Eagle

Part 1

Chapter 1

August 18th, 2012

1331 hours

Ellie Joiner was a five-year veteran of the NSA’s Computer Security Division. At 5 foot 10 inches, she was a giant among the scrawny analysts she worked with.  Not to mention the fact that she was every analyst’s dream. She was 27 years old with long black hair drawn back into a ponytail, a muscular body, thin, lithe, and she was an absolute genius. A member of American MENSA, with a tested IQ of 242; she could give Stephen Hawking a run for his money in any field.

“Ellie,” said a wiry kid. She remembered him from the orientation lecture she gave last month. The kid looked like he was ready to jump out of his seat the whole time. An MIT alumnus, he graduated top of his class. With a lot of goading from her boss, and her boss’ boss, and even further up the food chain, Ellie took him on as one of her own protégées. He was an optimist, a quality Ellie despised. She always thought to herself, Optimism only slants your view of the truth. It never changes anything.

“You should turn on channel eight.”

Feeling a bit guilty about not being able to remember the kid’s name, she silently rotated in her chair and turned on the TV in the corner of the room.

“…Rights activist Ernie Hayward was shot in Miami Lakes West Park today by a group known only as ‘The Defenders of Freedom’. He was shot twice as he was giving a speech. No further details are known at this time, but stay tuned for up-to-the-minute…”

She clicked off the TV with about as much enthusiasm as when she turned it on.

“That guy was one of my idols.”

Ellie looked at him quizzically. “He was an anarchist that attracted other anarchists. If you keep pushing something, it’ll eventually blow up in your face.” She shifted her eyes aside trying to remember his name.

After a long pause, the kid cracked a nervous smile. “You don’t remember my name, do you?”

Ellie was taken aback. The kid may have been naïve, but he certainly was observant.

“Stanford. Stanford Leigh. You also lectured at my high school in my senior year.”

Ellie mused to herself; He graduates from MIT with the same name as Stanford University. Silicon Valley, millions of dollars of income, he was his class’ valedictorian, yet he comes to work for the NSA making salary comparable to that of a mechanic. Sure, it’s a pool of some of the most brilliant minds in the world, but not many people do it for the pay.

Ellie gave Stanford her most genial smile and said “I remember now. So tell me, why did you want to work for NSA?”

Stanford suddenly blushed bright red before regaining his composure and shrugging.

“Guess it’s just a good feeling, helping your country and all.”

Ellie hadn’t had much of a love life, but it didn’t take a rocket scientist to notice that Stanford was into her. She thought back to the last month since he started working here. She had consistently shunned him every time he approached her. She had never felt more like a snob. Sure, he was still a flaming optimist, but the least he deserved was an answer.

Chapter 2

August 19th, 2012

0600 hours

In a server room somewhere in the Caribbean, a hard drive clicked to life. Some other server in China had sent it several videos that had bounced all over the world. A simple script was ready to handle this. It took the videos and uploaded them to numerous social media sites as well as hosting it on its own web service. Several microseconds later, the videos were all uploaded, and it started another program that set about automatically commenting on the most popular websites, promoting every link to the videos, and within ten minutes, the server had registered over fifty thousand hits. A dead man speaking, and a computer facilitating him through a daemon.

Chapter 3

August 19th, 2012

0930 hours

Chantal Williams shooed away the stagehand applying makeup to her face. A week into the job and she was already covering the killing of a nationally known political activist. Her producer stood with a clipboard next to the cameraman. The cameraman gave a thumbs-up and her producer nodded.

“Welcome back to Channel 8 News. For those of you just joining us, Ernie Hayward, a nationally renowned political activist was killed today by what was originally thought to be an extremist group known only as ‘The Defenders of Freedom’; however he didn’t leave without a final speech. According to Hayward, he knew he was targeted for assassination, however, not by this extremist group. Instead, he believed he was targeted by a division of the NSA, known only as ‘Project Eagle’.”

Williams noticed a commotion out of the corner of her eye in the editing room. She started slowing down as she saw a man punch one of the editors and drag him out of the chair. Suddenly, the lights went out in the studio and she felt panic set in. She stood up from the news desk and stumbled around blindly. She had no idea what she was doing, but she felt the primal need to get out of there. Seconds later, she realized she wasn’t moving any more. She tried to scream, but no sound came out. There was a noxious smell assaulting her nose. What was happening!? She was standing stock still in the middle of a dark newsroom. The silence was unnerving, but suddenly, she felt canvas sliding over her head. There were only two words running through her mind. “Project Eagle.”