The Voting Machine

The Official Story

Around lunchtime, when the nurse brought me in atray with fruit juice and a bowl of applesauce, the regularly news was suddenlyinterrupted for a special press conference broadcast from the FBI Headquartersin Westwood. The newscast introduced Special-Agent-in-Charge Emmanuel Stevens, joined by Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran Brenda Savage. My friend stood silently next to Stevens at the podium as the silver-haired agent provided an extraordinary account of the events leading up to Monarch Bay.

Stevens told the press that he had been secretly cooperating with Brenda, who he praised as a citizen soldier and a national hero for her work in helping identify Castle as the leader of Shiro. Stevens explained Savage was initially a person of interest in the investigation into David Stone's death, since he had been her friend and high school teacher. The two of them worked together as voter turnout volunteers during the Salinger Senate campaign over the past summer in Las Vegas. 

After the murder of Chang and Weisbein, Savage was placed on the watch list based on faulty evidence. This conference served as an official exoneration and an admission that she had been placed on the watch list based in error. I was furious that Stevens didn't take the opportunity to let everyone I was innocent. But at the same time, I wasn't surprised.

After J.P. Breton's death last week on the balcony of the Babylonian, Stevens said he first became aware through forensic evidence of small missiles fired from a rare type of military drone. At the same time, following the disappearance of Agents Pierce and Livingstone and the suspect Abdul Shahabi, Stevens said he realized that his local FBI office was compromised by sleeper agents secretly working for Castle. 

At this time, Stevens acknowledged that the FBI had found Shahabi's remains in the Las Vegas storm drains. He blamed the killing on Pierce and Livingstone, Castle's operatives who had infiltrated the Homeland Security Department with false identities provided through the intelligence contractor Secure Strategies.

The same day of Breton's assassination, Stevens began making inquiries at Fort Nellis Air Base into drone technology and a possible breach of military security. He said that Brenda then contacted him from a hidden location, proclaiming her innocence and offering to assist the investigation. She said she had inside knowledge of Shiro's prior use of drone warfare to disrupt elections in Iraq during the war.

According to Stevens, he then met privately with Brenda in the desert near Lake Meade and devised a secret plan. Brenda would act as a special informant, using her military experience to help him track Shiro outside normal law enforcement channels, which he believed might still be compromised by Shiro's operatives.

Brenda received a car with clean license plates and a driver's license with an alias to ensure she didn't get stopped by police who might identify as a suspect on the watch list. She then drove to Los Angeles, where she used her homemade drone to identify Shiro's operations at the Castle estate in Monarch Bay. Once again, my name was absent from these last piece, as if I hadn't had any role in helping lead Brenda's drone to Castle.

I didn't believe Stevens' account for a second. Brenda Too many details didn't make any sense. For one thing, Brenda only knew what I had told her about the blast at the Babylonian. On top of that, she didn't know Stevens personally and there was no way she would've come forward and contacted a stranger at the FBI out of the blue, risking her freedom after the placed her on the watch list. She had always been more paranoid than any of us about Shiro's ability to infiltrate government institutions because she'd seen this happen in Iraq.

Of course, Brenda never contradicted Stevens' account during the press conference. She stood there smiling nervously and nodding graciously when he thanked her for her brave efforts as a citizen soldier. She must've figured that playing along was a small price to pay for removal from the watch list and absolution of any guilt. Any first year soldier knows you can't call out your superior officer in a lie. Stevens was a former military man himself and he surely knew that she would play along with the deception.

Besides, if there was anyone who deserved to be held up as a hero, it was Brenda. She had saved my life. And the world would've never learned anything if she hadn't figured out a way to track me and carry out the attack in Monarch Bay.