The Monday morning status meeting of the Information Assurance (IA) group was in full swing at the NSA. The current status of all current investigations was being presented while the agents guzzled their coffees and tried to look like they were paying attention. A new investigation was presented labeled “Dark Money” the disclosure was displayed on the screen. The slide was stamped “Highest Priority” in red with warning reference to the Official Secrets Act and penalties there on related. The assistant to the director (AD) discussed a security problem in which the campaign contributions from Non-Profit 501c groups were leaked. One of the newest agents Sam Beacon raised his hand and got the assistant director to pause in his presentation. Agent Beacon asked “Why are we investigating information hacking of some charity group and why it is even a high priority?” The other agents present made a few made side comments about naïve rookies.

The AD got a frustrated look on his face then after a moment started chewing out the rookie agent for claiming any crime was too small to be ignored and overlooked. He then started telling off the agent for only wanting to work high profile cases and that it will be noted in his file about his lack of professional work ethic. At this point a few agents started to get discomforted at the area the AD’s misdirection was taking. After the meeting a senior agent close to retirement took pity on the rookie and in a quiet voice told him that most of the political contributions to senior politicians were funneled through these groups to hide the large amounts that special interest groups were paying to those politicians.

* * * * *

Shasta heard the knock and quickly ran to the door. Opening it there was no one in the hallway and the elevator wasn’t being used. Disappointed again she thought about getting one of those security door cameras for next week’s delivery. Looking down she picked up the box lying there and went inside. The very first week the box left was bigger and had a laptop and headphones along with the DVDs and her $1000 pay in cash. Since then only the DVDs and money showed up each week. Try as she could she was never able to catch whoever it was that was leaving them. She assumed it was that Noah guy but couldn’t be positive.

She did have an email for him. He didn’t respond often but when she sent him a transcript of something she found he would confirm getting it. The last time was after she sent him the conversation about consultants being bribed. It was for a favorable environmental impact assessment (EIA) for construction in a conservation area of Kenya. Noah responded that it was a good catch and followed up with a suggested she might want to take a GED class. Shasta had heard about a GED before but never thought about getting one. Surprised at the thought of it and thinking about being able to go to college she checked and found an online program for a GED.

This week she had a big one to report, some politicians were pushing for an airport to be built in a biodiversity region. From the conversation it sounded like no one needed or wanted an airport there. It looked like a few construction company owners wanted it for the build contracts and offered a couple of politicians a percentage of the business to help. Shasta wasn’t sure what Noah could do about it. The politicians weren’t actually doing anything illegal just unethical and the company owners were just being greedy.

Once I got the transcript from Shasta I spent the morning researching the people and groups involved. I was not having much luck coming up with an idea for dealing with both the company owners and politicians. While I was doing that Sammy was sitting beside me watching a class from last Monday. She was enjoying school immensely but was having a bit of difficulty understanding one of the professors’. Whether it was her country accent or his accent there was some confusion. Taking advantage of Hawk’s temporal portals she had gotten in the habit of reviewing his lectures before each test. With both of us so busy sitting beside each other while working was one of the few ways we could spend time together. Listening to her interact with Hawk I heard her ask him to pause the display so she could copy the diagram from the white board. A bit surprised at the request I turned around and saw the monitor with the classroom and the professor was actually paused.

“How did you know he could do that” I asked

“I didn’t know, I just asked him and he did. He can also adjust the volume if you ask him to”.

I was dumb founded; Hawk had told me the past was static and unchanged. The more I thought about it the more I realized that sound and light coming from the past shouldn’t be possible then. I quickly realized that what I assumed about portals and the past were not correct. I was misunderstanding something very important. Deciding it was way past time I got better answers from Hawk I spent the next two hours asking and trying to understand his answers when he did respond.

I managed to get some surprising information from Hawk’s limited responses. First was that travel to the past is not impossible but actually just impractical. To enter or remove things from the past was to change it which would require the adjustment of all affected “states” (maybe quantum states?) from that target point to the present. From what I could surmise it would require an incredible amount of energy to accomplish. The second and very surprising thing was the current “state” within the portal’s width was forcefully shaped to match the state of the past. This I assumed was what was creating the light and sound of what we saw when looking through the portal to the past. The created state at the portal must be producing copies of the protons and the audio waves from the past. That would also explain why I got sunburn and smelled the ocean when watching a past view of that beach.

Thinking about the transporting and copying ability of the portal I immediately thought of a popular science fiction show. Some of the episodes dealt with transporter malfunctions and problems with copying.

“Hawk” I asked “Can you copy people?”

“Life cannot be duplicated” was the immediate response.

When I tried to find out more, Hawk’s answers had just left more questions. The response that life cannot have a point of discontinuity didn’t seem to explain anything. Looking the term up online I found a lot of math and references to charting functions in calculus. Was Hawk claiming life was just a mathematical function?

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Deciding to give the puzzle of life a rest for a bit I went back to what I had been working on in the morning. I turned my mind back to what to do about the airport issue Shasta found. I do understand and accept the need for airports but Shasta’s notes and my additional research clearly showed that an airport there was not needed at all and those people knew it. The only reason for it to be built was to make money for a few politicians and company execs. Everyone involved had their hands out to grab a piece of the construction pie.

