Harry threw his car-keys to the side as he slumped into a couch in his place while rubbing his forehead. His blue eyes looked tired and his mind was exhausted. He had bought this single-family home, with three bedrooms, a few months back with his savings and a bank loan. He thought that buying this home in this neighbourhood with a waterfront and open spaces would relieve him from the stress of his profession. But, everything turned downhill for the past few weeks.

First, he was asked to attend a meeting of top officials and military generals where he found that the world was not what he had thought to be. He discovered an organization which was able to talk on the same foot as them and to even give blatant threats to them. Next, a few weeks ago, he saw a video brought by Kevin which really confirmed his intuition that this organization was not to be underestimated.

From that day forward, Harry was not able to sleep peacefully anymore. The slit pupils of that person covered in fur, holding Amanda's elder brother's beating heart, would flash in his inner mind from time to time making Harry sometimes regret that he had watched this video. Who was that person? Who were these people who seem to be invincible? Was this organization, the work of a brilliant mind or a group? Or was it really Alien technology or future technology?

Harry would find himself thinking about them without knowing it himself as he rolled in his bed sleeplessly. He was surprised that the fatty Kevin who had actually brought this video seemed to be more accepting of these groundbreaking discoveries. Harry attributed this 'broad' mentality to Kevin's interest in anime and comics where everything was possible. Kevin was caught by the people of the internal affairs and he along with Harry was taken and given a scolding followed by a warning for behaving irresponsibly.

As both of them were already privy to some part of the truth as they had already attended the first meeting, they were let off with a warning while Kevin was punished with extra work. Both Harry and Kevin were credited for many achievements in the US CYBERCOM so they were let off with minor punishments as it was their first time.

Though Harry did not have the mood to bath, he still lifted himself forcefully and dragged his feet to the bathroom. This night, the temperature was zero degrees in Maryland along with some occasional snowfall. After Harry submerged himself in the bathtub filled with warm water, he let out a comfortable sigh as his eyes became heavy and dozed off. His muscles along with his nerves relaxed as the warmth spread slowly.

After ten minutes, Harry woke up with a jolt which sent violent ripples in the water as he opened his eyes and smiled bitterly. The same nightmare which chased him for many days. He stood up and grabbed a towel and wiped himself as he walked into his bedroom.

There were many books resting on all kinds of positions in his room. Some on the bed, some on the table while some were on his computer desk. If one saw them, they would know that all of them were books related to hacking and computer programming. They were also some books on US history and other miscellaneous topics which he liked reading.

Harry rubbed his blonde hair with a dry towel as he sat in front of his desk and turned the PC on. There was a chilled bottle of 'Natty Boh' in his free hand along with a pack of crab chips. When Harry had arrived in Maryland, he was surprised to see the craze this beer had. Also, he was shocked to experience the passion, people here have for crabs. Unlike in other places which might prefer boiled crabs, people here prefer steamed crabs and they like putting crabs into everything possible like crab chips and even crab cakes. But after staying here for some time, Harry began to become accustomed to these foods and came to like them as much as the locals.

There was an evidence board on his right side which he had attached to the wall recently. If one looked at the newspaper cuttings, writings and the red strings which linked each of them to the centre where a name was written in bold letters 'MYNE'.

Harry looked at the chart as he looked at the articles from the past month which depicted information any normal person would find irrelevant to each other. For example, the assassination of Nicaraguan President was linked to the discovery of a new recreational drug in the US which was far more stimulating and addicting.

But, Harry knew that the Nicaragua country, which was the poorest country in Central America, was introduced to a new weed plant through the delivery of 'free' food grains from Africa, which timed perfectly with the assassination of their president. Only a few people knew that the US government had requested the president of Nicaragua to reject these free grains and promised that they would provide the same amount. Everyone knew that the new incumbent leader immediately rejected the US's proposition for unknown reasons and accepted the food grains from Africa.

This new weed hitherto unknown in the plant taxonomy was capable of creating pollen grains which contained a neurotoxin which is multiple times more potent than poppy. Nobody knew the origin of this plant but some agricultural scientists who were working in tandem with the US military had some news. They theorized that this plant was genetically modified product, except that the currently available 'gene cutting' and 'gene splicing' technologies were not capable of these variations.

Now, this was the hot issue of debate in American Mass media. The new drug was highly addictive in nature and the form it was available was just as a pill which you could keep under your tongue. There was no need of injecting and also the half-life of this drug (the period it stayed in a human body before breaking into smaller parts) was very low and it's byproducts were not detectable with simple blood and a urine test.

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Given these advantages along with the heightened pleasure, the use of this drug has spread like a wildfire in many university campuses and even in high schools. Until present, no adverse effect was observed due to the intake of this drug other than it's addictive nature.

