The Enigma Ignite

Prudence, an Avatar identification for interactions with the R-Group by those in the Western intelligence community, had contracted for two services. One service was verification that the CIA was or was not involved in a terrible explosion in Mexico that could possibly derail the joint efforts by the United States and Mexico. This effort had been completed and would be provided in due time to fulfill that assignment. The other service, which was the one Otto was focused on, was the information requested around the terms “nanotechnology”, “grasshopper”, “biometric implants”, “peer to peer mobile communications”, “satellite uplink tethering”, “near field communications in combat situations”, “po”, and “pilotless drones”. The information from simple searches of these terms was certainly within the capability of the agencies at Prudence’s disposal. So without further guidance, Otto had presumed that she required a broad deliverable for the service across world powers and their respective use of communications for identity and location of people and things.

Otto had outlined many of the possibilities that he thought might be applied with use of these technologies in part or total combination, but he wanted the insight from the key staff he had assigned to focus on the project. As he walked toward the conference room, located in the primary technology center in Zurich, he was absorbed with the direction he planned to take with that discussion as he took his seat.

“Good morning, all. I trust that you are refreshed and ready to tackle this new assignment. Of course, as other pressing matters arise from customers we will decide if any of you need to break away for those issues. Otherwise, I would like you all to focus on this assignment,” began Otto.

Quip offered, in non-typical seriousness, “Otto, I have shown both Jacob and Petra my current modifications to our Immersive Collaborative Associative Binary Override Deterministic, or ICABOD, system. The enhancement made with facial recognition as well as some enhancements Jacob made for handling rapid review of the Big Data collected dovetailed well with the updated next generation encryption from Petra. It seems to be performing well with these additions, and Jacob will continue to modify as things are processed to continually improve. I believe this will be key to not only gathering and classifying the information by the sources and owners, but also for the modeling of where each of the leaders in using these technologies are at present and what their plans are.”

“Good,” Otto replied as he smiled and then continued, “So, we all seem to be on the same page, which is important.”

Jacob suggested, “In looking at each of the aspects of potential application of nanotechnology, the use of locating people rather than objects seems to be the focus. Problems to overcome that seem most obvious include: how to easily maintain power, how to be used with a person, and how to avoid falling into the wrong hands or effectively hiding. At least I believe these would be initial critical category questions.”

Petra chimed in, “All of this development would be ripe for stealing by different entities if they think one group is ahead of another. The encryption would be extensive by any group to help avoid information theft. At this point, given enough time, we can open any file and create the needed encryption keys.

“Toward that end, I have been doing surveillance on several of the most easily identified targets for military and non-military development. So far the feedback is meager, but the content is fairly rich from sources in the U.S., England, Middle East factions, and China.”

“If those are the targets at present, then I will start tracking all the money sources for each of these primary players,” Wolfgang offered. “As other players are added, we can expand the financial aspects.”

Otto grinned and declared, “It is so nice not to have to provide assignments since you each know where you can provide the most help. I suspect we will begin receiving other requests from these entities as they are hitting walls in developing or deploying the newer technology. We also need to determine if England is working independently, or augmenting efforts for the United States.”

Each of the professionals at the table nodded in agreement. They didn’t know what would be the full value of this project, and frequent reviews would help direct their efforts. For the time being, they would work out of this operations center which would also hone the team further to make them a more cohesive force.

“I, for one, would like at least update meetings every couple of days until we see where these trails take us,” requested Wolfgang.

“Agreed. I also need to think of the best ways to get a bit of an update on our friend Su Lin at Texas A&M. I would not like her to become a target for any of these players,” advocated Otto.

“We’ve kept a fairly close eye on her activities, but she is very adept and clever when she gets focused. So you might be right. Though nothing is present on the radar screen with her,” confirmed Quip.

Wolfgang asked, “Don’t we also owe Prudence an update on the CIA involvement in Mexico? I know Quip and Jacob were working on the report completion and the presentation framework, but I didn’t hear if that was finalized and ready for delivery.”

Both Jacob and Quip grinned at the same time, then looked to each other to see who was going to speak first. Quip nodded toward Jacob to do the honors.

“As you know, the CIA was not directly involved in the operation that brought down the building in Mexico and killed several pornographic-linked criminals. However, we have been able to create the impression, if we all agree, that the CIA potentially was behind the incident. We don’t want to report a lie by any means. However, we were able to secure some facts which might make this the best option for the slant of our final report.

“One, there was trace evidence, found by the authorities that investigated the damaged site, that indicated the C-four was part of a shipment that the CIA had stockpiled in a southwestern U.S. location. Additionally, there were several CIA operatives that were identified as being in close proximity, though assigned other tasks, during the time of the incident. That information came from CIA correspondence. It would be a short step to weave these elements together suggesting this was an inadvertent communications glitch that resulted in a tragedy. There is no other evidence tying to any other source, and we dug really hard.”

Quip offered, “The other option is to simply point out these facts in our report and that no other culprits could be identified, which is totally true. Jacob and I agree that outright lying on this would be wrong, but assembling the facts along with the evidence of the activity would arm the U.S. agencies during any subsequent discussions with the Mexican authorities. The evidence of the pornographic criminal activity has only partially been identified by those governments, so the report would include new information for Prudence on the actual victims of the activity.”

Silence reigned as each participant thought about the options. It was a fine line. However it made sense for conveying the information. Each of them wanted this chapter closed. Finally, Otto broke the silence.

“I think this might be the best choice to go forward. Complete the report then as you would like it to be submitted and send it to Wolfgang and me. We will read it very carefully and let you know the decision in the morning.

“Let’s get started, folks, on the new assignment, update as needed, but we will regroup together day after tomorrow. Thank you.”