The only real illegality I could see was the bribe on the environmental impact report. This was just a minor issue since the report was considered only a recommendation. I checked other similar construction for similar areas and it looked like the actual environmental damage to the area would be deforestation, ecosystem fragmentation, and the disturbance of animal migration. Considering the area was home to three different endangered species I decided something should be done.

I thought about exposing the lack of need for the airport and questionable impact report publicly which should get the project canceled. That would be easy and something very similar to things I had done in the past. The real question was how to do it in such a way as to keep similar unethical construction projects from happening there in the future? The main driving force for these people was to make money. Since it was the driving force for them pushing the cost of this project sky hi and ensuring they paid for it would be the best response. I decided to start with the construction contracts for the proposed airport. An afterhour’s visit to the law office of the person responsible for the contracts got me a copy. Translating it I saw they were the typical fixed price with a schedule. A common type for construction projects but under the right circumstances could be expensive. After seeing that I sat back in my chair content to let the airport projects continue, or at least get started.

The project manager was so stressed he couldn’t sleep at night. He was getting daily calls from the CEO of the different construction groups and now members of their boards were calling. Three months into the project and they were ten weeks behind. First it started with the surveying for the new road. A straight line into where the site was to be located. Instead the path somehow got changed to swing around several nesting areas because of “environmental impact”. He didn’t understand how that NEMA inspector always seems to know when to show up. Normally when the crew found environmental concerns like rare nesting areas they knew to just bulldoze through it. Now they had to stop and go around them instead just because an inspector just happened to be there that day. Now the equipment itself was breaking down. Loose fitting, contamination in the tanks, and someone even got the plans switched so they have to re-dig. He could swear it was deliberate sabotage but site security had checked and rechecked and there was nothing.

Project manager Kagure Kilavuka thought he was all ready for this emergency meeting. The company boards were now on the warpath with the construction delays and problems the financiers were talking about cutting their losses and pulling out. If they did he and the others would all be ruined. He just needed a way to convince them that he could turn this mess around. Luckily they had only heard rumors and didn’t know how far this project was behind. His plan was perfect; first downplay how far the project was behind then tell the board about his contact at the Ministry of Roads and Transport. Let them know his contact was willing to extend the contract schedule and even remove the penalty clause. It would take a suitable bribe of course but the boards would expect that its how most business was done here.

Kilavuka’s perfect plan would then kick in. After they gave him the money for the bribe he would move it immediately into his foreign account. The next day he would be out of the country, relaxing on a beach somewhere with a fancy umbrella drink in his hand. They won’t be able to charge him with embezzlement since it was bribe money. They also wouldn’t be able to send anyone after him either. With the project’s eminent collapse they will all lose their shirts. They would be lucky to keep their shirts on their back let alone be able to pay someone to come after him. The plan was perfect!

Two weeks later Mr. Kilavuka was sitting in the VIP lounge at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport waiting to board his flight to Barbados. The plan was delayed an hour so he decided to make a quick call to his secretary Ms Juma. As she answered he started to remind her again to tell everyone who might be looking for him that he was under the weather and was taking a few days off. She booked his ticket and knew he was at the airport but thought it was just for a quick vacation. Before he hung up he reiterated once again that it included anyone even the boards; if they called he was out sick and wouldn’t be back until Monday. As he hung up he thought again that this was a great plan. That sick excuse element along with the weekend should give him a few extra days before anyone started actively searching for him. Later as he sipped his drink a staff member of the lounge approached him.

“Sir, are you Mr. Kilavuka she asked?

He answered “yes, is there a problem”.

No sir, you just have an emergency phone call from a Ms Kiyara Juma. She says it’s quite urgent. You can take it at the main counter.

Wondering what possible reason his secretary would be calling him now he looked at his watch. There was still 10 minutes before boarding, just enough time to deal with whatever it was.

Walking up to the desk he picked up the curtsey phone and asked “What’s the problem Kiyara? Make it quick my plane is about to leave.”

“Sir, the DCI are here now, they’re grabbing all our records what should we do?”

He was shocked, wondering if they knew but if they did why go to his office? The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) dealt with embezzlement and fraud not bribery. Looking around he didn’t see any police, everyone was calm and just now starting to board.

“Kiyara don’t worry, I’m sure it’s a mistake. I’ll head back to the office now. If anyone asks for me I’ll be there in about 30 minutes”

Hanging up he hurried over to the gate deciding it was a good thing he was leaving. Whatever reason they were investigating he would be clear of it and long gone. The DCI shouldn’t have any reason to arrest him but he couldn’t get pulled into whatever their investigation was either. As he held out his passport and boarding pass to the attendant a hand suddenly reached around behind him and grabbed them. Looking back he saw two men in suits, one of them holding up a badge.

“Mr. Kilavuka you are wanted for questioning please come with us”.

At the trial Kilavuka could only shake his head when they asked him about the money. Somehow the bribery money from the board ended up exactly matching the amount that was missing from the company’s operating funds. With the money transfer in evidence no one would believe that money was not what was embezzled. While his trial was going on the problems the airport project was having leaked to the press. That along with the news of bribes to get that favorable environmental impact rating got the project shut down quickly. Most of the construction companies was found to have violated the terms of their contract and got fined. Between the fines, bribe money and up front investments by the time the dust settled most of the board were now bankrupt. A few years later what was left of the construction site was barely recognizable, most of the area had returned to nature.