There were other pieces of information on the link board such as the senator of Ohio involved in a 'Sex Scandal' and some other politician's history of corruption leaked. There was an abnormal increase in talks on 'Judgement Day' on the internet. There was also a paper cutting reporting a United Airlines Boeing 767 flight gone missing. Nobody knew that there was a prominent 'nuclear' scientist aboard on that flight.

There was also a piece of news on the new product launch of 'MYNE' technologies related to Virtual reality. The demonstration videos on Social media were a huge hit and theories that this company would outpace the major industries in this field were been discussed. 'MYNE' group was the public face of 'that' organization. It was an open secret among the top official of all major economies. But no country, not even China, had the will to ban this company from accessing their markets.

Also, there was another prominent wing to this group which was 'MYNE' pharmaceuticals which had stormed the markets with better medicine for long term disorders like Diabetes and Hypertension. They even introduced free medicine for Rabies and sleeping sickness which even though were rare, the prestige earned in the medical community and the public for these inventions was phenomenal. The whole 'MYNE' group was painted with the colour of 'good and responsible' corporation with these works.

Harry smiled bitterly as he looked at the small plastic container on the desk whose label read 'Halkene, 3 mg' and right at the bottom 'a product of MYNE pharmaceuticals'. This was the medication that his physician had prescribed when he had approached him for treatment of his sleeping troubles. Harry just couldn't bring himself to take this pill at the beginning but he took it when he found the problem unbearable. Even with all his fears and apprehensions, Harry had to admit that he experienced the best sleep that night.

One might think that it was not possible for so many new medications to enter the market at the same time as it would take time for the regulatory authorities to test them and approve them before they are allowed to be sold. But, 'MYNE' showed it's meticulousness in this aspect as each and every new medication was patented under different people working for different companies which in the end turned out to be subsidiary companies of 'MYNE'. So, till 'MYNE' came out into the open, nobody imagined that all these products originated from the same group. It was a work of many years in the process which came to fruition now.

On the other side of the board was some information Harry had acquired from the relevant government departments. They portrayed the latest satellite images of Africa, the amount of carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere, the difference in the temperature. Chemical screening tests of the samples of river water flowing out from African countries like Zambia, Zimbabwe and Congo. The flow of trade between Africa and the rest of the world. Statistics of the natural resources moving in and out of Africa.

If one saw these numbers, one would doubt if they were the number of Africa or the sum total of trade of America, Russia, China and India combined. Just the numbers of ores and other natural resources been moved to Africa was enough for military strategists to start sweating.

These countries which were supposed to be the net exporter of raw materials had become a net importer of the same. This effect could be clearly seen in the international market as the prices of these materials have started increasing disproportionately. Even the greenhouse effect of this new competitor in pollution was more than double than the rest of the world. Pollution and environmental protection did not seem to be given any priority in 'their' agenda.

'What were they building over there?" was the question which haunted everyone. Also, there has been the discovery of at least one rocket launch from the African continent every day. That's right, every day, these people were doing new launches into space. NASA did detect the launch products but was unable to study them in detail for determining their role, 'if they were for civil purposes or military purposes'. Every country was becoming more jittery as they observed these changes in which there seemed to be 'very less to nothing' that they could do. Harry had heard some rumours that the top echelons were planning something but nothing substantial was done yet.

A pop-up sound broke Harry's chain of thoughts as he looked at the notification come up on his PC screen. A small smile appeared on Harry's face as he also started chatting with this new friend he made recently. Harry had retained some of his habits from his past days of 'grey hat hacking', he would roam around in Tor browser (dark web) from time to time. He viewed the 'dark internet' with special interest as he felt that the future of the internet lay in this part where the privacy of everyone was guaranteed to an extent. He even thought that it won't be long before the social media also enters the dark web.

So, he met this brilliant person called 'Addy2219' in the Dark web who was also a hacker like him but what amazed Harry was that this person was clearly better than him in both Hacking and Programming. After some days of chatting and exchange, Addy started giving him tips on Hacking which proved to be spot on and pointed out Harry's flaws in his approach and methodology.

Harry was shocked at this person's prowess and aptitude in hacking. He was also a genial person to converse with and never looked down on Harry or spoke condescendingly. Harry was sure that if Kevin could meet this person, he would become his fan. Though both of them did not know the real identities of each other, they quickly became good friends. Frankly, given Harry's sensitive profession, this way was the only route if he wanted to find true companions.

This person was the only good thing that had happened to him in the past few days. Harry smiled as he chatted with Addy.

Addy2219: Did the algorithm I formulated work out?

Hus97: Yup, it was perfect, we nabbed the culprit, Thanx Addy, but, how did you create the Quadloop near variable junction so that it would bypass the pre-established parameters?

Addy2219: Haha, it's pretty easy, you just have to…