Chapter One
Jamie turned from the main road to Fifth Street and walked
past a group of office workers engaging in an intense conversation. Fifth
street wasn’t as busy as Central Crescent, the circular main road of the
Business District. Unlike the daunting high rises of Central Crescent, it
mostly comprised of smaller five to eight floor buildings with offices of local
businesses ranging from modern real estate companies to importers of a variety
of good.
He walked into a building that had a fading sign overhead
that read George Stockbrokers Ltd. in large text followed by the words Registered
and regulated by the Securities Exchange Department of The Republic of Kategat.
It never seemed to him that a stockbrokerage firm appeared out of place in
Fifth Street compared to the high rise buildings in the financial hub in
Central Crescent.
The ground floor housed the company’s reception which had four
desks. These were to be manned by customer service representatives, when the
company opened for business at 8 AM, in just about an hour. It didn’t bother
him why there were only four desks and an old sofa laying in the corner of the
rather expansive reception area. There could easily have been twenty with
comfortable room to stretch. On the other end of the room was a security door
with a Staff Only sign.
He pulled out his identification tag, swiped at a receiver,
and the door opened to a flight of steps. The steps led him to the middle of a
corridor with a sign pointing right reading Administration, and other saying
Research pointing to the left. He placed his finger on a fingerprint
reader and entered the research department.
Unlike the reception, the home of Unit Twenty Three was
crammed with more desks and workstations than it seemed possible. All locked
into a square room slightly smaller in area compared to the reception below.
There were large screens displaying real-time graphs and data feeds, and two
monolithic servers housed in a corner. This was certainly not a research
department of a stockbrokerage company.
There were twelve workstations facing the wall but only six
of them were occupied. Jamie took his place at one of the other four
workstations at the centre. One of the officers turned towards Jamie and
touched his forehead in a casual salute.
‘Monique had to leave early. I’ll be sending the nightly
report shortly’, he said and looked at his screen. ‘Nothing significant today,
just the usual activity on the grid. One new player entered the game, but I
don’t think it’s much. All other activity in the normal operational range.’
‘Thanks Neville,’ Jamie replied. ‘Open a file for the new
player before you leave. And good morning!’
Unit Twenty Three, or U23, was part of Kategat’s Secret
Surveillance Ops, an outfit composed of many units operating discreetly
with the intention of tracking and identifying any threat to the country from
miscreants and malicious actors. U23 was specifically tasked with tracking social
media users online using real-time surveillance systems and machine learning
algorithms.
The players were people showing malevolent intent or siding
with the primary opposition force in government. The Revolutionary Rebels,
frequently referred to as the RR, has been the central focus of U23. They had
been often warned that RR were to stage organised attacks on the Government to
create chaos and disruption, which they need to seize power. Deep down, Jamie
knew that the real reason was to eliminate any opposition for the current
rulers to consolidate power.
Neville and another member of the team collected their
belongings and prepared to depart. Jamie looked at the large digital clock at
the top of the wall opposite him which read 07:20:02. The day shift officers
would take another hour or two to get in and there will be quite some work he
had to do that day.
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