The Origin Point: A Future Tech Cyber Novella (28 page)

"This is your glitch?" shouted General
Wheeler. "What is this?"

"No, no, this happened..." Miller
frantically clarified, reading the report on his com, "...this
happened after. The security camera pictures show a drone—"

"But this is unbelievable!" General Wheeler
interrupted. "There is no drone on this report, only the man."

"What brought down the tower?" Roman
asked.

"The situation was all routine," responded
Jayna Luongo, another cleared corporate executive. "An error was
detected and an employee was sent to look."

"But why a human? The report does not say
what went wrong." Roman was also quickly looking at the details on
the report.

"There was an error."

"But what does that mean? There's no
diagnostic for the error."

"Did the employee make a mistake?" Miller
interrupted.

"Doesn't say," Luongo replied. "There was an
error, an employee was sent to look, and a drone—"

"What drone?" Roman asked.

"Whose drone?" General Wheeler demanded.
"Report does not say that either."

"The Network recorded the transmission tower
went offline, but there is no confirmation as to how or why,"
Luongo continued. "We have only surveillance pictures of a
drone...umm...attack. That's all we know. But those pictures cannot
give us any more details."

"But what kind of drone was it?" Wheeler
asked again. "Was there military activity in the area?" Military
and law enforcement drones could be weaponized with the ability to
deliver a range of disabling impacts from the effects of stun guns
to missiles. But operating a legal, weaponized drone required
adherence to laws, regulations and protocols, sanctioned and used
almost exclusively by governments. If the rules had been followed,
a few of the people in the room would have the details available on
their coms, but they did not.

The questions flew across the table as Roman
stood up, and walked up to a 50-inch screen displaying a live
camera feed of the smoldering scene at Grand Rapids. 'What an
extraordinary explosion,' he thought. 'Enough to bring down the
tower, an entire transmission tower, but how?' He looked closely at
the images. The tower had collapsed straight down, straining
adjacent transmission lines, but not creating a domino effect. The
wire casings were set to automatically snap, and avoid pulling
another tower down if one fell. In fact, the attack, as the
incident was now being referred to, seemed to have been neatly
organized only to collapse the one tower with poor Louis Santino.
'But was Santino necessary?' Roman wondered. 'Why didn't the
attacker isolate the tower? Why kill one human too? What was this?
What kind of terrorist organization or anarchist was after them
now?'

"Listen everyone, please listen!" Slater
shouted to restore calm. "We have been watching this site since the
outage was first reported. Consider this next information
confidential and the reason we called you here. This information
has not been widely disseminated but...the attack drone...this is
the third incident worldwide that we know. But this is the first
one to knock out power. Whoever this is, he is getting bolder. And
whatever technology they have, we cannot identify the capabilities.
Every time an incident has occurred, we have had to find the drone
visually, using satellite pictures, there was no detection on The
Network."

"What do you mean no detection?" General
Wheeler asked. "Network cameras and sensors are always checking the
entire space around—"

"No, excuse me but we do not have continuous
checking, so to speak," Slater corrected him. "If the intruder
drone is emitting an electronic signal, The Network would detect
the disturbance through the complex's sensors. For most security
protocols, if the detected signal is within camera range, we'll
immediately get a picture or video record. The system analyzes the
picture and identifies the object in the captured image. The
protocol only looks for detected signals. Only objects with a
detectable signal can be detected unless the known object has a
previously identified distinct sound like a buzzing bee, or a
particular feel, like the touch of a human hand. If no object is
detected, the picture will not be analyzed, a human would have to
launch a manual request, if the human even knew to look for the
problem in the first place. Whatever that box is, it has no
detectable signal."

"But that's impossible!" Luongo cried. "How
can a drone fly around without a signal? A human must be in
control."

"Maybe this is an advancement in drone
operation, Ms. Luongo," Slater countered, slightly annoyed. "Some
of our enemies have technology we do not have."

"Or we do not officially have," Roman
said.

The room fell silent. "And the destruction?
We have not heard about that before, what a mess," General Wheeler
added. "Humans will have to clean up."

"Drones can do the heavy lifting," Miller
assured the group.

"Not before we've examined every inch of the
place."

"I am afraid we are only likely to find dead
wolves," Slater ruefully commented. "We will not find evidence of
any use to us."

Roman tried to concentrate. 'We won't find
any evidence,' he thought. 'We have to catch him, whoever he is. We
have to figure out the pattern, what he's doing and why.' He looked
around the room. 'We'll never move forward with these people.'
Moving his com under the table to avoid appearing distracted, Roman
sent a text message to Slater.

"Listen up!" General Wheeler shouted over
the clamor. "Our analysts will look for clues in the data, but in
the meantime, what do we think is going on here? Terrorists?
Industrial sabotage? Who?" The room went silent.

"We have had three attacks, three completely
different locations," Slater added. "There's been a solar farm in
Botswana, a wind farm in the North Sea, and now hydro power in
Canada. The only connection among the sites is renewable energy.
But for the first two, the facilities did not really lose
power...or a life."

"And this time, kaboom." General Wheeler
dramatically flung his arms into the air.

"Yes this saboteur has escalated the
attacks."

The people in the room looked at each other.
They were political appointees, friends of leaders, and business
people with money, in general, not the people with the experience
and patience to strategically think through the incident, and make
implementable decisions. Roman moved towards the General.

"We should ask for an emergency U.N.
Security Council meeting," General Wheeler commented. The clamor of
simultaneous shouting began again.

"And tell them what?" Juarez demanded.

"To be careful, to change security
protocols."

"But for what? What explanation can we
give?"

As Roman approached, he spoke clearly and
directly, "General, we do not need a U.N. meeting. We immediately
need to bring in the right people to get to work on this. This is
an ongoing international problem, not one incident. We need a team
that can think this through, figure out what's going on and take
action."

The General stared at him. "Of course
people," he said pointing to the room as if to indicate he knew
what people were, and he had them right in front of him. "What are
you talking about?"

"With all due respect General, not people
who talk," Roman continued. "People who think. People who would
have a better understanding of the issues we could be dealing
with."

"People who think?"

"I agree, General," Slater interjected. "A
different type of group is required to manage these incidents."

"Whoever did this has access to some amazing
technology," Roman stated. "We need people who have experience in
these areas. We also need to be ahead of this perpetrator, to be on
top of his potential next target. We need to identify the right
people, get them collaborating, and let them figure this out."

"The right people?" General Wheeler asked
puzzled. "What people? Who?"

"I know who," Roman confidently replied.

*

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Case Lane

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