and understanding are part of the challenge. The system will technically be voluntary but you have to opt-out, everyone will default in. Of course opting out will take effort, which most people refuse to exert. But those who stay awake and aware will make the appropriate preference changes, and will not have as much information compromised as those who complacently give in."
Dallas leaned forward. "How much can you tell me about this whole project...to make this a story?"
"Dallas, what did I tell you from the beginning?"
"But your own alarmist words imply you want to make sure this system is publicized," Dallas protested.
"Not really publicized. I want to make sure the system is destroyed. Putting a story out there for the creators of COSA to deny will not destroy the system. Tell me what kind of pressure would have to happen to make them drop the whole idea?"
"Maybe a massive public backlash?"
"Against an officially non-existent project no one can see?"
"Okay, prosecution?"
"For writing policy papers?"
"I don't get it. I thought you said COSA was built."
"The rollout is too complicated to explain right now. But in general, the way the system was established makes the whole program appear to be a research and development project; benign thought pieces like the ones you saw; and a few experimental tests with cooperative government departments and businesses using old data. You can not point to a transparent project and say, 'okay we know where to aim our weapons.'"
"But if the project is out there and developed, how did that happen?"
"There are people who made the work happen."
"Okay what's the source of their power? In this town everyone hates to lose power."
"Would you believe their power comes from being incredibly smart, loyal and trustworthy?"
"You're joking."
"No, these are people who have basically outsmarted everyone, and in a really permanent fashion. Think about it. Most people, especially around this town, are idiots, operational idiots. They function in a narrow world of beliefs and understandings, plotting and planning their careers, seeking revenge against rivals and cheating on their spouses. The number of people who are true thinkers, who not only have a sense of duty but also actually aim to fulfill it, those people are few and far between in D.C."
"People like Marco Manuel."
"Absolutely. If you had a billion-dollar idea to drop into someone's care, you'd pick Manuel right?"
"In a second."
"Well, let's just say his skill is recognized worldwide."
"Wait. Really? But is he..."
"What?"
"Is he doing something illegal?"
"No, remember he is too smart to be obvious. The project is organized on a completely legal foundation. A private consortium is doing the prep work, and the government can eventually sign on, voluntarily without strings. All government participation so far has been conducted in the name of technological research. Almost every government department runs on two systems, or at least the employees think they have two systems, behind the scenes is actually only one."
Dallas shook her head. "Look Apex, why are you giving me a story I cannot use? Especially if the project cannot be defeated. If you don't want to expose the truth, I don't know what else I can do. Writing the story will at least shake people up."
"How about you...you investigate the story."
"What do you mean?"
"Make your activities appear to look like you're going to write stories related to the documents you found."
"But won't that be dangerous?"
"Why? Was someone else threatening you besides me?"
"No," Dallas quickly answered, thinking of Marco's warnings. "But if they really care about their project they might become concerned about my sudden interest."
"You want that exact reaction to find a vulnerability. Let's see who decides to be concerned and why. Poke around a little bit on one topic, like education. There is already a lot of experimenting being done with computer learning in schools, pull a thread of the story, look at which computer hardware company is providing the most product to schools, who's got the contracts. While the basic curriculum is already available for home schooling, the next step will be the creation of advanced online tools, and whole communities demanding the transition away from their traditional, failing school. Try to see if the Department of Education or online learning businesses will reveal more. You write about cyber issues, an online education story should fit right in with your interests."
"I write about cyber security issues."
"Okay even better angle, 'are your kids safe?' People will freak out thinking about how criminals could get access to their children through online education tools. Exploit that option within the scope of your story. If the population refuses to complacently accept the concept, the system's backers will be forced to change the functions or they will not have a chance to succeed with their implementation."
"Okay, that may be a good idea. I'll think through a couple of possible scenarios but I'm sure one will stick."
"Okay good."
"But Apex, what exactly do you and I have here? A partnership of some kind?"
"I hope so, Dallas. I'll admit, I'm trying to get the system destroyed. You have to decide what's in this for you."
"You giving me the full story at some point. I'll wait for the details."
"I'm never promising the full story."
"I'll wait to see how much you will reveal. But can I ask now, why do you even know the details about this top secret plan?"
"I know insiders."
"Really?"
"Yes."
"You'll always have the latest information, like when the system will be fully rolled out?"
"Possibly."
"Will I get the story as soon as there is enough to reveal?"
Apex hesitated. "Revealing any part of the story may take years. But let's say, under any circumstances, you get the story before details are officially made public. And by public I mean a direct announcement about COSA or some form of the system's existence for public consumption."
"Okay, but in the meantime, can you give me another opening?"
"Like what?"
"I'm going to let you decide when the right moment appears. I can get people onto the questions about an online education, but you'll have to come up with another option before this breaks. I want to be the recognized lead on the details about the syste
m and its implications."
"Okay, deal."
"And if there's trouble?"
"What kind of trouble?"
"The kind you were trying to use on me."
"Don't worry about any problems."
"Don't worry? Why?"
"I'll be vigilant, make sure everything is okay."
"How?"
"I think you already know. I have decent tech skills."
"You'll watch me? Trace my phone?"
"No Dallas, I'll watch them."
*