The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella

  *

  "Someone stole Marco's cell phone," Dallas said to Apex over a call.

  "You have to be careful in Washington, the city is not really safe," Apex nonchalantly responded.

  "Where were you last night?"

  "Me? You think I am a thief?"

  "Well no, but maybe one of your people?"

  "I don't have people."

  "Okay, what do you think the thief will do with Marco's phone?"

  Apex laughed. "What can't one do? Smartphones are great leverage into a person's life, especially the head of FedSec. One innocuous e-mail address could be the key to opening a dozen doors. Manuel should have been more careful."

  "I don't think he was expecting a drone to fly into his bedroom to steal stuff."

  "A drone? Well, people should assume that development was inevitable. No one really believes drones will only be used to deliver Amazon packages, do they? They have to expect criminals to come up with other ideas."

  "The average person has not thought beyond the packages. Only people like you think about broader implications."

  "People like me?"

  "Yes, I've...I've extended the reach of my investigation."

  "Oh yeah."

  "Yes."

  "What for?"

  "I was curious. There are not too many women who own Internet companies or investment funds, private or otherwise."

  "Yes women are under-represented in those fields."

  "But I was thinking about where I might have heard about women with those interests."

  "And?"

  "And I...I ran your face through the facial recognition software in my brain and searched around for where I thought I might have seen you before."

  "Happy someone is still using a brain."

  "Yes, well I recalled where I've seen you."

  "Really?"

  "Yes. When Carter Harden was first coming up as an Internet mogul, he was often photographed with his wife."

  "Is that right?"

  "Alexandra Spencer."

  "And?"

  "And I think that's you."

  Apex burst out laughing. "Oh Dallas, you're funny."

  "Are you denying you're Alexandra Spencer?"

  "I told you my name is Apex."

  "But you're her too?"

  Apex laughed again. "What am I, a superhero with dual identities? If that were true at least give me a cooler name."

  "Your husband has a few billion dollars. Enough to finance your...rogue hacker adventures."

  "Well, well, listen to this traitor to the cause. I told you I'm a businesswoman with my own company and you accuse me of being a kept woman. Such a horribly sexist line of assumption to pursue."

  "I apologize," Dallas shamefully said, instantly backtracking on her comment. "You're absolutely right. I don't know your net worth. You could be financing this adventure on your own. I honestly apologize."

  "Do you?"

  "Yes I do."

  "Why are you even questioning me?"

  "I had a memory. I cross-referenced my memory to online photos of Alexandra Spencer, and I came up with you."

  "That's hardly valid evidence."

  "I thought I would at least try."

  "Why?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "What were you hoping to achieve by asking if I was Alexandra Spencer?"

  "Just background."

  "Or a story?"

  "No."

  "We've had an agreement since the beginning, Dallas. There is no story here."

  "Yes, I know but—"

  "No story about anything. About me, about the documents you found, about this so-called adventure you think I'm on, no story."

  "Yes, I understand."

  "I hope so because you should not be turning friends into enemies."

  "No I shouldn't," Dallas contritely agreed. "I really do apologize."

  "Apology accepted. And for the record, of course I'm independent and completely self-financing. I told you I'm a private person, and I want my privacy respected which, by the way, is not an outrageous demand. It's a fundamental American right, a constitutional amendment for heaven's sake. Do you know what year the fourth amendment was passed?"

  "Ahhh...no."

  "1791. Can you imagine? At that point in our early history people said, 'hey I have a constitutional right to be protected from snooping in my home, on my person, or through my papers and effects.' The right to privacy has been required by law for over two hundred years."

  "But the Constitution only refers to government intrusions, not private."

  "Yes but now the two are becoming one and the same. If the government is allowed to force private companies to give up their data, the action is a government intrusion."

  "But reasonable searches are allowed."

  "And who's defining reasonable?"

  "Public opinion?"

  "Yeah until the feds come looking for you."

  "What made you such a major privacy crusader?"

  Apex hesitated. "I believe in my individual rights. The idea of government viewing us as pawns to be played and manipulated has never sat right with me. I am a sovereign being. Government's sole responsibility is to keep crazy people away from me so I can thrive. There is no government role to manage what I personally do every day."

  "But the government would say, safety comes at a price. You have to allow them to protect you by implementing universal procedures covering everyone."

  "Violations of privacy in the name of security should never be permitted. The debate always starts there and escalates into a much more frightening story."

  "How do you think they should protect us?"

  "The way they did in the past, with evidence and brains. The problem is everyone is becoming lethargic, you can sense the complacency in almost every field. The feeling is the sense of bleakness one feels when...when you see trash on the ground at Disneyland."

  "What?"

  "When Disneyland was first invented they strived for perfection. You would never see trash on the ground because one of the...cast members, any one would immediately pick up every stray paper. But you can see trash on the ground at Disneyland today. Maybe cast members are looking the other way, or maybe it's someone else's job done only on rounds, or maybe there are not enough trash people. Whatever the reason, trash on the ground at Disneyland is the pop social indicator equivalent of a society facing a massive decline in effort and caring."

  "When in the world did you see trash on the ground at Disneyland?"

  "Don't hate. I like the rides. Now focus on the point. At every level of our society, the malaise has swept in, like a sleeping sickness. For law enforcement, an officer can sit at a desk and data mine someone's phone instead of stepping out into the streets to find clues."

  "But why do things the hard way if you have technology to make you more efficient?"

  "Is the technology making him more efficient? Regardless of the crime, police always jump to a suspect's mobile phone 'to see if they can find anything.' Half the time they have not even thought about the evidence to look for, they are literally just scrolling through the data as if they were trolling social media at home. The approach is not tactical, not investigatory. The police have become digital time wasters like everyone else. Law enforcement should have to think through all of the parameters of the crime and possible evidence, and only go to the phone if potential clues are pertinent to the other details connected to the case."

  "I think they're finding clues to crimes."

  "Sure, sometimes they are. But do they have to look at everything on your phone to find those clues?"

  "I don't know, maybe."

  "Their approach is too sweeping, too intrusive. The fourth amendment also says warrants must 'particularly describe' the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized. The warrant cannot say 'we're just going to scroll through this person's online data and see what we find.' Broad, generali
zed flailing around in police investigations has been banned in this country for over two centuries. The liberties law enforcement takes these days are illegal. We have to guard our privacy."

  "For privacy's sake?"

  "For democracy's sake. Privacy is foundational to societal peace. That's why the concept is in the fourth amendment, not the 99th. We really do not need to know all the dirt on our neighbors. Privacy is also critical to individual peace. People should be able to choose the information they reveal to the world, and when or if the data will be released. The automatic assumption made by Internet companies that a person's personal information belongs to the company is unprecedented in history. When you go shopping at a brick-and-mortar store, do you expect the storeowner to follow you home and record how you use every item you bought? But online, that's exactly what's happening, and the worst part is the companies believe they are doing you a favor."

  "But don't people agree to these intrusions by using the online services for free."

  "All online companies, free and paid are keeping and repackaging, using and manipulating, the consumer's data. No one has agreed to this, but the practices have become standard for businesses, without transparency to their customers."

  "The transparency existing now will disappear all-together with this system they plan on implementing."

  "No doubt."

  Dallas lowered her voice. "They're going to win, aren't they, Apex."

  "No!" Apex defiantly stated. "No, never."

  "But they'll get the system rolled out and you won't be able to stop the project from expanding."

  "If we can't stop the initial rollout, at least we can make the subsequent build-outs difficult to implement and maintain."

  "How?"

  "By deciphering their exact intentions and aligning to limit the progress."