The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella

  *

  An escort arrived to pick up Dallas for her interview at FedSec. This time she was taken to the organization's main office building near the National Mall. She walked in, eyes open to her surroundings and was directly taken to a room, windowless on three sides, with one-way glass on the fourth. The bare furniture consisted of a table, four chairs and a video camera. One of Marco's assistants greeted her and provided instructions before offering her a seat to wait. Several minutes later, another FedSec agent appeared. This one introduced himself as her interrogator, he would be asking the questions.

  Dallas expressed no surprise that Marco was not directly interviewing her. With such formal proceedings, allegations of conflict of interest would be rife. Besides she assumed he stood on the other side of the glass, perhaps with a few other high-ranking officials who would be listening to her answers.

  Sitting up straight and concentrating on a spot on her interviewer's face, Dallas listened to each question, waited a minute to compose her answer and stated a clear and direct response.

  "Where did you receive the flash drive containing the documents?" the interrogator asked. After Dallas provided a brief but complete answer, he continued along the same lines:

  "How did you receive the drive?"

  "Under what circumstances did you receive the drive?"

  "On the night in question, were you under the influence of alcohol? Drugs? Duress?"

  "Had you previously seen the documents?"

  "Had you previously seen similar documents?"

  "Do you know what the documents mean?"

  "Have you shown the documents to other people?"

  "Do you plan to show the documents to other people?"

  Three hours later, Dallas was permitted to leave. She did not see Marco or any other apparent senior official as she followed her escort back to the car and accepted the ride home.

  At FedSec, Marco and Julia replayed the interview over an encrypted conference call with Carter. The voice and body sensors had detected no signs of stress, a reading Julia attributed to preparation, which Marco denied. As the repeated questions and answers continued to completion, the listeners held their comments.

  "We played the interview for you to help you understand the breach we believe has occurred," Julia stated to Carter after the recording had finished. "The sole purpose is to allow you to express any concerns you may have and we will deal with them. We do not want you to feel at any time that we are not responsive."

  "We also believe," Marco firmly stated. "This...breach, if we wish to give this incident a name, was not material. As you have heard, Winter has very little information."

  "Yeah, she could be a really good liar, but in general, I guess I'm not alarmed," Carter responded, to Marco's relief. "Whatever she read is not directly connected to our work, and from her answers, pretty much sounded like she did not have any additional information."

  "You really feel that way?" Julia asked incredulously. "She's running a campaign through her writing to reveal the contents of the documents."

  "There's not enough in her answers to prove that accusation."

  "There's more than enough to take action."

  "If we take action we might draw attention to ourselves and risk scrutiny we do not need."

  "We are already receiving scrutiny because of her."

  "Not in a threatening way. Arresting a high-profile journalist for writing about documents we claim are not ours would be a much more direct risk."

  "But we do not know the depth of the threat she has unleashed."

  "And we don't need to create attention where none should exist."

  "If I can intervene," Marco firmly stated to break up their bickering. "As of this very second, no people but us have noticed any connection between Dallas's reporting and our program. FedSec has not received a single request from any other press or organization asking for comments about her work. Nor have any internal departments or external businesses asked for more information. No suspicion has been ignited."

  "FedSec is not mentioned in her articles, but other government departments are taking feedback," Julia clarified. "Officials are being asked to comment on the content of the articles, and to provide more information and insight into the possible connections to the government."

  "Right, but since most government departments participated in the initial research and development they have answers for those questions. They know policy papers have been prepared, and they know people are speculating about future government initiatives and plans. No one is surprised. We also have not heard about anyone going back to the restaurant, to Infrared, to claim the drive. Dallas asked the restaurant owner, and no customer has been looking for property lost on that night. Which means we cannot see an agenda with whoever had or saw the documents. I think we can agree, we are safe."

  "We are not safe."

  "Okay Julia, I disagree. But even if trouble were looming, the focus of our efforts should be our financing and build-out schedule. We have said many times we are setting this system up for the long-term."

  "I agree, but a prospective view should not mean we are not vigilant."

  "Of course we're vigilant," Carter insisted. "But we are also smart about how we use our time. Marco is right, let's switch to the financing and infrastructure build-out. We need our foundation to be stabilized or all the other discussions are useless."

  Fuming Julia declared, "We have nothing to discuss on financing and infrastructure. I have both programs under control. But if you two find those topics more important than infiltration and sabotage from external forces, I'll leave you to discuss the fine points. I have other work to do, if you'll excuse me." She rose to depart.

  "Julia..." Marco cried, holding up a hand to her as she prepared to leave the room.

  "You both know how to reach me." She turned and left.

  Carter let out a sigh. "Guess she's a little unhappy."

  "She's very concerned about this project, and any potential fallout if our true intentions were ever revealed."

  "We are all concerned about leaks, but she seems to have another issue. What am I missing?"

  "Nothing."

  "Julia is extremely smart and knows this project better than anyone. If she has insight we've overlooked, I want to know."

  "There's nothing I'm aware of."

  "All right, but still, talk to her, find out if there's more to her concerns. I do not want any surprises. And I don't want her pissed off."

  "Yeah sure, I don't want any surprises either. We've come this far with our objectives, the next steps are critical to making sure we finish and win."