Intelligence Theft ch. 1

Johnny blinked as his blindfold was removed. He caught only a brief glance of an empty hallway before he was shoved through a door that clicked shut behind him. The room was small, with a wide mirror recessed into one of the walls and a lone chair pulled up to the table facing it. Opting to take a seat, Johnny noticed a speaker hanging above the mirror, and leaned onto the table, cradling his throbbing head in one hand. “I don’t suppose you considered simply requesting the pleasure of my company?” He asked the observers he assumed were on the other side of the mirror.

When the statement was met with silence Johnny began to wonder whether the mirror was just a mirror after all, and whoever wanted to talk to him would do so in person, but then the speaker crackled to life. “You are John Walsh.” Surprisingly, given the other measures these people seemed to have gone through to maintain secrecy, the voice lacked any sort of masking filter instead relying on the garbled sound quality of the speaker.

“That I am”

“You are an associate of Nathan Marley.” John stared intently at the mirror, trying to mask his annoyance at the fact that whoever was interrogating him apparently had the habit of phrasing questions as statements.

“Let’s not be too hasty here, ‘Associate’ is a bit of a stretch.” His mind racing, Johnny began looking for the bigger picture. He wasn’t high-profile enough to warrant all this, and even if he was, he had a deal in place to prevent these types of situations from happening to him. Something else had to be at play, if he could figure out what it was he might be able to talk his way out of whatever was going on. He decided to start by seeing if he could get his new friend talking. “I do know him, though, I could set up a meet and greet if you’d like. Just give me your contact info and I’ll put him in touch the next time I see him.”

No dice, but to be fair, the direct approach had been a long shot anyway. “You’re here to give an account of Marley’s recent activities.” Now that was interesting. Nate’s ‘activities’ were all old news by now, and Johnny hadn’t been involved closely enough for most people to be interested in his perspective. He added that to the information already bouncing around in his head.

“You know as much as I do. None of the records have been sealed, none of the reports have been censored, you already have the pieces.” Met by silence, he continued to mull everything over until something clicked. “Oh, but that’s just it, isn’t it? You have all the pieces, but you can’t solve the puzzle. You know all the facts, but you want the story.” He grinned as everything started to fall into place. “For that, you’ve come to the right place. could you put some coffee on, though? I’ve got a bit of a headache from when your boys picked me up.”

Once again there was no response, but a few minutes later a man in a suit entered the room, placed a steaming mug on the table, and then left. Johnny lifted the beverage to his lips and took a long sip, appreciating the brew’s rich taste, then leaned back in the chair and began weaving his tale.

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When the world’s three most powerful technology companies formed the Coalition for Advanced Technology Applications and Research in order to create Artificial Intelligence, one of their biggest concerns was security. Nate was the lucky boy they chose to promote, making him CATAR’s Chief of Asset Protection and Recovery. It was a good gig for him, whenever an AI went missing, he was the one responsible for bringing them back into the fold, which turned out to be something he was very good at. So the tech companies get peace of mind, Nate gets a lucrative new job title, and life is beautiful. Of course, it doesn’t stay that way, a few surprise curveballs spring up. Starting with her.