Incarna

40 - Serious Science

Marion poked her head through the door to the dinning room, “Samara dear, that nice young officer is here to speak to Mr Davies!” and she raised her eyebrows and nodded back toward the foyer full of people wanting to meet Owain or at least say they had!

Owain looked up as Samara stood and turned toward the door. She stopped net to him and bent down and whispered, “Marion will protect you, no matter who comes through her ancient front door!” Owain smiled and nodded his thanks for her reassurance.

He watched her exit and smiled at the her luscious curves, which he suddenly realised he hadn’t noticed before! He shook his head at himself, I must be getting better if Im noticing women again, and he thought how happy his mother would be at the news.

Hiram put his phone down and sat shaking his head. He turned to Owain, “this is quite unbelievable!” Hiram looked at him wide eyed, “everyone who lost financially has apparently had it returned,” Hiram held his hands out as if trying to hold all that had been replaced, “and my family is quite extensive.”He sat there grinning and nodding, “my family grape vine is, so to speak, sagging under the weight of the communication harvest!”

Owain smiled and tried to curb his imagination as to how this could be happening! The size of the organisation capable of secretly building the computing power to hack on this level and cover ones tracks is beyond any anything publicly known. Most governments can’t even act at this level. This is serious science being wielded here. Man, this must be someone testing new quantum computing or something. He held that thought for a moment then realised Hiram was waiting for his response.

“It appears then that this has happened right across the developed world …” “Indeed it does Owain. It is too me quite an impossible action, yet I see no emergencies being declared. No convening of the security council. It is as if it has happened and we all move on …” Hiram held up his ePad and showed Owain the headlines from various news feeds. All were pronouncing shock and awe and that no one had a clue about how such a world wide hacking of the backing sector could occur.

Owain thumbed up his favourite tech news site. “Is This Incarna Again?” it screamed at him from his phone’s screen. Owain felt his pulse race, and the room swim a little around him. He breathed slowly and his pulse gradually settled. His Genie had said when he’d asked what had happened …

“No, it is not for me to explain, mine is to prepare you for what is to come!”

Prepare for what, for this? All he’d been able to think about in hospital and then at home in Wales was how to bring peace to the Middle East. All that he’d come up with was helping organise this Peace Art Festival. Meanwhile someone or something, somewhere with the best computing power on the planet had just righted one on the greatest wrongs of modern times. Returning the financial security, millions of people had struggled most of their lives for, and returning their smiles to them at the same time.

He realised that Hiram, Clara, Krystian were all looking at him. “You mentioned Incarna, just now,” said Clara in a hesitant voice. “Do you really think this was Incarna that did this?”

Owain looked at them speechless, “did I? I was only thinking out loud sorry! I, … I really don’t know who has done this!”

Clara smiled meakly but it was too late, Krystian was already texting something, then Clara as well. Owain felt the pit of his stomach emmigrate to another country and all he could think of was, “shit, have I let the genie out of the bottle with that one!”

Hiram sat looking at him, “if only something like this could happen to bring about peace in the Middle East!” Owain nodded and smiled feebly.

He was saved by Samara coming back into the room followed by an Israeli soldier. “Owain, this is Captain Yoni Sharon, IDF Special Liaison Officer.” Everyone looked up and watched the uniformed officer approach.

Yoni stepped forward and waved Owain to stay seated as he rose to greet him. They shook hands and Owain felt the inherent strength in the grip but more importantly the hands weren’t callused or rough. Yoni hadn’t seen action for a while or at least not without gloves on.

“Captain Sharon has organised for us to tour some of the Settlements around the West Bank. They want you to see what is really going on among the settlers and not just go by what you hear from western media!” Samara turned to Yoni as she finished her sentence as if to check she was getting it right.

“Yes that’s it in a nut shell!” Owain recognised the accent, that combination of Hebrew and New York melded into something quite un mistakable.

“Ah very pleased to meet you Captain, excellent. When …”  “first thing in the morning," Yoni jumped in. "Ive arranged for you to have priority passage through the relevant checkpoints, but it will still take some time. It is tedious, but it remains a necessity!”

Krystian’s phone beeped and he excused himself then motioned for Clara to join him at the side of the room just out of ear shot. Owain had the impression that they weren’t sincere somehow. Perhaps Krystian had used one of those phone apps that rings you, so you can excuse yourself from an unwanted situation. Clara kept glancing at Yoni, a slight frown creasing the corners of her eyes.

“Very well, in the morning then!” He shook the Captains hand and watched him walk out leaving the air tense and cold in his absence. Samara spoke to the room, “he’s actually one of the good guys, but he won’t let on till he’s out of uniform!” Owain frowned, and waited for some one to tell him what that meant.